However....
Mary Bryson's recent posting about her first AERA sounded
much more credible to me than the dinner party metaphor of
Burke's (Frank Smith has used the metaphor as well, and I
believe that's whom C.B.Cazden cites.) It is not only the
badge check & other initiation rites that all newcomers
suffer. Rights of speaking are distributed among newcomers
as well as oldtimers. I note that even Eva, who expresses confidence
in her own expertise, technological & otherwise, evidently is made to
"know her place" in discourse. I, who ought by traditional
measures to feel that I _can_ compete intellectually still
question my own competence, and often enough on this list,
and not only because I haven't read Husserl, Kant, Heidegger,
Dilthey, Herder, Brentano & Frege [or much of CHAT beyond V.
himself, Wertsch, & related works on literacy & ed.], though
that is certainly a part of the problem. It's also that I
can't read fast enough, & learning to read faster takes time,
and because I can't make easy use of my past to position myself
more advantageously, more as someone with something to say.
Imagine, being positioned to say something like:
>It may be because I have been educated to proceed from axiomatized
>principles and to let a scrupulous description take precedent
over an intuitive sketch,
>no matter how captivating.
Wheh! Imagine, being a recipient of such a message, who has to
rely on intuitive sketches to make sense!
The difficulties not only of entry but also of participation
along the way are relative to our richly variegated histories
& positionings. I am writing in sympathy with all of us who
have yet to learn the effects of what we say, but
especially with those who do not yet feel authorized.
I am writing in sadness over the years of living and learning
that I can't easily redeem.
I liked Eva's positively phrased self-assured alternatives to
joining whatever practice, but I'd like to rephrase the "don'ts"
that she started with:
>-- don't ask questions, (you know what should be going on, don't you?)
>-- don't start by announcing yourself as powerless (then you will be).
>-- don't act like an outsider (how could you have an influence that way?)
*** ASK. If no one answers, keep asking. Eventually, you'll learn what
you want & need to learn.
*** ADMIT YOUR VULNERABILITY. Others feel it too. Communities will be
better off & stronger for attending to their tender spots and
they have not yet learned how to do so. (Your vulnerability is
a sign of something larger than you.)
*** ANNOUNCE YOUR DIFFERENCE. That way you can push the envelope of
how the community knows itself.
As an old colleague of mine has said, regarding the "right attitude"
to take towards joining (quoting Malcolm, I think) "This
AIN'T a tete a tete. This AIN'T a tea party. THIS is a REVOLUTION."
I believe he voices the "noisy" way of entering a community that
Eugene has referred to. (And Eugene knows I don't like that term
to characterize what is often for the "noisy" person the only
mode of entry available)
- Judy
....................
Judy Diamondstone diamonju who-is-at rci.rutgers.edu
Graduate School of Education Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
10 Seminary Place New Brunswick, NJ 08903
Eternity is in love with the productions of time - Wm. Blake