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Re: [xmca] Hedegaard article



So, I find a couple of issues here, David.

One is the question of what is developmental vs. what is higher. A kind of thinking in which we make judgments about which contextualizations are relevant (so, says S1, bring in the contextual factor of visual-gender vs. linguistic-gender and say "he" in this case) both tends to come later in ontogeny and to be "higher" in some sense (more complex, built on the preceding processes, more widely usable, as you say). I would see it as developmental in terms of when it first becomes established: previously none, then a first instance, then other instances, some backsliding, some extension to wider domains, eventually a ready resource, if still limited in some ways). But long after that, we still find people NOT using it when they could, and instead relying on the lower forms, for many possible reasons. Now when it occurs, it need not be "developmental", need not in any way necessarily be part of a longer term trajectory of change in how the person thinks. It is still, in the above sense, "higher".
Acting "smarter" in the moment is not always part of long-term  
development towards being more capable. When it first happens it  
probably is (though not always, as we know). Much later, probably not.
Similarly, we also have the problem of "scientific" vs "everyday"  
thinking. Sometimes instances of the former represent part of a  
developmental process going beyond the latter. But eventually they  
don't any more. I assume that every culture has some form of thinking  
that works enough like what we call "scientific" thinking to count as  
similarly higher, and there I can also be a relativist, to each their  
own. But some technologies are products of, embodiments of, and very  
often affordances for the development of kinds of thinking that might  
be called higher. Riding a bike might not qualify, but repairing a  
bike might. Designing a better bike almost certainly would. Bikes are  
a way in to our kind of scientific thinking, a potential way in -- you  
can also ride them along without riding them "up". Some other culture  
will have other ways in to its higher forms of thinking.
But I did not understand the book vs painting example. Were you saying  
that you haven't ridden paintings as a medium "up" to any higher  
mental functions?
JAY.

Jay Lemke
Professor
Educational Studies
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
www.umich.edu/~jaylemke




On Mar 4, 2009, at 10:41 AM, David Kellogg wrote:

If one reads Thinking and Speech with a jaundiced eye, one might think that LSV has a down on cycling for some reason. On p. 200 (of the Minick version) he lists riding a bicycle as an example of a skill which does not lead to child development in any important way. Again, on p. 212 he describes it as a "specialized, technical skill" which does not play a developmental role.
I think there are two reasons for this, and neither one really has  
to do with distaste for bicycling--or for that matter a view of  
human development that is narrowly restricted to the higher mental  
functions.
But I think both reasons DO have to do with the sense that the  
RESULT of development (which includes the restructuring of lower  
level functions, e.g. learning how to RACE a bicycle) is necessarily  
wider than the PROCESS (in which the higher mental functions really  
do play a dominant role and bicycling has to take a back seat, so to  
speak).
The first reason is that lower level skills are piecemeal and  
specific and don't seem to generalize very well. Here's some data we  
were just looking at. The teacher is showing pictures and giving the  
names:
T: Now you, ask me and I'll answer.
SS: What does he do?
T: He is a cook.
SS: What does she do?
T: She is a teacher.
SS: What does she do?
T: She is a pianist.
SS: What does she do?
S1: Anya, "he" jana, namjandae... (familiar, self-directed speech: "Naw, it's "he", 'cuz it's a guy.").
T(overhearing): He or she...?
SS: He..
T: So what does...
SS: What does he do?

This often happens in the classroom; the kids get into a rut of lower level skills based ont the rote repetition of the last thing they heard themselves say. It's only the higher level thinking of S1 that gets them out of it. It's one of the reasons why "Listen and repeat" meanings don't seem to transfer to "Listen and answer" exchanges: they aren't WORD meanings at all; they are just noises.
The second reason that Vygotsky seems to deprecate bicycle riding is  
that there is a very important sense in which Vygotsky really IS a  
cultural relativist: there is nothing culturally superior about  
riding a bicycle or even a motorcycle, for the same reason that  
cricket is not a higher pursuit than baseball.
For Vygotsky ALL forms of complexive thinking (thinking you are a  
red parrot, associating "baby" in baby whale with a human baby,  
associating a bowler hat with good sex) are basically at the same  
developmental level, whether they belong to children, Bororo  
tribesmen of Central Brazil or college professors before they've had  
their first cup of coffee in the morning.
By the same token ALL forms of conceptual thinking are at the same  
level, whether they belong to Trobriand Islanders arguing a legal  
case, children playing twenty questions, or college professors after  
they've had their coffee. But that means that no forms of complexive  
thinking are at the level of conceptual thinking; in fact, that's  
what it means to say that the former develop into the latter and the  
latter grow down into the former.
I remember than when I read "Talking Science" I was very struck by  
the implicit argument that science concepts are mutually  
determining, that each piece of the puzzle only makes sense in the  
light of the others (pp. 16-17). This is seems untrue of complexive  
thinking; on the contrary, concrete objects (a baby, and a baby  
whale) stand alone and even metaphorical thinking only relates them  
as alike in one way and unlike in all the others.
I think we implicitly recognize this hierarchy between concepts and  
complexes, which cuts across culture, gender, and even age, when we  
discount sloppy handwriting and funny accents and pay attention to  
the logic and the content of what people say. I also think this is  
why I have a much better memory for even a lousy book than I do for  
even a wonderful painting, even though I, being intellectually lazy  
and rather epicurean, would rather look at paintings.
David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Education

PS: There wasn't much of a connection between evolution and the Hedegaard article at all, Jay. It's just that I find it a lot easier to think about the issue of reductionism in context, and it seems to me that the Darwin/Wallace distinction is really about Wallace's (and Dawkins') reductionism.
One effect that reduction of a process into elements seems to have  
is to eliminate or downplay the crisis, and make development much  
more incremental. "Evolutionary" rather than "revolutionary", as  
people like to say, but in Gould's theory of punctuated equilibrium  
evolutionary is profoundly revolutionary. That is why I think it's  
probably a mistake to reduce Vygotsky's concept of "crisis" to a  
series of verbal misunderstandings.
 dk






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