I truncated and added the cherries to make a comment on the "cherry-
picking" debate that Jenna's blog (link below) pivoted into the
conversation here.
There it seems to be about the reputed evils of mixing theories (of
learning and/or development). But I took the lesson concerning
cherry-picking from Fred Erickson, for whom it was, much more
persuasively, about the dangers of selectively picking just those
items of data or evidence that support a particular position.
I think that cherry-picking (the metaphor means picking just the
sweet, ripe cherries from the tree and leaving the unripe sour
ones) items of evidence to support a hypothesis or a theory is OK
when the theory is very new and needs some benefit of the doubt so
it can be developed and elaborated into something worth more
carefully evaluating. Rather than just trying to kill it off in the
cradle.
Once it's old enough to fend for itself, then it's dangerous to its
future well-being to feed it only ripe cherries and not see how it
copes, or doesn't, with sour cherries that are inevitably also to
be found. Cherry-picking evidence is what happens with cults,
religions, conspiracy theories, political fanaticisms, and other
things that scholarly inquiry tries to avoid becoming. I have a
religious faith that eating occasional sour cherries is good for
the healthy development of useful and interesting new theories and
practices. What doesn't kill us makes us stronger!
But this view of cherry-picking does NOT apply in the same sense to
concepts, ideas, methods, discourse thematics, representations, and
the like. They are the only stuff around from which to build new
theories and practices, and it makes sense to explore any possible
combination of them that might be helpful. While philosophers may
shudder, I simply don't believe any two ideas are inherently and
necessarily incompatible with one another, or that philosophical
purism or canons of "consistency" are really of much use, much less
intellectual necessities. This stance is generally associated with
postmodernism, but need not be. I think it's better associated with
a high tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty in the theory-
creation process. And some philosophers certainly seem to agree
(e.g. Feyerabend, Latour, Serres).
Of course I also don't believe that theories ever do, or ever can,
definitively (much less uniquely) explain phenomena. They are just
tools for getting on with the inquiry, or provisionally guiding
practice, until something else comes along.
JAY.
Jay Lemke
Professor (Adjunct, 2009-2010)
Educational Studies
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
www.umich.edu/~jaylemke
Visiting Scholar
Laboratory for Comparative Human Cognition
University of California -- San Diego
La Jolla, CA
USA 92093
On Apr 7, 2010, at 3:38 PM, Jenna McWilliams wrote:
I don't know! That's why I've pitched this issue to you guys.
I recently sat on the sidelines watching a pair of academics argue
over whether cultural-historical learning theories are as
theoretically rigorous as cognitivist theories. As you might
imagine, the cognitivist argued they aren't as rigorous, while the
situative theorist argued they were. I wonder if you xmca-ers have
thoughts on this.
~~
Jenna McWilliams
Learning Sciences Program, Indiana University
~
http://jennamcwilliams.blogspot.com
http://remediatingassessment.blogspot.com
~
jenmcwil@indiana.edu
jennamcjenna@gmail.com
On Apr 7, 2010, at 3:50 PM, mike cole wrote:
Jenna-- No wonder you are so quiet on XMCA-- you are busy in
another
interesting discussion, differently mediated!
So, vis a vis the local conversation, how do constructivism or
constructionism
relate to cultural-historical theories?
mike
On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 10:12 AM, Jenna McWilliams <jenmcwil@umail.iu.edu
>wrote:
Hello,
I'm really enjoying this conversation, as it aligns really
nicely with
issues I'm grappling with both in my graduate work and in my
research
projects and groups.
Though I'm a shameless self-promoter, I normally wouldn't plug
my blog in
such an esteemed listserv--except that I recently published a
post about the
(ir)reconcilability of sociocultural and cognitivist learning
theories (at
http://jennamcwilliams.blogspot.com/2010/04/why-i-am-not-constructionist.html
,
if you want to see). It's the conversation below the post that
interests me
now--a fun debate has started about whether pulling from
sociocultural and
cognitivist theories can be called "synthesis" or
"cherrypicking." I fall on
the "cherrypicking" side of things, though I can acknowledge how
rhetorically poor that term is.
I was going to post some of this thread in the comments section
before I
started worrying about the appropriateness of doing that, so
instead I'll
just set forth a plea to anyone who's interested to join in on the
conversation. My readers and I would be most grateful for any
thoughts you
are willing to offer.
Thanks for this listserv, which is supporting my knowledge
acquisition and
enabling me to participate in knowledge production.
jenna
~~
Jenna McWilliams
Learning Sciences Program, Indiana University
~
http://jennamcwilliams.blogspot.com
http://remediatingassessment.blogspot.com
~
jenmcwil@indiana.edu
jennamcjenna@gmail.com
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