Dear Mike,
Thanks! I am trying to put some of your thoughts together, and it is really fun….These are notes to myself, and I will answer in two e-mails. For everyone, feel free to delete if too long:
(1). Regarding the problems of children learning math, I believe that Peter Moxhay has written an article, which might give some answers…It is titled “Assessing the Scientific Concept of Number in Primary School Children.” It goes back to Davydov, and again reminded me that we often deal with the individual child in many parts of the world, instead of creating a new social environment. The article is attached.
(2). Thanks for the Rilke poem. Yes, the idea of using a poem is a wonderful way to brings us to higher levels, to the aspect of “metacognition” I believe we should always have in mind when conducting research, teaching, working with clients. I would like to give the poem that Professor Zinchenko gave at ISCAR 2008 at the bottom of the page. Regarding the Rilke poem, Roland Davies (2000), Zen Wisdom, East Sussex, England, comes to mind: “The simple act of ‘being’ brings us closer to reality. Take the mirror and place it so that you can see into it …. The ‘reflection’ in Western thinking is the non-reality, and the real world is on this side of the mirror. See the whole room from both sides of the mirror, not just the reflection of one side. The mirror of the mind only serves to reflect your being, not your surroundings, and thus you can see from both vantage points.” (78)
Poem Prof. Zinchenko read at ISCAR 2008”
T. S. Eliott, Ash Wednesday
If the lost word is lost,
If the spent word is spent,
If the unheard, unspoken
Word is unspoken, unheard;
Still is the unspoken word,
The word unheard,
The word without a word,
The word within
The world and for the word,
The word within,
The world and for the world;
And the light shown in darkness, and
Against the word and unstilled
World still whirled.
About the centre of the silent word.
Dorothy (Dot) Robbins
www.vygotsky-robbins.com
The belief in an external world independent of the perceiving subject is the basis of all natural science. Since, however, sense perception only gives information of this external world or of "physical reality" indirectly, we can only grasp the latter by speculative means. It follows from this that our notions of physical reality can never be final. We must always be ready to change these notions - that is to say, the axiomatic basis of physics - in order to do justice to perceived facts in the most perfect way logically. -Einstein
Attachment:
Moxhay ISCAR 2008.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document
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