Paul,
It sounds as though your sensei was a master who had not severed himself
from the novices the way many experts do - we were discussing yesterday the
way our 5D undergrads often do a much better job than us old folks at
creating zopeds - they seem to give more appropriate cues than we to the
younger kids - or maybe they still remember the incremental steps within a
problem that we accomplish so automatically that we forget to teach them.
Mike then added that he sometimes leans in to give quick answers or
suggestions to a learning pair - seeing farther perhaps. can zopeds be
nested? or interwoven?
deb
On 12/21/06, Paul Dillon <phd_crit_think@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Ana,
>
> I studied Tai Chi for several years and still practice daily and YES the
> zoped was at the center of the way I learned Tai Chi. In fact the man who
> ran the center where I studied (Paul Gale, has a website) only occasionally
> did actual "instruction", normally we all practiced the form either
> together or individually and he would walk around and make minor
> corrections. Often he would instruct more advanced students to work with
> those who were less advanced. It was "learning by assisted imitation".
>
> But what I noticed, the thing that made him a great teacher, was that the
> specifics he would point out, were keys to getting closer to the form
> whereas often the advanced students would make suggestions too, but their
> suggestions often didn't lead directly to an improvement in the execution of
> the form, perhaps represented something that they themselves had had
> problems with. Often their suggestions only made sense after some other
> advance had been made. The master was the one who could see the farthest
> into the way the form could best develop for any individual student.
>
> I was thinking of Tai Chi when I wrote that post but it really hasn't
> developed the concept of sensei which comes from zen training, or at least,
> I haven't seeen it developed for Tai Chi. Paul Gale, as much as any zen
> master, encouraged we students to "get our brains into our feet", not to
> think about the form, but to learn to feel it. He had some subtle, and some
> not so subtle ways of doing this. As a consequence, I've only read one book
> about Tai Chi, and this after three years of practicing it.
>
> Paul
>
> Ana Marjanovic-Shane <ana@zmajcenter.org> wrote:
> Sensei is a great concept. If you ever trained a martial art -- you
> would have seen that a good Sensei usually teaches "in the zone of
> proximal development". The notion that each student is in a different
> place along the road of development is the norm, and consequently, a
> Sensei develops a different approach and set of activities for each
> student.
>
> There are two thoughts that come to mind with the notion of a Sensei.
> First -- Deb, I think that no two individuals are equally traveled --
> not in quantity of traveling and not in where they traveled and what
> roads they took, even if their destination is seemingly the same
> "place". And also, I think that two individuals always forge new paths
> together, as a unique new combination of illuminations for each other.
> Of course, assuming that they have some relevance for each other. (The
> relevance does not have to be emotionally positive).
>
> Second: I will pick up on Martin Heidegger's "the best teacher is the
> one who knows best how to learn." The key here is the notion of "know
> how". The concept of Sensei as a person further down the road, or
> someone who can make roads visible, has this additional accent on
> learning as an activity, instead of learning as memorizing "facts". If
> knowledge (and development) is conceptualized as a "know how" more than
> "know what", then a dynamic aspect of learning activity comes into the
> foreground.
>
> Ana
>
>
>
> deborah downing-wilson wrote:
> > Wow. thanks for the road trip! sensei is certainly a provocative
> > concept.
> > how can we think about learning relationships where two equally
> travelled
> > individuals forge new paths together? can we have zopeds then?
> >
> > deb
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On 12/20/06, Paul Dillon
> wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi Eric,
> >>
> >> I've been reading this thread with some interest and I shared Deborah's
> >> concern about "scientific concepts" as well as some other terms you
> >> used to
> >> define the zoped.
> >>
> >> Drawing from a domain where there is absolutely no question of
> >> science, in
> >> fact it is the anti-science, Zen Buddhism, I think there is a very
> >> useful
> >> term that could help shed some light on how one might develop an
> >> adequate
> >> "concept" (Zen militates against these) of what is a zoped. That
> >> term is
> >> "sensei", which basically means: someone who is farther down the road
> >> than
> >> someone else, someone that another can follow down the road.
> >>
> >> As should be obvious the concept of "down the road" implies that
> >> there is
> >> a road and in zen it's almost like Machado's verse: "traveller, there
> >> is no
> >> road, only markers in the sea, traveller there is no road, one makes
> the
> >> road in travelling". But that is zen and returning to something of a
> >> Kantian "island in the sea of the unknown", I think that the idea of
> >> a path
> >> and people on a path, a path that is always developing into the
> unknown,
> >> might be useful.
> >>
> >> If we think of the idea of boundaries, very much an element of
> >> Engestrom's
> >> work, or of situation-limits, the concept Freire adopted from Karl
> >> Jaspers,
> >> we have implicit that notion. Mike mentioned how he and (I believe)
> >> Scribner discussed the zoped as a "conversation with a future". I
> >> think
> >> that's a great description, if not a definition in the strict sense.
