Re: [xmca] neoformation / zpd

This exchange about a really important topic is in danger of misfiring I think.
Could I put it this way: if I were to evaluate my own education I could
give it a score of 100% because at the age of 60 I am still working for
social justice as well as anyone I know. But given that I still live in the
same unjust capitalist society, I could give it 0%.
The ultimate aim of an educator is social change, but only _mediately_,
through the learners who have to do the actual social changing. Lois can
only measure the effectiveness of her work by the extent to which her
students have acquired a capacity for communicatively mediated
self-determination. The rest is up to them.
Andy
At 12:05 AM 19/02/2008 -0800, you wrote:
>Lois,
>
> I think any grade school teacher who helps a child expand his or her
> abilities does positive work in some senses but usually also helps
> reproduce the world-devouring capitalist systrem in other senses if by
> nothing more than encouraging the child to succeed in the terms of the
> system itself. . I don't believe that developing an
> individual's talents or abilitites, per se, leads to social change,
> social change comes from social agents, not individual. for me real
> transformation/develpment, at the individual and social levels, has to do
> with the social agent within the individual; that's my point about
> Freire's "situation limits" and Vygotsky's ZPD. I think, Martin's point
> about the lack of a class dimension in Vygotsky's analyses and theories
> needs serious consideration, if for nothing more than being somewhat
> realistic with oneself about what's being achieved through the
> applications of Vygotsky's theories in a society where class divisions
> (economic and
> political) have only increased since the late 70s.
>
> As far as you work I dont really have an opinion. Have you done any
> long term tracking studies, say 10 or 15 year followups,of the people who
> have passed through your programs . With thirty years of experience with
> these approavhes, you should have some good longitudinal material on
> which to evaluate what their contribution has been to society or even
> where they ended up individually. That's what I'd need to see to form an
> opinion.
>
> Paul
>
> Lois Holzman <lholzman@eastsideinstitute.org> wrote:
> Thanks, Paul, for expanding on what you were thinking.
>How did we get to this moment in the conversation and what are we
>doing in having it?
>One place I'm coming from is that I do believe that the 30 years of
>work I've been involved with with inner city US kids has had a
>positive impact and that it is a variant of what Newman and I
>developed therapeutically, which is itself a variant on Vygotsky. Some
>people see it and agree and others don't. No problem. Maybe you are
>saying that whatever I and others are doing i(for example, the All
>Stars work with young people n the US that Dot mentioned I introduced
>her to, or what Volker mentioned in Serbia) doesn't or cannot count
>for you as transforming commodification or as development (because
>that can't happen in a capitalist country/a country becoming
>capitalist). Or maybe you're saying that it might, but it can't count
>as within the CHAT tradition. Or maybe you're saying that whatever it
>is, it's not something you are interested in talking about. Or maybe....
>It seems like you have some outside criteria for what counts as
>development and/or transformation and I don't. It's probably good to
>agree to disagree about that!
>Lois
>
>On Feb 14, 2008, at 3:36 PM, Paul Dillon wrote:
>
> > Lois,
> >
> > This response has been several days in gestation and since I
> > started it other posts have been made on the thread that I have't
> > read yet. But to finish . .
> >
> > Yes, you correctly identify the direction from which my comment
> > was made The phrase I used , "commodification of cuture" cocould be
> > simply reduced to "commodification" if we define culture as the
> > totality of artefacts as has been suggested recently on the list. I
> > agree with "most people" that the only the attempts to stop
> > commodification involve the development of socialist institutions,
> > but I disagree that socialism has failed. There are millions of
> > people throughout the world who still actively pursue the
> > construction of socialism, although not in the most privileged
> > country of the global capitalist system. There are four countries
> > in the Western Hemisphere whose governments (all democratically
> > elected) are actively pursuing the construction of socialist
> > societies. At the same time, the capitalist societies increasingly
> > face crises whose resolution isn't clear to anyone. Socialism, far
> > from having failed, is daily proving its viability: according to UN
> > statistics, Venezuela has reduced the percentage of those living in
> > poverty by 30% in the past 5 years. There is no other country in
> > the world that has ever achieved such a drastic reduction and it is
> > still in process.
