RE: [xmca] The Cambridge Companion to Vygotsky for discussion

From: Peter Smagorinsky <smago who-is-at uga.edu>
Date: Sun Jun 01 2008 - 06:25:28 PDT

Ignacio et al., I'm reading the Daniels et al. volume for the specific
purpose of writing an essay review on it. I'm taking my time with the
reading, doing a chapter a day and whatever thinking and note-taking
follows. But I hope to complete the review by the end of June.

I'd have to check with my journal editor about posting the essay ahead of
publication, but that'd be one way to launch a discussion of the issues
raised in the book. Or, I could provide an abstract that would not
compromise the publication of the review. Would that work for you (and
others)? Peter

Peter Smagorinsky
The University of Georgia
125 Aderhold Hall
Athens, GA 30602
smago@uga.edu/phone:706-542-4507
http://www.coe.uga.edu/lle/faculty/smagorinsky/index.html

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
Behalf Of ignacio dalton
Sent: Saturday, May 31, 2008 12:43 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] The Cambridge Companion to Vygotsky for discussion

hi peter
  daniels et als(2007)´book update information regarding different topics,
specially the concept of activity in which Engeström chapter is very useful.
  As you point out your current reading, it will be great to consider this
reference for current discussion between xcmates. what do you think about
this idea? May mike be able to add his opinion about considering this book
or a chapter for discussion.
   
  Ignacio Dalton
  Universidad del Salvador
  Secretaría de Investigaciones Educativas
  Buenos Aires
  Argentina

Peter Smagorinsky <smago@uga.edu> wrote:
  I'm presently reading Daniels, Cole, and Wertsch's (Eds, 2007) Cambridge
Companion to Vygotsky and in the first few chapters have come across some
ideas germane to recent xmca discussions. First, for those who enjoy looking
at intellectual antecedents and influence on LSV's thinking, the
contributors look at LSV in relation to Hegel, Meade, and many others, so
you might want to take a look.

Second, with regard to the discussion on the poverty of lecture-hall college
classes, Bakhurst quotes LSV as follows:

The student educates himself. . . . For present-day education, it is not so
important to teach a certain quantity of knowledge as it is to inculcate the
ability to acquire such knowledge and to make use of it. . . . Where he [the
teacher] acts like a simple pump, filling up students with knowledge, there
he can be replaced with no trouble at all by a textbook, by a dictionary, by
a map, by a nature walk. . . . Where he is simply setting forth
ready-prepared bits and pieces of knowledge, there he has ceased to be a
teacher. Vygotsky, 1926/1997, p. 339) [Educational Psychology, R. Silverman
Trans., Boca Raton, FL: St. Lucie Press.

Add podcast after nature walk and you've got the sort of teaching described
in today's universities in the USA and other locations, as described by
several contributors to this discussion. Eighty-two years later and after a
century of Dewey, and we're still back where we started.

Peter

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Received on Sun Jun 1 06:26 PDT 2008

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