Re: three interestings papers

Judy Diamondstone (diamonju who-is-at rci.rutgers.edu)
Sun, 31 Mar 1996 12:00:26 -0500

Eugene's article was very useful for me. Thank you, Eugene, for
writing it. In much of my data on middle-grade students'
interactions over written text, the question of "ownership"
prompted contentions and allowed for joint productions
far more often than questions of content, though the students
treated content "as if" it were the object of their concern. I have
been wrestling though with the merits of Gavriel Salomon's argument
that we cannot afford NOT to make explicit reference to individuals'
solo cognitions in an account of distributed cognition.
I assume that xmca oldtimers may have hashed this out already, but
I'm not yet clear about the issue.

Salomon rejects "the radical distributed-cognitions perspective"
of those radicals like Lave (and Matsusov, and me, probably),
because retrospective reflection on what some past activity was
about and how we were engaged in it DOES play a role in how
we orient to activities we are part of in the future.
I doubt that anyone here would deny Salomon's concern
for "reciprocal influences" of individual and activity system
(Eugene? -- correct me if I'm wrong)- If we ARE in agreement,
then we need to ask when and how questions of solo cognition
are pedagogically important. I'm not sure I agree with Salomon's argument
(as I understand him) that changes in the activity system PRESUPPOSE
changes in individual competencies. That shifts in a distributed system
depend on prior shifts in an individual participant's understanding.
But the question persists. While Eugene's definition of
intersubjectivity and his focus on features of participation work
well to account for interaction mediated primarily by issues of
ownership and role relations, doesn't content matter too -- not
only in public schooling where the question is moot, but in the
ideal educational community that Eugene might be more concerned with?
It seems to me that this relates to Mike's question re: Heidegger & math
education.
Judy Diamondstone
diamonju who-is-at rci.rutgers.edu
Rutgers University

.................................................