OK (N***, I don't know your real name, sorry!)
You mention twice "the motive of the overall activity." Once you ask how
does a goal contradict the motive of the overall activity, and then mention
that a lot has to do with the motive of the overall activity. And that's
exactly where I get nervous. Whose motive?
Can we assume there is one motive? I think the teacher has a motive, sure,
actually many (at least meet required standards, keep job, probably
political/philosophical framework, maybe help kids, maybe retire...) and
kids have other motives for the overall activity (maybe get good grades,
maybe become popular with peers, maybe sleep, maybe learn something
interesting). So how can we say there is a motive of the overall activity?
Renee
Renee D. Hayes, Ph.D.
University of Delaware
301A Willard Hall
Newark, DE 19716
(302) 831-3096
-----Original Message-----
From: Between Identities [mailto:vygotsky@nateweb.info]
Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2004 7:07 AM
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: Re: goals and agency
Renee,
I don't like and would not use the term "shared activity" for the
reasons you mentioned. I would however talk of collective activity which
I think is ideal for teasing out the exact problems you mention.
I did find it interesting that you linked agency and responsibility
quite closely. Could we say those with more responsibility have more
agency? I would tend to see "agency" more simplistically as in "goal
directed action".
For example, my goal may simply be to critique the racist text or
instruction. When the Alamo gets mentioned, I ask about the St.
Patrick's Battalion.
http://www.hispanianews.com/archive/2000/March17/01.htm
How this goal contradicts with the motive of the overall activity is
unclear. Is the individual's action seen as sabotaging or expanding the
narrative of the text or teacher. Using Wertsch, we may have a
"non-racist" text that reproduces the same narrative as a racist one.
I think alot has to do with the overall motive of the activity. For
education is has to do with how "learning" is understood. For a
neo-constructivist it may cease to be a learning activity when it is
dominated by worksheets. I would suspect the individual's goals would be
most successful if it did not contradict with the motive of the activity.
N***
Renee Hayes wrote:
> Eugene's response to David really gets at something that I am struggling
> with in CHAT:
>
> "I think a sociocultural notion of agency - who-what is responsible for an
> activity - has to be inherently distributed across people, tools, time,
and
> space"
>
> OK. I understand that CHAT notion of distribution across individuals
should
> be viewed as a reaction to individualistic psychology. And up to this
point
> I'm there. But how does CHAT address conflicts of interest, and
> contradictory agendas within a single (shared?) activity? It seems to me
> that shared implies accord. Which I'm not comfortable with.
>
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