> Dear people --
Coming back from ISCRAT, feeling that I've been worked over, turned around,
revolved, explained to, listened to -- a very intense week full of contacts, the
sum greater than the parts. Most education or labor education conferences I've
been to have been practical, organized around a type of work (eg teaching), not a
theory. The central focus of ISCRAT, then, was new to me. I liked it.
Wondering what it would be like to do this year in and year out. When would it
become unproductive? After 3 weeks? After 2 months?
I tried to list for myself the uses of a conference like this one. These are the
kinds ot things that were going on in my head and getting worked on as I went
from one session to another. If I asked, "What is a conference like this good
for?' I'd say it was good for:
a. Self-reflection -- upon my own work, upon my own learning and development
b. Evaluation -- of a person's work, of a team's work, of the functioning of
an activity/team/group/department/ program, mine and others'
c. Communication -
about a problem
about a success
about new information about a situation
among a team
among a group of researchers
among a group of program designers
among a group of teachers
d. Creating or defining concepts
establishing or closing in on a common vocabulary
establishing distinctions and differences
arguing for new concepts, vocabulary or distinctions and differences
e. Clarifying differences
conducting discussions and debates
extending perspectives
I've always thought of a boundary object as anything that sits on a boundary and
therefore looks different from one side compared to another. You don't know it's
a boundary object until the person who is standing on the opposite side of the
lunch table says, "Hey, would you please help me move this wagon?" In this sense,
boundary objects were everywhere you looked.
I saw at least three generations of people there, each presenting in their own
style, rhetoric, focus. First the "old" first generation (maybe they're really the
second or third generation) -- the originals. They're working on concepts that
they've been refining for years. However, they seem to want to listen, too.
Second, a generation that is "hosting" the development of AT: the people who are
sort of building the actual house of AT as it is today -- Mike, Yrjo, Jim Wertsch,
Anna, the man from Argentina - some others. Third, people who are applying it,
not worrying too much about some details, but just using it as best we can; I'd
include people from South Africa (the AIDS project people), some mathematicians
from San Diego, the teacher's group put together by Eva Ekblad, the various
presenters from Yrjo's institute -- the woman who presented on time pressure on
home health care workers. It was a slightly uncanny thing to see all three
generations mingling and talking to each other and listening to each other.
Helena
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