I'm sitting here w/ a strained back from dancing in my kitchen over
thanksgiving, pondering some ideas I've been wrestling w/ for years now.
Maybe some of you can help??? I'll start with a simple and perhaps brazen
argument: that what psychologists have come to refer to as "cognitions"
in more mentalist depictions of knowing are really intentional and
interpretive acts stripped bare of historicity, feeling (both emotional
and sensual passions), and considerations of value.
I would assume that one goal of S-H-C psychology is to "embed" our
cognitive acts, restoring notions of historicity, etc., to them. At the
same time, I am consistently puzzled by the siphening off of emotional and
ethical knowing from the theoretical accounts we construct of cognitive
understanding. This relates back to what Martin P. raised earlier, about
the role of narrative in educational and psychological studies.
I have a question to throw out to "ya'll" (my southern past provides a
useful plural form here):
What IS the distinction between "emotions" and "cognitions". Emotions
are surely intentional, fully rational, and embedded in "distinctions of
worth" (C. Taylor). Why then, are these considered different in kind from
"thinking". Would this take us into the realm of the "irrational" in our
theorizing about learning? Emotions can lead to ill-formed intentional
acts, as any of us who have been enraged or in love would testify. But
then, cognitions can be ill-formed too, and this hasn't led to their being
distanced from theories of learning.
I write this in part f. the perspective of someone who struggled to put
together an aera session on narrative and emotions. This session was
accepted through the hard work of Pedro, and undoubtedly through the
support of many colleagues in the S-H SIG and elsewhere. But one reviewer
(anonymous of course) noted that the session might be better placed in
another SIG. Why, I would ask???
Finally, a small bit of commentary. Much has been written about the
metaphor of scaffolding, and that construct has come under some critique
within the xmca community. How might the insertion of something like
"felt experience" into our discourses about scaffolding, learning,
teaching, etc. reveal different aspects of "knowing". Here's a "for
instance" that reflects a focus on narrative:
A mother and child are engaged in joint activity, centered on the child's
solution of a problem (this might be something like making a replica of an
object, with the mother offering support and guidance). One description
of such an episode might be that the two participants in joint activity
are constructing situational definitions, coming to provisional kinds of
intersubjective understanding, etc. Another description might be to think
about the same "act" from the mother's point of view, in relation to the
child. From the mother's point of view, the activity setting is as much
about differentiation as intersubjectivity. The mother and child have,
after all, shared an intimacy that is hard to fathom within the language
of Western psychology. As the child works on her task, the mother is
constantly attuned to the child's movements and expressions. Is she
(the child) cranky because she didn't have a nap? Is she uncomfortable in
this lab setting? Should I let her keep struggling with what she's doing?
Sometimes when I step in and mediate she screams bloody murder.
In short, ethical deliberations and felt attunement would infiltrate each
and every moment of the activity being constructed by these two social
participants. Should such things be a part of S-H theorizing???
Deborah