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RE: [xmca] Re: microgenesis?



I took a stab at these issues a few years back, so will attach the paper. 
I'm pretty overwhelmed by other things at the moment so my regrets for generally sitting this discussion out of late. p

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole
Sent: Monday, October 15, 2012 1:06 AM
To: ablunden@mira.net; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Cc: David Henry Feldman; Joe Glick
Subject: Re: [xmca] Re: microgenesis?

well we are sure agreed about the context dependent part. I arrue for different principles of change in what Huw refers to as sociogenesis and I refer to as cultural-historical genesis. I am just real uncertai about how to characterize more micro levels of development/context/historical.....
change.

Wertsch's paper is one of several treatments of the topic, the only one I could put my bytes on quickly and as a followup to Vera's suggestion. There are other papers with other examples. But first, what about what we have??

mike

On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 at 8:51 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:

> **
> I will read the Wertsch puzzle, Mike. It is good to see (I think) that 
> we are getting closer to the same page at last. I have reservations 
> about seeking a context-independent meaning for "development" which 
> does not constantly refer back to achievement of adult 
> self-determination qua citizenship, which, as it happens, can be quite 
> safely taken for granted in the case of elementary school children 
> learning to read. Could I just mention, on the off-chance that it may 
> be useful, the allusion I made to the Hegelian concept of "illusory." 
> This means that a concept (form of activity within a situation) may 
> appear, but then may turn out to be "illusory," a flash in the pan, so 
> to speak. This is kind of the other side of "development." It does not provide something which can be built upon.
>
> I turn to my reading for today ...
> Andy
>
>
> mike cole wrote:
>
> I believe you are correct, Andy, it is indeed a germ cell approach to 
> the acquisition of reading where "the whole task of reading" is 
> present as an interactional "force field" within the setting. 
> Precisely for this reason reading is not reduced to decoding, but no serious literacy scholar does.
> The big trick as the matter is usually formulated is that you first 
> get the decoding right and then when it is automated or as it is 
> automated, reading as comprending/interpreting the world emerges. That 
> is sort of the Jean Chall approach, which should not be dismissed 
> although I disagree with it; she was a very experienced, smart, 
> scholar. But the problem with treating things in this level 1-level 2, 
> lower-higher, order in organizing acquistion is that you are missing 
> the "structure of the whole" at the beginning, reducing, too often, 
> acquistion of reading to stimulus-response learning -- which in the 
> cases of acquiring English literacy can be a challenge, ours being a mongrel language.
>
>  But all of this speaks to the question of what is meant by 
> development in this entire line of discourse. Generality of a 
> conceptual change is certainly an aspect of what is meant, along with 
> generality of how one is treated by others. But always and again, at 
> what scale? In relation to what other scales?
>
>  I am attaching an early Jim Wertsch paper that illustrates clearly 
> the puzzle experimental procedure and how he and colleagues wrote 
> about it early on. It is the kind of study Vera was referring to. I 
> attach it as a means of making it possible to establish joint 
> reference for those among us who are unfamiliar with the evidence being rererred to.
>
>  mike
>
> On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 at 7:50 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
>
>>  OK, I get what you want to discuss, Mike. I guess you posed the 
>> question in terms of learning vs development in response to criticism 
>> posed in those terms, but the whole controversy seems to function as 
>> a destraction (Freudian typing mistake), doesn't it? Given all the 
>> caveats I so heavily laboured in my contributions, there is really no 
>> problem with learning which is taking place within the ZPD being 
>> called "microgenesis." The momentary formation of an action which 
>> lies *outside *the ZPD is not developmental for the child, so the 
>> situation is "illusory" (to use a Hegelian term), so it makes sense 
>> to restrict the term "microgenesis" to formation of 
>> actions-within-a-situation which child-and-carers can and can only 
>> manage with the carers assisting the child, and the child cannot yet 
>> manage alone. It is certainly obvious that ontogenetic development cannot happen without such accomplishments.
>>
>> Going to your PS, David tells us that Vygotsky got the 
>> one-step-two-step quip from Koffka. It ties up with Vera's observation about "generalisation"
>> of a new achievement, doesn't it. I guess that does not happen instantly.
>>
>> I would like to see you pursue the idea that Davydov's (and Vygotsky 
>> and Marx and Hegel and Goethe's) idea of "germ cell" contains the 
>> germ of the question you want answered here. I am a little torn by 
>> the proposition because, on the one hand, I am drawn back to 
>> learning-perspectives which have a whole subject matter in mind (e.g. 
>> comparing objects as the germ cell for mathematical reasoning) and a 
>> conception of the germ cell which is not just a reified object *or* 
>> an isolated action, but self-consciously references a *situation. 
>> *But those two takes on the idea don't really conflict, do they? That what was so impressive about the paper you shared:
>> the team went to the whole situation to redefine the problem of 
>> reading, not just print, but "the world."
>>
>> I would like to hear your thoughts about this question. Wasn't the 
>> idea of reading being "*expanding* the ability to mediate one's 
>> interactions with the environment by interpreting text" the germ cell 
>> (if only it could be formulated as such) of Question Asking Reading? 
>> Isn't there a germ cell of microgenesis somewhere in there?
>>
>> Andy
>>
>>
>
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