Hi Helena and everybody--
Helena's message (below) went only to me but obviously was intended to all
XMCA-ers.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Helena Worthen [mailto:hworthen@igc.org]
> Sent: Saturday, February 26, 2000 9:18 AM
> To: ematusov@UDel.Edu
> Subject: Re: What am i missing?
>
>
> This is a response to Eugene Matusov's conversation with Phillip
> Caper about
> the difficulty of bringing forward specific
> applications/opportunities to use
> activity theory into this discussion. That's my quick summary of
> the quoted
> message posted on xmca by Eugene between Eugene and Phillip in
> New Zealand.
>
> The part that lit up my morning goes like this:
>
> Phillip wrote:
> This afternoon I need to figure out how to give a
> > team of manufacturing process
> > workers who don't speak English very well and don't read too well
> > in their first language a fighting chance of saving their jobs if I
> > can only get them to understand the inner contradictions associated
> > with their current disequilibrium and consequent displaced goals
> > and the consequent need to enter a cycle of expansive
> > learning and rethink their objects.
>
> Eugene wrote:
> I'd like to know how things turn out in what you did. Tell more about the
> community. I remember Ray McDermott's presentation at AERA (American
> Educational Research Association) when he was invited to New York city to
> help bug exterminators with long experience to pass exam to get
> license that
> was required for them to keep (and secure) their jobs. Despite their high
> expertise and experience many of the bug exterminators could not pass the
> multiple choice exam. They were exam illiterate. For example, one
> question,
> I remember, was like, "Is it dangerous to spray the stuff on your hands?"
> The "correct" answer was yes, but experienced exterminators answers no
> because occasional spaying the stuff on hands was unavoidable in their
> practice and was not a big deal. Ray ended up inviting bug
> exterminators who
> passed the exam to teach others how to pass it. Their instruction to their
> colleagues was to pretend that you are answering the questions to
> a fool or
> to a child. I never saw this research published. Does anybody
> know where to
> find it?
>
> All right, here we go! Maybe this is something I can hook on to
> and maybe find
> someone else who is interested in talking about this!
>
> Yes, I too want to know if Ray MacDermott published the work with the
> exterminators.
I just sent Ray an email message asking him about this question.
>I think I have read something about that experience. My
> question -- did he just describe the situation, or did he use
> activity theory
> to illuminate it?
I don't know. However, the answer depends on how you define "activity
theory." From reading Ray's work, his unit of analysis is often activity,
practice, and relationships. But he does not use Yrjo's triangles or
analysis of contradictions for conceptualizing his findings.
>The situation is a very typical one for labor
> educators, and
> this pedagogic approach (using "students" to teach each other) is a basic
> strategy -- so what I want to know is if activity theory was
> invoked in some
> way to either guide him to make that pedagogic choice, or if he
> used it later
> to explain the success of his choice.
As far as I know, Ray worked with Mike for some time. From my reading of the
literature, the strategy of asking indigenous people of how a "fool" will do
the task that came from a white middle class culture was developed in
cross-cultural studies in Africa in the 70s. Mike, is it right? As to using
indigenous people who passed the task to teach others, I do not know.
>
> But more important (since I haven't done the obvious footwork of
> looking up
> Ray's paper myself, which I should do) is Phillip's situation.
> Phillip, what
> happened? Why were their jobs theatened? What kind of
> manufacturing? How did
> you speak with them? What did they do?
>
> Here I am in Illinois in the labor education program in Chicago.
> I teach in
> union halls -- so far, plumbers, teamsters, operating engineers, office
> workers, postal workers, grocery clerks. There are very few
> labor educators
> in total, in the United States -- in universities, there are at
> most one or two
> hundred, maybe less. Mostly, we come out of political science or history
> programs -- that is, graduate work that does not lead us into
> activity theory.
> I'm different in that I came out of the Berkeley school of
> education and just
> happened, ages ago, to have been a student of Jerome Bruner at
> the time that
> Vygotsky's Thought and Language first came out in English. So
> this theoretical
> approach has been with me most of my adult life. Now here I am
> in a field that
> is ripe for the application of activity theory, with a lot of
> opportunity --
> and no one to talk with!!!! Phillip, are you out there? Would
> you be willing
> to describe what happened with the production workers whose jobs were
> threatened? If you do, I will respond by telling you about what
> a change in
> contract language regarding arbitration meant to postal union
> stewards. If you
> are like me, this will be as attractive an offer as ... well, a piece of
> chocolate cake with raspberry filling, for example.
>
> Thank you -- Helena Worthen
I'm also very interested in the issues raised by Helen. Helen, can you also
reply to the questions that you directed to Philip. It would be very
interesting to compare your and Philip's situation.
Take care,
Eugene
>
>
>
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