And I want to thank Phillip for his careful thinking about
the problem of the subject in AT. I also believe that
Yrjo's diagram needs to be redrawn to encompass the researcher.
Maybe there should be no Activity System (AS) re-presented without
its interlocking Alter-AS as seen from the researcher's view when
the subject of system1 becomes the object of system2 That's one
problem. The other, as has been discussed here before, is
working out the relations between meaning-making at different levels
and the action/activity of which it's part. Diane's contribution
to MCA is an excellent point of reference for re-thinking the terms
of AT. So thanks, Phillip.
Judy
At 08:44 PM 1/6/99 -0700, you wrote:
>
> i have been reflecting on Mike's request for suggestions about
>topics to discuss for some time now - and i'd like to consider the
>relationship of the subject and the object in the activity theory triangle
>- Yrgo's - which is illustrated in Cultural Psychology (p. 284), along
>with Wertsch's discussion in Mind as Action, chapter four, Mediated
>Action and chapter five, Appropriation and resistance, along with D.C.
>Hodges' MCA journal article about how she came to resist the practice of
>early childhood teacher.
>
> a big chunk, but allow me to give a narrative to contextualize
>this suggestion.
>
> story:
> an eight year old girl moved into a new neighborhood in
>Colorado, from California. the neighborhood allowed for horses to be
>stabled on residential property, and the girl, Sarah, was given a horse by
>her parents to help soften the blow of lost friends and family connections
>in California.
>
> Sarah developed a great passion for horses as she learned for care
>for her horse. at school, she was a third grader, Sarah's teacher
>assigned a research project to his students. the research had to focus on
>a mammal, to Sarah's delight, and she decided to study horses.
>
> over the next three weeks Sarah read extensively and took copious
>notes. she didn't really pay much attention to the due date, until she
>realized it was the next day. she was faced that evening with books still
>to be read and note cards to organize. realizing she couldn't complete
>the report she had envisioned, she went to the encyclopedia, and rewrote
>in her own words what was written about horses. she went to bed in tears,
>feeling a failure, miserable, unhappy with her paper.
>
> a week later the teacher handed back the papers, save one. it was
>Sarah's. then he read it aloud to the class as an example of a superior
>paper. he graded it an A+.
>
> as years passed by, and Sarah reflected upon this event, she
>realized that as her paper was being read that she would never again put
>in the effort she had put in for her report on horses. instead, she would
>learn as much as she could about what it was the teacher wanted, and do
>only that.
>
>_______________________________________
>
> end of story.
>
> i relate this to all that we've talked about recently about how we
>as teachers grade students's work - as well as Cole & Wertsch & Hodges.
>
> if Sarah's teacher had not used the report as an artifact of
>learning, if instead he had investigated the activity that Sarah had been
>engaged in through the writing of the report, his assessment and hence
>evaluation might have been very different.
>
> i relate this to the activity triangle - in Mike's book the
>triangle on page 284 focused on the subject being the individual readers,
>and the object 'reading for meaning'.
>
> i am wondering is instead of the researcher placing her/him self
>outside of the activity triangle, if the researcher were to place her/him
>self in the activity, which indeed the researcher is, as the subject, then
>the students would become the object, and this would change the
>relationship so that the researcher had to determine what was learned
>other than just artifacts, observations, interviews, etc.
>
> also, perhaps, especially if the researcher is the _teacher_ -
>Judy Diamondstone has talked about the roles of teacher as researcher -
>then the kind of disidentification / resistance to learning that Wertsch
>discusses, that Sarah demonstrates would be a difference that made a
>difference to the teacher, not just the student. also, if the researcher
>is part of the activity itself, wouldn't the construction of
>intersubjectivity, alterity and intermental functionings that Wertsch
>discusses in chapter four become more apparent?
>
> in short, i'm wondering about the 'lines' of the activity
>triangle, if these lines aren't affective connections / lines of
>relationships / and by placing the researcher into the activity itself,
>doesn't this begin to alleviate some of the concerns that activity theory
>doesn't seem to take into account the affective domain, such as what Vera
>and others have voiced concerns about? i wonder about how it might have
>been different for Hodges if her instructors had placed themselves within
>the activity of becoming an early childhood teacher, rather than the role
>of the distant instructor. (admittedly an assumption on my part.)
>Wertsch comments at length about the necessary conditions for
>appropriation of learning which includes a dialogic function (Bakhtin),
>yet it seems that much of education and research avoids such a function in
>favor of the teacher/researcher as participant observer, who is somehow
>outside of the activity triangle.
>
> anyway, Mike, i put this up as a suggestion for discussion
>sometime this year -
>
> something i'm attempting to work out.
>
>phillip
>
>phillip white pwhite who-is-at carbon.cudenver.edu
>
>
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>
> A relation of surveillance, defined and regulated,
> is inscribed at the heart of the practice of teaching, not
> as an additional or adjacent part, but as a mechanism that
> is inherent to it and which increases its efficiency.
>
> Michel Foucault / Discipline & Punish
>
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>
>
>
>
Judith Diamondstone (732) 932-7496 Ext. 352
Graduate School of Education
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
10 Seminary Place
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1183
Eternity is in love with the productions of time - Wm Blake