[Xmca-l] Re: Direct link to article for discussion

[Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>]

Jennifer, Rachael,
Focusing on 3 words that carry relational meanings as *spirit* or *ideal* I
want to foreground  three words used by Vygotsky in a quote on page 203:
to *PERMEATE*  school environments
The school has to *PENETRATE* and *ENVELOP* THE LIFE OF THE CHILD .

These three words, to permeate, penetrate, and envelop as KEYSTONE IDEALS
which lead to dispositions developing moral character within the intimate
and friendly interpsychological plane of school environments.
THIS is a radicalization of the purposes of learning leading develop and is
clarifying a radical shift or turn in re-purposing school environments.
I appreciate your opening the article with this particular Vygotskian quote
to focus the theme of the paper.
Larry



On Thu, Sep 12, 2013 at 11:45 PM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:

> Jennifer and Rebecca
>
> I read your article with anticipation, and was reflecting on my level of
> interest as a counselor working in public schools.
> The central question posed in your title,
> "Where do we locate social and emotional learning in schooled
> environments?" is a profoundly relevant question within historically
> situated *school discourse"
>
> I want to open my comments by referring back to an article Jennifer wrote
> ten years ago which shows this question continues to remain relevant over
> time.
> Jennifer wrote,
> "Indeed, we are participant observers of the processes of the human mind;
> ourselves always embedded within it and experiencing the world filtered
> through it. And to make matters more complicated, the cognition and emotion
> couplet is ITSELF a moving target., changing through the use of cultural
> tools, creating new tools, and shifting again; a messy and potentially
> regressive process, rather than a linear or teleological one....What we are
> actually dealing with [theory of consciousness] is both a revolutionary
> (Vygotsky, 1978) and a dialogical (Bahktin, 1981; 1986) process of
> cognitive/emotive/discursive change over time. A process fuelled by the
> activity of human agents engaged with cultural tools and situated through
> social and historical relations"
>
> The current article continues this quest tracking the elusive moving
> target of the cognition/emotion couplet which is now being played out
> across all public schools. I want to explore the second section of the
> article which clarifies and foregrounds the conceptual terms [unity, word
> meaning, perezhivanie,] as units of analysis I also want to explore the
> third section which extends the cognition/emotion couplet through exploring
> feeling, emotion, and affect and *verbal feeling.
> However, I know others will return to these critical aspects of the paper,
> therefore I will foreground section one which opens the dialogue on the
> current ways social/emotional learning is approached as a subject matter.
>
> Jennifer and Rebecca mention that social-emotional learning has been met
> with a strong critique on multiple fronts. I wonder if any of these fronts
> are visible within public school settings, or if the fronts are mostly
> visible within university departments?
> I experience conversations in schools focusing on *skills* and *programs*
> to teach these discrete skills. The article mentions by 2003 there were
> over 200 distinct programs had been created to ADDRESS SEL, with multiple
> moving targets [reduce bullying, teach character education, or as stand
> alone programs to teach SEL skills.
> an alternative approach, as mentioned in the article is the implied
> assumption that by Kindergarten social emotional development SHOULD be well
> developed so is NOT a relevant subject matter for K to 12 schooling.
>
> I would concur that these are the typical responses to address or answer
> "Where do we locate social-emotional learning in school environments?"
> However, this article does offer another approach which I hope we will
> explore further. I want to quote the last paragraph of section one:
> "Clearly there is a need to develop approaches to social and emotional
> education that reduces the emphasis on behavioral skill sets and individual
> assessments and, instead, develop methods for linking social and emotional
> IDEALS with social practices in schools (Hoffman, 2009) Among other things,
> this would require "connecting the language of research more REALISTICALLY
> and more humanely with the language and EXPERIENCE of emotion in teaching
> and learning, and not substitute one for the other" (p.546). IN this
> context of schooling, a Vygotskian perspective may be a much needed and
> radical response"
>
> I highlighted the word *ideal* as this word implied SHARED IDEALS. On page
> 202 of the article Jennifer and Rachael emphasize Vygotsky saw schools as
> locations to develop not only *competencies* but also DISPOSITIONS TOWARD
> ETHICAL ACTIONS. At the CENTER of THIS process was the social environment
> of the school as the location for social emotional learning.
> I see this appeal to SHARED IDEALS and the question of how we collectively
> develop SHARED EXPLICIT IDEALS as a central question which Jennifer and
> Rachael address and give their "answer".
> If the arena or stage is not individual virtue, or collectively FORMED
> rules, but rather developing *dispositions* how do we traverse the notions
> of classroom teacher *autonomy* .
>
> I want to acknowledge my appreciation for opening this space to explore
> this shifting, turning, crisscrossing theme of the unity of cognition &
> emotion. The heart of the paper is conceptual elaboration and clarity and
> the article does this brilliantly.
> However, I chose to highlight the actual current historical situation in
> many schools.
>
> Larry
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Sep 12, 2013 at 3:53 PM, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> For those of you who missed it, here is the article for discussion on the
>> xmca website.
>> mike
>>
>>
>> http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Journal/pdfs/20-3-vadeboncoeur.pdf
>>
>
>