I can only give a personal anecdote here. When I was about 4, my mother (a
trained Montessori kindergarten teacher and therefore someone convinced of
the value of play as a means of learning) gave me a toy shop which
contained a number of items one might really buy in a grocery shop. (A
miniature bottle of OK Sauce, a brown fruit sauce of the type Brits like to
put on sausages, particularly sticks in my mind.) The shop came with a
collection of plastic coins and I distinctly remember playing various games
in which the exchange relationship was played out and my early arithmetic
lessons (in what she has subsequently described as an 'Adlerian
kindergarten') were reinforced as a result of giving or having to give
change. While I doubt that this was typical path, it does illustrate how
learning the social necessities of capitalist exchange relationships can be
enacted at an early age alongside learning more general skills in equating
and distinguishing quantities. Is the logic of 'Capital' Chapter 1 here
unfolding in the development of the child?
Bruce Robinson
On Thursday, December 14, 2000 3:09 PM, Paul H.Dillon
[SMTP:illonph@pacbell.net] wrote:
> Andy,
>
> This question is similar to one I asked some time ago as to whether there
> had been any studies of children's acquisition of concepts of property.
At
> that time I received no responses. Carl Ratner told me personally that
he
> doesn't know of any either. It would seem that money, as a form of
exchange
> value which presupposes the existence of some concept of property would
fall
> into this category but who knows. I'm anxious to see what response there
is
> to your query.
>
> Paul H. Dillon
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Andy Blunden <andy@mira.net>
> To: <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Sent: Thursday, December 14, 2000 2:59 AM
> Subject: Activity and Money
>
>
> > Does anyone know of a work in the Vygotsky School which deals with
money?
> >
> > For example, has any maths teacher in the CHAT tradition discussed why
> > children who cannot do 6-2=4 know that if they have $6 and lose $2 then
> > they have $4 left? Has anyone studied the development in a child of the
> > idea that labour should be exchanged? of the concept of value? of why
> > wage-slavery is more respectable than domestic servitude but less
> > prestigious than exploiting others?
> >
> > There's a lot of material about knowledge, but has anyone in the
Vygotsky
> > school talked about ethics?
> >
> > Andy
> >
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
> > | - Andy Blunden - Home Page - http://home.mira.net/~andy/index.htm -
|
> > | All mysteries which lead theory to mysticism find their rational
|
> > | solution in human practice and in the comprehension of this
practice.|
> >
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
> >
>
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