RE: [xmca] LV Quote on the importance of meaningful work in learning and development

David, Bella --

The kind of education you're calling "labor education" is what in the US is called "vocational education" or "occupational/technical education" or simply "training." The debate about when this verges on child labor or serious tracking takes place in discussions of the Carl Perkins Act (VATEA) among other places. These are very important issues that affect the lives of a whole lot of people individually and the economy nationally.

However, "labor education," which is what I do, is about the political and social dimensions of work -- labor history, labor culture, labor law and employment law, communications, politics, and the kinds of learning that are required to enable workers to control to some degree their conditions of work.

Helena

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From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of bella kotik [bella.kotik@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2008 2:10 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] LV Quote on the importance of meaningful work in learning and development

David,
Comparison of the labor education in the USSR and China takes us too far
from the reality.
I am a product of the Soviet system of education and even spent an
additional year at school (for a short period we had 11 years schedule
 instead of usual 10) and I can tell you that it NEVER was exploiting, it
was learning. We did not produce anything valuable (may be for the school
exhibition of our products where possible), but received some skills. We can
debate how useful they were or was it just a waste of time, but it was
definitely not child labor.
When LSV criticised the system of labor education in the early USSR it was
for the backwardness, lack of education for a modern technology.
Unfortunately it was true for the later periods too: I learned sewing and
tailoring, my brother-plumbing (He is a researcher in radiophysics) skills
that are useful a bit in private life but not for further professions. Only
small groups at my school learned computer programming and radio
electronics, but my mother worked hard to persuade me to learn something
more "feminine". From our school scarcely anybody took these skills for
their future professions.

Sincerely yours Bella Kotik-Friedgut
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Received on Sat Jan 12 09:14 PST 2008