I hope you will kindly forgive my long silence despite the invitation to join
the discussion on the ideal form. The genre of network communication is
still difficult for me; it is near to impossible for an outsider who is
unaware of the covert context to find a hidden key for addressing both
the issue and the speaker in this strongly contextual discourse. But I will
take a risk in hope for your tolerance...
I would rather not change the term "ideal form" for "idealized", as Jay
Lemke suggests. Direct connotations to Plato are highly appropriate
when we refer to phenomena which are not of empirical origin and
cannot be verified through sensual experience or experiment. Three
thousand years of philosophical and religious quest have not provided us
with a satisfactory answer as to the possibility of existence of such
substances, their origin and the mechanisms of their influence on the
human development. Still, each time when we awe the phenomena of
human creativity and the capacity for transcending one's own limits, we
witness the labor of ideal forms.
The hypothesis on the origin of ideal forms, which suites my taste most
of all, was proposed by one of the best modern poets Iosif Brodskii in his
Nobel lecture (unfortunately, I cannot quote but will try to keep the sense
of his words). In the hard task of creating and expressing the meanings,
the language is much more powerful and experienced then any user of
the language, so the duty and honor of the poet is to trust the language
and deal with it not as a musician deals with his instrument but as an
apprentice deals with his master.
This metaphor is concordant to what Jay Lemke writes about semiotic
constructions which mediate human activity in indirect ways, orienting us
on "ideal self" that do not exist in the reality. And this theoretical
construction would have been working perfectly, if not for eternal doom
of ideas and ideals which are (unfortunately) burdened with flesh.
Maybe a genuine poet can talk directly with Language but more ordinary
people talk only to the language users. And here we come to the
problems of responsibility that scares educators who are supposed to
mediate between child's rea;lities and ideal self rather than to embody the
ideal. Michael Glassman has discussed this responsibility most
pathetically. Once again it is a new frame for the old problem discussed
previously as a contradiction between free will and predestination. Until
now it has been resolved not through knowledge, but through faith
represented in the value systems originating particular social
expectations towards every next generation.
As I understand Boris El'konin, he tries to find the mechanism of
mediation between a child that learns to act and an ideal form of human
action which is not dependent on the "greatness" of a teacher. Every
teacher and every parent has at least once presented a child with a new
experience grasped by a child not just as a lesson but as a happening
which motivated the further learning and relationship with such a lucky
teacher. Boris struggles to find out what is happening when such event
takes place spontaneously. It seems to me that to better understand
Boris El'konin's concept of developmental crisis it is necessary to know
the theory of his father Daniil El'konin, who as an intellectual and moral
leader in the field of education since 1950s influenced not only his son
but the whole generation of Russian educators and psychologists.
Actually Daniil El'konin for Russia is what Piaget and Erickson together
are for USA. His classical paper "Toward the problem of stages of the
mental development of the child" (Soviet Psychology, 1972, vol. 10, no.3)
was written in the period of strict ideological censorship and includes
some political phraseology to lubricate its publication. Russians are very
keen in reading between the lines without paying attention to lubricant,
but for an untrained reader it can be difficult to separate the real and
pretended content. Some help can be sought in the paper by A.Venger,
V.Slobodchikov, and B.El'konin "Problems of child psychology in the
scientific works of D.B.El'konin" (Soviet Psychology, 1990, vol. 28, no. 3).
Yet Mike Cole is absolutely right: Daniil El'konin must be better known by
the English-speaking (reading) educational community, and if I can
somehow aid to this goal, I will happily do it.
Galina Zuckerman