>This is what I have been thinking about 'knowledge' too. It is remade
>through knowing in a situated activity. Otherwise - whether 'stored' in
>memory or in a printed text - it is inert and of little use. On this
>basis, I would argue that the efforts of educational institutions to get
>students to amass knowledge (in preparation for showing how much they've
>acquired when responding to test questions) is missing the point. Both
>'knowing' and 'meaning' are mediated actions performed for some purpose by
>specific individuals with other individuals in a situated activity. The
>artifacts produced in the process - said to 'contain' knowledge and
>meanings - only come alive when they mediate some further action in a
>similar or different activity system.
>What d'you think?
>
>Gordon Wells
>OISE/University of Toronto
Gordon,
While we would probably both agree that the effort "to get students to
amass knowledge" is but one of several "missed points" (putting it mildly)
on the part of the educational establishment, I agree strongly with your
distinction between 'stored' knowledge and knowing and meaning--and the
particular point that the schools miss. Now maybe it's because I do not
know activity theory, but there's something I'm missing about your
statement above. Once meaning/knowing has been constructed in a situation,
it seems to me that the knowledge is both 'stored' *and* is tied to a
meaning or knowing for the knower. So, I'm not perfectly sure what you
mean by to "come alive." It seems to me that one can re-present this
stored knowledge to oneself and invoke the meaning or knowing of it for
oneself, hence to me this meaning or knowing does not need to "mediate some
further action." ...or is it the case that re-presentation is another
"similar or different activity system?"
Thanks in advance for any responses.
Dewey
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Dewey I. Dykstra, Jr. Phone: (208)426-3105
Professor of Physics Dept: (208)426-3775
Department of Physics/MCF421/418 Fax: (208)426-4330
Boise State University dykstrad@email.boisestate.edu
1910 University Drive Boise Highlanders
Boise, ID 83725-1570 novice piper: GHB, Uilleann
"As a result of modern research in physics, the ambition and hope,
still cherished by most authorities of the last century, that physical
science could offer a photographic picture and true image of reality
had to be abandoned." --M. Jammer in Concepts of Force, 1957.
"If what we regard as real depends on our theory, how can we make
reality the basis of our philosophy? ...But we cannot distinguish
what is real about the universe without a theory...it makes no sense
to ask if it corresponds to reality, because we do not know what
reality is independent of a theory."--S. Hawking in Black Holes
and Baby Universes, 1993.
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