Re: [xmca] Narratology and Concepts

[ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org]

Andy:

IN thinking about this I acknowledge it is too simple to be correct.  Just 
because a person thinks about the act of thinking about a concept wouldn't 
qualify it as scientific/academic.  GOing back to Peter's original 
response to my question though is peter's emphasis on concept formation 
resulting from a goal oriented activity; regardless of 
spontaneous/everyday  or scientific/academic in nature.  Again Peter thank 
you for the emphasis on this aspect.  So true.

Instead of asking more questions I will portray the scenario that made me 
ask the question in the first place.  I show a video about the history of 
advertising and it is for the purpose of the discussing how advertisers 
try to influence people's behavior.  It is not a sophisticated curriculum 
by any means because of the nature of my students.  Anyway last week I was 
showing it and it was just one of those days where the class was not going 
to settle down but I had not patience left and after having stopped the 
video for the 5th or 6th time I announced that the next student 
interrupting the video would be sent home with a phone call home.  I 
pushed 'play'  and as it started sure enough a student asks me; "boy eric 
you came to school with attitude today."  The student to this day still 
insists he did nothing wrong.  Definitely no 'meta' about this particular 
student and in general the nature of most of my students behave on impulse 
and suffer the consequences.

eric




Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
Sent by: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
03/22/2010 08:58 AM
Please respond to ablunden; Please respond to "eXtended Mind, Culture, 
Activity"

 
        To:     "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
        cc: 
        Subject:        Re: [xmca] Narratology and Concepts


Oh I see what you mean, Eric. But I'm not sure that this is
right. Well, it depends. I think there was a discussion last
year where we determined that somewhere around the age when
children start elementary school, they learn to be aware of
their own thoughts. EG, they can tell you what they were
thinking 5 minutes ago. I think this ability is regarded
(remember I am an amateur in this stuff) as a necessary
precondition for a lot of formal schooling, e.g., writing,
arithmetic, logical thinking, all of which I guess is
practice for control over one's own thinking processes.

But none of these things require conceptual thought, let
along "scientific concepts."   Taken together, you are
probably right that they are all preconditions for
conceptual thought, whether scientific or not. Of course
concepts of any type can be assimilated by youngsters, only
they are (we are told) only "simulating" conceptual thought.
And this can apply to scientific concepts equally as much as
religious, aesthetic or any other kind of concept.

Andy

ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org wrote:
> 
> Hello Andy:
> 
> When I use 'meta' I am referring to a person's ability to understand 
> that they are thinking, in essence "thinking about thinking".  I believe 

> a scientific concept is only possible within this framework.
> 
> what do you think?
> eric
> 
> 
>                *Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>*
> Sent by: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
> 
> 03/19/2010 08:26 PM
> Please respond to ablunden; Please respond to "eXtended Mind, Culture, 
>      Activity"
> 
> 
>         To:        "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" 
<xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
>         cc: 
>         Subject:        Re: [xmca] Narratology and Concepts
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I might say, Eric, that it is this aspect of Vygotsky's
> idea, I mean, that concepts belong to institutions and
> systems of activity and systems of concepts, whereas
> spontaneous 'concepts' are acquired outside of the
> originating system, is (in my view) the aspect of the matter
> which was picked up by AN Leontyev and first persuaded me of
> the value of activity theory. It is very important not to
> forget the *Activity* aspect of a concept.
> 
> What do you mean by "meta" here?
> 
> Andy
> 
> ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org wrote:
>  > Peter:
>  >
>  > You have certainly clarified things for me in regards to the 
interplay
>  > between "spontaneous concepts"  and "scientific concepts":  that the
>  > dialectic allows for the development of what has been labled "higher 
> order
>  > thinking".  I geuss I am still wondering about the 'meta' aspect of
>  > concepts because sometimes in activities there is the operation that
>  > completes the task and sometimes there is the "metathinking" that 
> revolves
>  > around specifically complicated completion of activities.  What has 
> gotten
>  > me thinking about this is Martin's contributions pertaining to 
> qualitative
>  > research methods.  "old school" qualitative methods were likert scale
>  > questionaires that required a metacognitive aspect for responses. 
Just
>  > thinking off the cuff and perhaps not making sense.
>  >
>  > thank you for your clarifications pertaining to
>  > everyday/spontaneous/informal and scietific/classroom/formal 
concepts.
>  >
>  > eric
>  >
>  >
>  >
>  >
>  > "Peter Smagorinsky" <smago@uga.edu>
>  > Sent by: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
>  > 03/19/2010 10:32 AM
>  > Please respond to "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
>  >
>  > 
>  >         To:     "'eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity'" 
> <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
>  >         cc:
>  >         Subject:        RE: [xmca] Narratology and Concepts
>  >
>  >
>  > Good question Eric. I've always interpreted the distinction as,
>  > spontaneous=everyday without formal rules that allow for application 
to
>  > new
>  > settings; scientific=academic/formal without experiential 
documentation.
>  > But
>  > it's important to remember that although LSV distinguished between 
the
>  > two,
>  > he argued as follows (from Smagorinsky, P., Cook, L. S., & Johnson, 
T. S.
>  > (2003). The twisting path of concept development in learning to 
teach.
>  > Teachers College Record, 105, 1399-1436.):
>  >
>  > Vygotsky (1987) argues that this interplay between formal knowledge 
of
>  > principles and knowledge gained through activity enables people to 
think
>  > about problems beyond their range of experience. He maintains that 
the
>  > "process of concept formation requires . . . acts of thought which 
are
>  > associated with free movement in the concept system, with the
>  > generalization
>  > of previously developed generalizations, and with a more conscious 
and
>  > voluntary mode of operating on these existing concepts" (p. 181). The
>  > development of a scientific concept thus relies on formal
>  > instruction--usually in an academic setting but available through
>  > communities of faith, apprenticeship relationships, organized sports, 
and
>  > other explicit and systematic instructional settings--and on the 
> learner's
>  > conscious awareness and volition.  It further relies on interplay 
within
>  > the
>  > learner's conceptual field, with a dialectical relation developing 
> between
>  > scientific and spontaneous concepts, those that involve 
"situationally
>  > meaningful, concrete applications, that is, in the sphere of 
experience
>  > and
>  > the empirical. . . . Scientific concepts restructure and raise 
> spontaneous
>  > concepts to a higher level" (p. 220).  The formal principles of the
>  > scientific concept create cultural schemata that enable a greater
>  > understanding of worldly experience.  This worldly experience has 
been
>  > described at length by sociocultural theorists who refer to it as 
> cultural
>  > practice, the next area that we outline.
>  >
>  > Peter Smagorinsky
>  > Professor of English Education
>  > Department of Language and Literacy Education
>  > The University of Georgia
>  > 125 Aderhold Hall
>  > Athens, GA 30602
>  > smago@uga.edu
>  >
>  >
>  > -----Original Message-----
>  > From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu 
[mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
>  > Behalf Of ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org
>  > Sent: Friday, March 19, 2010 10:21 AM
>  > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>  > Subject: Re: [xmca] Narratology and Concepts
>  >
>  > I certainly have more thoughts about this post then the next question 

