Re: Externalization and non-existence
maria judith (costlins who-is-at ism.com.br)
Mon, 15 Dec 1997 12:44:55 -0300
Bill Barowy wrote:
>
> Folks,
>
> This time tonight I had initially reserved to be about understanding the
> connections between internalization, externalization, appropriation,
> assimilation and accomodation within the ecosocial thread that Jay has
> started. I am on the road teaching a course in modeling. But I write with
> deep sadness and conviction, because my wife's younger brother has just
> passed away. He was only 36. You do not know him. He was a wonderfully
> warm and giving human being, and I'll miss him.
>
> His death reminds me of why I write. We are all here in this world for a
> brief time. If only we can leave a bit of ourselves for others to benefit.
> What is unmistakeably human is our culture, our history, our passing on to
> others what we have learned before we ourselves are no longer. He did not
> write, but his kindness has influenced me, and I will write with his
> memory. Externalization is what it is all about. Moving what we know to
> the social plane where others can and may have access to this knowledge.
>
> The thread some of us have pursued recently on emotion and cognition is
> terribly relevant. There is no rationality to why I am pouring myself out
> onto this computer. It just feels like it should be done. So many of our
> decisions are steeped in 'feelings', and our theories of cognition do not
> come close to fully recognizing this side of ourselves.
>
> With marvelous elegance, Jay has described the differences that make a
> difference, which is the essence of cybernetic theory. What does that
> mean for us who are interested in CHAT? Ernst von Glasersfeld, who is no
> mean cyberneticist, wrote in 1977, a paper called 'The concepts of
> adaptation and viability in a radical constructivist theory of knowledge'.
> In it, he explicated what "viability" means in the cognitive domain:
> 'concepts, theories and cognitive structures in general, are viable and
> survive as long as they serve the purposes to which they are put, as long
> as they more or less reliably get us what we want.' Ernst has a view that
> we change our knowledge of the world when it 'knocks against the
> constraints of the experiential world.' That we change what we think when
> there are differences that make a difference.
>
> Ernst focusses on the individual, but comes from a background in language,
> and knows that the social plane is important. It is easy to move his
> notions of viability and adaptation to ecosocial phenomena if we begin to
> think about how externalization connects to internalization. With
> non-externalization comes non-sharing of information. Without
> externalization, what one individual learns cannot benefit others and
> social adaptation to the experiential world fails to occur. The
> manifestation of individual knowledge through the creation of artifacts is
> an essential first step to social adaptation.
>
> Internalization of what those artifacts embody, by other individuals, is
> the essential second step. It is through the vicarious nature of much of
> our knowledge that we are able to avoid knocking against the same
> constraints as our predecessors.
>
> According to Rogoff, "In Piaget's theory, children are seen as revising
> their ways of thinking to provide a better fit with reality when faced with
> discrepancies between their own ways of viewing the world and new
> information." Vygotsky's apprenticeship model does not recognize the
> differences that make a difference in the same way, but_identifies_others_
> through "the mechanism through which social interaction facilitates
> cognitive development ... in which a novice works closely with an expert
> in joint problem solving in the zone of proximal development."
> Interestingly enough, Piaget focused on peers, while Vygotsky focused on
> learning with more experienced partners.
>
> As I plug/unplug me_and_my_computer physically into/from xmca from time to
> time, all the while continuously remaining "plugged in" through memory (in
> my head and on my hard drive) of previous interactions, both types of
> differences seem to make a difference. Even though Piaget better describes
> the 'transformations in perspective', or accomodation_in_the_individual,
> that theory-making in xmca is partially about, the modeling, resonance,
> coaching, encouragement, and articulation across interdisciplinary
> boundaries, which constantly and relatively shift the status of expertise
> in xmca, is best charaterized by appropriation and zopeds.
>
> Internalization and externalization are inextricably linked, although most
> of the fuss seems to have been about internalization. Even the main thrust
> of 'Constructivism' has been on the internal adaptation of the organism.
> To extend von Glasersfeld's ideas, externalization is not just the
> adaptation of the organism to the experiential world, but especially in the
> case of technology, it is also often the adaptation of the environment to
> the viability of the organism (species). Technological design seems to be
> one way to externalize this knowledge, so it can be handed down from one
> generation to the next. Of course, making designs work means the knowledge
> used in externalization knocks against the constraints of the experiential
> world and hence is transformed and becomes more viable in both the
> individual and ecosocial senses. Externalization, in turn, is the
> essential means for the ecosocial adaptation of the organism to the
> experiential world.
>
> I have no idea how to conceptualize the ephemeral contributions of Wendell,
> whose ways of externalization will otherwise live on in my heart.
>
> Bill Barowy, Associate Professor
> Technology in Education
> Lesley College, 29 Everett Street, Cambridge, MA 02138-2790
> Phone: 617-349-8168 / Fax: 617-349-8169
> _______________________
> "One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself
> and watch yourself softly become the author of something beautiful."
> [Norman Maclean in "A river runs through it."]
I would like to discuss the idea of interaction in Piaget starting on
this point - the subject and the peers. For a teacher it is very
important to understand how difficult it is to come to the logic (or not
yet logic level of the child) We know that the language, for example, is
not always a way of communication between the students and the teacher,
exactly because of the different cognitive structures of each one. I
have observed the children's language and it is more and more a group of
words the child hears. Sometimes a child can't have an interaction
because what he is saying is completely different from what he wants to
say, he is only repeating without understanding. This happens very often
in the class where children are very young. I would like to have
different opinions about this. maria judith lins