> >
> > I think this is relevant to the discussion about "learning" and
> > "structure" in two senses:
> >
> > (1) Commodification, turning all artefacts into commodities, that
> > very special kind of artefact (a widget) whose goal is to generate
> > the greatest profit when exchanged in the market), necessarily
> > generates exploitation of humans and the natural environment,
> > perhaps for the simple reason that nothing qualitative of the human
> > or the environment remains reflected in the numbers on the stock
> > exchange that guide the way the capitalist society's labor and
> > resources are brought together in the day-to-day reproduction of the
> > society as a whole. I think that the fetishization/alienation
> > inherent in these social relations exists within every member of the
> > society and if not confronted, subordinate all individual
> > development within a logic of exploitation.
> >
> > (2) For me Vygotsky's concept of ZPD is related to Paolo
> > Freire's (following Jaspers) notion of "situation limits"; those
> > frontiers whose transcendence awakens the very person who learns,
> > awakens the learner. For Freire these situation limits are
> > precisely those in which the structures of exploitation are
> > confronted. In the countries that have been subordinated and
> > dominated to those countries in which capitalism emerged, the
> > political dimension of leanring, e.g., becoming literate, and the
> > social dimension of "development" are much closer to the surface
> > than in the central countries of the global system, especially the
> > USA. It's not comfortable to internalize that ones own entire
> > world depends on systematic exploitationd
> >
> > Development necesarrily involves a moral dimension that is socially
> > defined -- insofar as the morality (the norms) of the society
> > presupposes exploitation -- well, what exactly is being develooped?
> > For me the idea that individuals can be the authors of social
> > transformation simply has no empirical or theoretical basis. Wind
> > waves don't affect tides.
> >
> > AlthoughI am not really satisfied with this response to your post,
> > I'm sending it off, hopefully it's not totally incoherent.
> >
> >
> >
> > Paul
> >
> >
> >
> > Lois Holzman wrote:
> > I think we're talking about different things, Paul, but I'll try
> > incorporating what I think is your topic into mine and see what gets
> > created.
> > The commodification of culture that is inherent in capitalism has been
> > going on for some centuries. Attempt to transform it (most attempts
> > people call socialism) failed, although some people think that it
> > slowed it down some. So on that level I can't point to anyone(s).
> > However, commodification is a process as well as a product, and from
> > that perspective, I think masses of people are, in different ways,
> > transforming the commodification of culture every day. I could give
> > instances, as I'm sure others here could, but I rather wait to see if
> > Im even coming close to addressing what you are raising.
> >
> > Lois
> >
> >
> > Lois Holzman, Director
> > East Side Institute for Group and Short Term Psychotherapy
> > 920 Broadway, 14th floor
> > New York NY 10010
> > tel. 212.941.8906 ext. 324
> > fax 212.941.0511
> > lholzman@eastsideinstitute.org
> > www.eastsideinstitute.org
> > www.performingtheworld.org
> > www.loisholzman.net
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Feb 11, 2008, at 8:44 PM, Paul Dillon wrote:
> >
> >> Lois,
> >>
> >> Please point out to me anyone who has transformed the
> >> commodification of culture or even slowed it down.
> >>
> >> Paul
> >>
> >> Lois Holzman wrote:
> >> Doesn't this "leave out" that determined as we are, we qualitatively
> >> transform that which determines us? And that includes the
> >> transformation of "the old" rather than a leaving behind?
> >> Lois
> >>
> >> On Feb 9, 2008, at 2:15 AM, Paul Dillon wrote:
> >>
> >>> The child's socio-historical context, made up of the specific set
> >>> of activity systems (fields) in which she or he will increasingly
> >>> participate, determines which sets of emotional, social, cognitive,
> >>> and motor competencies allow fuller, more central participation.
> >>> The assumption of new roles and leaving behind the old ones
> >>> certainly also requires all kinds of new emotional and social
> >>> skills.
> >>
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  Andy Blunden : http://home.mira.net/~andy/ tel (H) +61 3 9380 9435,
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Received on Tue Feb 19 02:16 PST 2008