> but
>  > while I am thinking of it I am typing it:
>  >
>  > Does "scientific concept" have metaprocessing involved and "everyday
>  > concept" lack the meta aspect?
>  >
>  > Don't know the answer but it definitely goes back to the question of, 

> "Is
>  > a fiddle always a fiddle or can a fiddle be a table in some 
contexts?"
>  >
>  > eric
>  >
>  >
>  >
>  >
>  > David Kellogg <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com>
>  > Sent by: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
>  > 03/19/2010 02:46 AM
>  > Please respond to "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
>  >
>  > 
>  >         To:     xmca <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
>  >         cc:
>  >         Subject:        [xmca] Narratology and Concepts
>  >
>  >
>  > (Pardon the previous premature posting--I hit the wrong button!)
>  >  Narratology!
>  > 
>  > I have an eighteenth floor flat facing an amazing sunrise through 
Seoul
>  > smog, near Kwanak Mountain on weekends. But on weekdays I have to be 
out
>  > of my apartment well before the golden moment, and this morning as I
>  > bundled into the subway car with all the other commuter cattle, this 
> piece
>  >
>  > of poetry popped up from my memory:
>  > 
>  > Leave, my love, before the morning
>  > Drains the darkness from the pane
>  > Others who ignored this warning
>  > Did not live to love again
>  > 
>  > Romeo and Juliet, of course. But a sinister whiff of Bluebeard's 
Castle
>  > too, and, more bathetically, a reference to the self-consciousness 
and
>  > fear of shopper's remorse we sometimes all feel the morning after the
>  > night before.
>  > 
>  > No, no, no. I am happily married, which means that even bathos is 
rather
>  > too melodramatic to describe my waking life. This bit of poetry is
>  > something that was written for a radio contest on the BBC about 
twenty
>  > years ago, and I heard it on my shortwave in China and forgot about 
for
>  > twenty years.
>  > 
>  > The real reason this thing popped up was that yesterday one of my 
grads
>  > was having trouble distinguishing between "until" and "by" (and also 
> "for"
>  >
>  > and "in" with reference to "two hours" or "two o'clock").
>  > 
>  > Now, we can explain this problem with a simple two by two matrix:
>  > 
>  >                               OBJECT OF PREPOSITION (+/- duration)
>  >                               e.g. "two hours"      "two o'clock"
>  > VERB (+/- duration) 
>  > 
>  > e.g. 
>  > 
>  > "I love"                    for 2 hrs.          until 2:00
>  > 
>  > "I leave"                   in 2 hrs.           at/by 2:00
>  > 
>  > You can see the CONCEPT (that of durativity, or instantaneity" is the
>  > same, whether we are applying it to the object of the preposition 
("two
>  > hours" or "two o'clock") or to the verb. In fact we can even apply it 
to
>  > space, because the distinction between (e.g.) "at the corner", "on 
the
>  > river", and "in the room" has to do with spatial dimensionality, and 
> time
>  > durativity is a metaphorical (as well as a literal) extension of 
this.
>  > 
>  > But you can also see that everyday life, for the most part, has NO 
> NEED of
>  >
>  > this kind of matrix or even this kind of concept. Martin is 
absolutely
>  > right to say that it arises sociogenetically (for that is my 
preferred
>  > term for the phylogenesis of culture) in the minds of scientists and 
> only
>  > ontogenetically in the classroom. Martin is even more right (were 
that
>  > possible) to say that it is of the same psychological substance 
> whether it
>  >
>  > is generated in the laboratory or in the classroom.
>  > 
>  > But perhaps we differ on the conditions of USE. I think my little 
matrix
>  > is really only useful in the classroom, to generalize and abstract 
> certain
>  >
>  > aspects of everyday use outside the classroom.
>  > 
>  > Now, of course, the classroom IS part of the real world, and the 
> concepts
>  > we have in the classroom are "real" concepts. But a laboratory, in 
> which a
>  >
>  > Russian psychologist is setting up a blocks experiment in order to
>  > describe concept formation, is ALSO part of the real world, too. It's 