> >> Now to
> >> have a conversation, one needs to be able to talk, and learning to
> >> talk is
> >> basically at the heart of Vygotsky's work. So one talks, the talk is
> >> related to culturally practical domains of activity. Someone farther
> >> down
> >> the road is someone who has gotten closer to the boundaries where the
> >> roads into the unknowns of that specific activity disappear.
> >> Someone can
> >> show to some people how to get to the point that they have gotten
> >> to. The
> >> person farther down the road basically creates the zoped by taking
> >> care to
> >> try to make the road visible, followable. Clearly there are a lot of
> >> people
> >> farther down the road
> >> toward the boundaries where the roads disappear who cannot do this but
> >> that's another question: the question of the teacher, something St.
> >> Augustine wrote about 1600 years ago and of whom bob dylan had a
> >> dream. Martin Heidegger said that the best teacher is the one who knows
> >> best how to learn.
> >>
> >> For a baby everything is basically unknown and a baby grows up among
> >> people who have grown up among people (extending into distant and
> >> forgotten
> >> pasts) who have worked out various ways of dealing with moving through
> >> different levels of the unknown. These are roads, there are lots of
> >> roads-lots of ways to move toward specific locations or toward the
> >> boundaries where the roads disappear, but I think the key to activity
> >> theory
> >> is that all of them are related to human practices dealing with
> >> specific
> >> needs that humans experience as incarnated and mortal beings (Marx's
> >> Theses
> >> on Feuerbach). I don't think a zoped can be defined abstractly
> >> except in an
> >> abstract way but I don't find it difficult to identify zopeds within
> >> specific domains of human practice. I think your example was great, the
> >> lecturer knew how to adjust to the people for whom he was farther
> >> down the
> >> road than they, in fact, he was on a road that they couldn't
> >> previously see
> >> as being relevant to their specific
> >> practical needs and he made it relevant to those needs as a part of
> >> creating the zoped.
> >>
> >> Sensei, nothing more nor less than someone farther down the road,
> what's
> >> the practice and what needs does it relate to? Looking for some
> >> absolute
> >> concept of zoped seems pointless, trying to define it so that one could
> >> identify it in any context on the basis of a Carnapian logical matrix,
> >> impossible. The key I think is to look at the practice, identify its
> >> road
> >> and see how far people are along that road and how they make that road
> >> relevant to someone who might not even know the road is there.
> >> Expanding
> >> is moving beyond the known roads into what was previously unknown.
> >>
> >> Paul Dillon
> >>
> >> ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org wrote:
> >>
> >> Hello Deb:
> >>
> >> Thank you for your response to my question.
> >>
> >> When I use "scientific concept" I am using Vygotsky's term. Kozulin
> >> describes the idea well in his intro to "Thought and Language" Pg
> >> xxxiii,
> >> "Scientific concepts originate in the highly structured and specialized
> >> activity of classroom instruction and impose on a child a logically
> >> defined
> >> concept. . ." I believe that there can be a zoped whenever any
> >> culturally-historically logically constructed concept is the focus of a
> >> culturally based activity that has an attainable goal as the outcome.
> >> Play
> >> can be a culturally based activity with an attainable goal.
> >>
> >> maybe?
> >> eric
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> "deborah
> >> downing-wilson" To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
> >>
> >> .com> Subject: Re: [xmca] perhaps. . .
> >> Sent by:
> >> xmca-bounces who-is-at web
> >> er.ucsd.edu
> >>
> >>
> >> 12/20/2006 12:44
> >> PM
> >> Please respond
> >> to "eXtended
> >> Mind, Culture,
> >> Activity"
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Okay, now I'm really confused. How do we define "scientific concepts"?
> >> Can
> >> there be no zoped when artistic concepts, painting for example, are in
> >> play?
> >>
> >> deb
> >>
> >>
> >> On 12/20/06, ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org wrote:
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > . . .this may be a better definition of a zoped:
> >> >
> >> > a culturally based activity that provides an opportunity for
> >> individuals
> >> > to
> >> > apply scientific concepts to everyday experiences via the
> >> assistance of
> >> > somebody more experienced with the scientific concepts related to the
> >> > goals
> >> > of the culturally based activity.
> >> >
> >> > Unfortunately I implied in the prior post there was assistance of
> >> someone
> >> > with experience. I would also like to emphasize that the question
> >> posed
> >> > by
> >> > the teacher in the room would be a set up to allow the students to
> ask
> >> > questions of the speaker, fulfilling the imitation requirement that
> >> > Vygotsky emphasizes in his chapter, "The development of scientific
> >> > concepts
> >> > in childhood" of his "Thought and Language" tome. Page 188 of the
> 1999
> >> > Kozulin translated edition, "In the child's development. . .imitation
> >> and
> >> > instruction play a major role. . .what the child can do in
> cooperation
> >> > today he can do alone tomorrow." I believe the example I provided
> >> > yesterday would be what Vygotsky is referring to as cooperation.
> >> >
> >> > eric
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > _______________________________________________
> >> > xmca mailing list
> >> > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> >> > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >> >
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Deborah Downing-Wilson
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
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> >
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>
> --
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