Re: [xmca] What new and interesting?

I got a lot out of the AERA conference. This was the second I have
attended. I mostly attended CH Research SIG sponsored sessions all
week, but I went to some others, too. I found a session on homophobia
and bullying in Canadian schools pretty interesting, for example. I
also attended the CHAT workshop on play that Lois and Ana put together
on Sunday before the conference.

A new idea (for me) struck me at the session on Vygotsky and Freire,
chaired by Anna Stetsenko. It was suggested that Vygotsky's and
Freire's specific ideas on education and pedagogy, themselves
codifications and expressions of the social struggles of their times,
contain ideas and lessons for not just ways of teaching, but ways of
struggling, which modern movements for social change could learn
from. The idea that revolutionary theories of learning from previous
generations could be the basis for expanding methods of modern social
struggle today hadn't actually occurred to me before. I love this idea.

Another new idea, for me, struck me during the CHAT workshop on play
on Sunday. A lot of the discussion revolved of course around
children's play. But adult play, and playfulness, also got
attention. Some of the comments got me to thinking about how I have
seen workers "play" with their machines, tools, materials and
processes to make improvements, and to train themselves in their work
skills. In factories I have worked in, experimentation is often
called play, or playing around. Mike made a presentation on
imagination - what is the basis of imagination? he asked. He took
some of his inspiration for this inquiry from the article on
imagination by Vygtotsky recently published in English (that was just
posted on xmca). Putting all this together, looking at ways workers
on their jobs use play and experimentation - and imagination, through
play and experimentation - seems like a potentially fruitful area of
study for cultural historical researchers.

- Steve

On Mar 29, 2008, at 9:35 AM, Mike Cole wrote:

> Like many on xmca, I spent time at the American Educational Research
> Meetings in New York. I was only able to spend a little time at the
> meetings
> owing to competing
> obligations, but enough to see that many people are pursuing
> interesting
> topics, some of which overlap, some of which display the variety of
> ways
> that people are developing
> ideas about culture, development, differrernt forms off mediation,
> different
> kinds of activities, theoretical innovations, new areas of practice,
> and so
> on.
>
> I thought it might be interesting to all if everyone took a few
> minutes
> either to report on some interesting talk or paper they have
> encountered
> recently, or a new idea that they
> have had that others might have something to contribute to, and post
> it
> here. (This includes, in my case, ideas that came up from people
> whose work
> we have discussed here!).
>
> I'll post a couple of such ideas as examples a lilttle later, but
> want to
> float the suggestion while I have a minute.
>
> mike
> _______________________________________________
> xmca mailing list
> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca

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Received on Sun Mar 30 17:32 PDT 2008