Mike wrote in response to Nate's question:
>
>
>So, my question is how does a new historical type of activity if its
>"learning activity" "after school" or "5th D" expand other historical
>activities such as school without being swallowed up in the process. As
>Helen Keller once said we've had 2000 years of reform and its been an
>absolute failure - it time we gave revolution a try. Or more to the point,
>how can we expand the "text producing" activity into something different -
>the synthesis Jay invoked.
>
>
>I think this kind of question is what is bothering eric, helen, and many
>others on xmca. Aside from relatively benign research interests in
>children's
>learning and the difficulties of inter-instituitonal collaboration, what
>does it mean to try to create new actifivities in various, identifiable,
>"third spaces"? I see a tremendous amount of pressure placed on the
>systems
>we work with to get into line with the new found interest in afterschool
>activities so that school is moving in on us. And even when it does not,
>we are certainly not doing revolutionary work. We are bringing resources
>to people who would never otherwise see them and improving the education
>of students who participates. But we should be, and many of us are,
>asking, "so what?"
i think, Mike and everyone else struggling with this question - which is
rather what Nelson's last question to Yrgo is perhaps about - could be
helped out by referring back to Yrgo's reference to Bateson and the
double-bind. in this case i'd look at the multiple systems that nest
within education - all institutional education (as you've noted the
similarity of educational practices in the old USSR, Mike - as has Eugene
- with american educational practices and Eva responded that Eugene's
elementary classroom looked like her classroom in Sweden, etc. etc.)
carries within its multiple systems multiple double-bind messages. and i
think one response to these double-bind messages is to say, "so what?"
rather like one response one could have to the batesonian master who
threatens one with the stick, that Yrgo wrote about. trouble is, that
response is like a non-response, and will probably elicit a whack from the
master.
of course, the statement "so what?" could also be the first step in
disengagement from an ecological system that is not healthy.
>
which takes me to your final statement.
>
>On the other hands, new species generally start in obscure niches.
>
this statement is - the way i take it - a statement of hope and optimism
- though not utopian. when one reads Braudel it is abundantly clear that
of course capitalism began in obscure niches - and as with all power
systems, i'll eventually fail, collapse within itself.
the question for me, however, is whether or not 5th dimension has an
element of 3rd level learning that Bateson / Yrgo speaks of - expanded
learning - so that it is self-reflective enough to understand its own
ecology within the nested ecologies that it exists within. or, instead of
ecologies, use the term activity systems.
from my own experience, the biggest reason that change is so easily
absorbed by a dominant activity system is because the practicioners of the
change system are practicing the activity within second level learning -
rather than situating themselves from a vantage point of a third level
learning.
my two bits worth - and of course, in the manner of Eugene - "What do you
think?"
phillip
* * * * * * * *
* *
The English noun "identity" comes, ultimately, from the
Latin adverb "identidem", which means "repeatedly."
The Latin has exactly the same rhythm as the English,
buh-BUM-buh-BUM - a simple iamb, repeated; and
"identidem" is, in fact, nothing more than a
reduplication of the word "idem", "the same":
"idem(et)idem". "Same(and) same". The same,
repeated. It is a word that does exactly what
it means.
from "The Elusive Embrace" by Daniel
Mendelsohn.
phillip white
third grade teacher
doctoral student http://ceo.cudenver.edu/~hacms_lab/index.htm
scrambling a dissertation
denver, colorado
phillip_white@ceo.cudenver.edu
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue May 01 2001 - 01:01:50 PDT