Re: The ideal form

Timothy J. Lensmire (tjlensmi who-is-at artsci.wustl.edu)
Tue, 19 Dec 1995 17:22:02 -0600 (CST)

Michael,
I haven't read El'Konin, but while reading your post I couldn't help
thinking about W. Waller's (1932) classic, The sociology of teaching, and
how Waller's story centers around how the teacher becomes the agent/enforcer of
the ideal for the community--and this locks the student and teacher in
classroom warfare. The teacher's job is to uphold community ideals that the
students see nowhere lived out around them, and they resist, resist,
resist. If you haven't seen it, maybe check it out--if nothing else,
it's just a great read.

Tim Lensmire
Washington University in St. Louis

On Tue, 19 Dec 1995 HDCS6 who-is-at jetson.uh.edu wrote:

>
> I have just finished reading the articles that Galina suggested (by
> El'Konin) and this message is, in part, an effort to get Isaak
> and Galina to talk about the ideal form a bit more, because of
> the way it fits into the current discussion of educational reform,
> but also because I find it to be one of the most powerful ideas
> I have come across in a long time, especially in terms of its implications
> and the inter-relationship it draws between education and society in
> general, and education and who we are in particular (as educators).
> The idea revolves around the notion (and Isaak and Galina correct
> me if I am wrong) that there is a crisis in child development (I read
> it as being around the time of adolescence) when the child needs to
> recognize that continued development might lead to ideal adulthood.
> Initially learn our activities according to ritual, as a way of
> delimiting boundaries between cultures
>
>
>
>
>
> boun
>
> activities. And that this
> process is important in development (there is a really rich
> description of how, through their relationships with objects
> children embody the actions of others as they are in turn
> embodies in the objects of the social cooperative, and the children
> use the embodiment of these objects/actions to organize their
> own behavior. But childhood reaches this point of crisis
> where the child must have an ideal to contrast against the
> real. The child must feel that through projective planning he
> or she can usurp the real and pursue the ideal. It is this
> dynamic interaction that is central to the education process.
> And it does not matter so much what the content of the ideal
> is, simply that the child is made to recognize that there is an
> ideal. This is where the ideas of justaposition and contrasts
> of real objects come from, and this is also where we find creativity.
>
> Where does this ideal come from (and remember this is a dynamic,
> so it makes no difference whether the ideal exists, simply that
> we get the child to contrast the real with the ideal)? That, I
> think is probably the most interesting part of this idea. It is
> the teacher who must act as a mediating force between the real
> world and the ideal world. The teacher then must, in some way,
> be representative of this ideal, be able to point towards it,
> and say there, that is what you aspire to, now look at the real
> world around you and see how you can pursue this (it is interesting
> that in popular culture this is so often the description of the
> "great" teacher). The ideal is not a thing, or even a cultural
> form, but an event in the child's life brought about by the
> mediating force of the teacher. If I read El'Konin right he
> is saying that the more corrupt and/or cynical our society the
> less of a chance for this ideal adulthood. The child remains
> in crisis. We can develop all the techniques we want, but if
> there is no event representing the ideal for the child, the child
> is trapped in this ritual world. There is no reform of education
> in a corrupt and/or cynical society. And every time an educator
> acceded to a corrupt or cynical demand it is, by association,
> another nail in the coffin of education (sorry for the hyperbole).
>
> Michael Glassman
> University of Houston
>
>