Re: [xmca] A suitable term for "zpd aware"?

[Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>]

On 31 December 2011 23:14, David Kellogg <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Huw--
>
> First of all, happy first day of the (solar) dragon year. May your solar
> and lunar dragons cavort and gambol throughout each and every terresrial
> revolution of this particular terrestrial circuit of our largest morning
> star.
>

You too!


>
> Secondly--I am reminded of the comment you yourself made when Andy was
> looking for proofreaders for a work on concepts. You didn't like the idea
> of referring with a single term to activities as manifestly different
> as having a vague notion, coming up with a new idea, bulding a whole
> hierarchy of related terms, and conceiving a child (immaculately or
> otherwise).
>

A reasonable interpretation.  My aversion, however, was to the particular
naming of the definition rather than the attempt at a definition.  For
instance, the term "Image" seemed, for me, more consonant.

Let's see what others have to say before further unravelling.

Thanks,

Huw


>
> I think this objection is a little unfair to Vygotsky; he has something
> quite precise in mind when he talks about concepts (which is why Martin has
> objected to the idea that concepts can be equated with word meanings, at
> least during the process of concept-o-genesis itself). But it seems to me
> that this objection applies pretty smartly to the passage you are quoting.
>
> Reading over the description (from the sixties) I would have to say that
> terms like "vague", "imprecise", and "confusing" spring to mind rather than
> the terms you suggest ("zpd aware" or "mediationally attentive").
>
> I know you like to quote and commentate, so I am quite sure you will not
> be offended if I apply your method to your man Hunt:
>
>
> "[...]  If a teacher can discern what a child is trying to do in his
> informational interaction with the environment,"
>
> What child is this? Yea, whence this environment? Are we talking about an
> infant in a crib or a toddler on the playground or, heaven forfend, a
> toddler in a crib or an infant lost on a playground? Are we always talking
> about a material environment?
>
> What is "informational interaction"? Is talk informative in the same way
> as banging your head on a swing?
>
> "and if that teacher can have on hand materials relevant to that
> intention, if he can impose a
> relevant challenge with which the child can cope, supply a relevant model
> for imitation, or pose a relevant question that the child can answer,..."
>
>
> How does our teacher distinguish between bootstrapping up and dumbing
> down? How does our teacher distinguish between enabling learning and
> replacing it? Above all, how does our teacher distinguish between inert
> informational changes and changes that are really restructuring, between
> meaningless variations of procedure and those variations which any artist
> would recognize as endowed with "promisingness"?
>
> "that teacher can call forth the kind of accommodative change that
> constitutes
> psychological development or growth."
>
>
> Ah--here is the answer! Accomodative change was opposed, by Piaget, to
> assimilative change: accomodation is an outward bound adaptation, in which
> schemata are altered to fit reality, while assimilation is inward bound.
> The problem is, of course, that Piaget considrs all play to be assimilative
> (in a book published in English at about exactly the time your man Hunt is
> writing, namely "Play, Imitation and Dreams"). Piaget would also have
> really liked the idea that psychological development is simply growth, or
> as Vygotsky scathingly describes it, "increase".
>
> I think what Vygotsky would say here is that, first of all, we really have
> to distinguish between mere instruction and learning. Secondly, we have to
> distinguish between successful instructed learning and ontogenetic
> development. And third, we have to distinguish between a gifted teacher and
> a teacher endowed with a clear vision of development.
>
> What Vygotsky said about Maria Montessori was that a gifted teacher needs
> to be given a theory, or else she cannot distinguish between giving the
> child written language and giving the child New Year's Cards like "Fulsome
> Greetings to Our Director and CEO, Maria Montessori!" to copy out.
>
> And now...for something completely different. I am looking, rather
> desperately, for an evolutionary biologist called "H." or perhaps "G."
> Jennings, who in 1912 or thereabouts first applied the idea of an "activity
> system" to psychology. Does anybody know any reference besides Chapter One
> of the History of the Development of the Higher Psychic Functions, Vol, 4,
> p. 20? Do you think "H." might stand for "Hugh" or "Hew" or "Huw"?
>
> David Kellogg
> Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
>
> What would folk call this skill, under the umbrella of a single term?  How
> about "mediational appreciation"?
>
> Huw
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