> just
>  >
>  > that the conditions of use are quite different when we are talking 
about
>  > laboratories, classrooms, subway cars and bedrooms.
>  > 
>  > Concepts, as Rosch says, arise in use; they are not structureless 
> nodes of
>  >
>  > a Cartesian matrix (like LSV's "measure of generality") or my two by 
two
>  > crosstab matrix. If that were true, the only true concepts would be
>  > numbers.
>  > 
>  > As a consequnce of use, concepts have structure which is describable 
in
>  > terms of prototypes, where one type of concept "rubs off on" another.
>  > Classrooms make it possible to put make their structure VISIBLE, to 
> place
>  > the structure of concepts BETWEEN concepts rather than hidden with 
them.
>  > 
>  > I didn't mean to equate scientific concepts with artificial concepts,
>  > Andy. That would be banal; of course ALL concepts are artificial
>  > concepts. But Vygotsky DOES write, in Chapter Six, that his work with
>  > science concepts follows on from his work with EXPERIMENTAL concepts.
>  > 
>  > I think this is because a science concept (actually, an 'academic
>  > concept') is a concept for a special type of environment, an 
> artificially
>  > engineered rather than a naturally occurring next moment of 
development
>  > (oh, all right, call it an artificially engineered zoped).
>  > 
>  > The fact that what Jay calls the "thematic relations" of science 
> concepts
>  > are EXTERNALIZED, stored outside the concept rather than as 
protypical
>  > variations within exponents of the concept, is both the cause
>  > (ontogenetically speaking) of their teachability and the result
>  > (sociogenetically speaking) of their teachedness.
>  > 
>  > One of my grads is teaching her sixth graders a lesson called "Where 
is
>  > York Street?" where the kids have to give each other very simple
>  > instructions (basically, it's just a Skinner maze, with one street, 
> called
>  >
>  > "Apple Street" meeting another called "York Street") such as "go 
> straight
>  > and turn right/left". The stuff, written ten years ago, is now far 
too
>  > easy for the kids so she wants to teach a map of downtown Manhattan
>  > instead, as a way of introducing the concept of the Cartesian matrix
>  > (avenues and streets) and eventually longitude and latitude. That 
> way, the
>  >
>  > language they learn may be used iteratively, starting absolutely 
> anywhere
>  > and ending absolutely anywhere else.
>  > 
>  > Last night, as it happens, it snowed (as the weather announcer says, 
> "the
>  > snowflakes envy the cherry blossoms"). This morning you could see, in 

> the
>  > fresh snow, trails taking shape in an entirely haphazard manner, as 
this
>  > neighbor steps out to buy the milk and that neighbor to take her five 

> year
>  >
>  > old to a before school piano lesson, driven by everyday use.
>  > 
>  > If you look at a map of Seoul, you can see that large parts of it 
grew
>  > roads in precisely this way: it is a city draped over seven 
mountains,
>  > rather like Amman in Jordan, where I lived in my early twenties. But 
you
>  > can also see that parts of it are laid out in a Cartesian grid, 
rather
>  > like Manhattan, Washington DC, Brasilia, or Beijing, so that anyone 
> can go
>  >
>  > anywhere just by visualizing the relationships on a measure of 
> generality.
>  >
>  > It goes without saying that both concepts are part of the real world. 

> They
>  >
>  > are both part of the same city!
>  > 
>  > David Kellogg
>  > SEOUL National University of Education
>  > 
>  > 
>  >
>  >
>  > 
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> 
> -- 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Andy Blunden http://www.erythrospress.com/
> Classics in Activity Theory: Hegel, Leontyev, Meshcheryakov,
> Ilyenkov $20 ea
> 
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> 

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden http://www.erythrospress.com/
Classics in Activity Theory: Hegel, Leontyev, Meshcheryakov,
Ilyenkov $20 ea


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