I am not sure what Phil was referring to nor am I sure where Phillip got his quote but here is all of what Mike Cole wrote in the intro to the article in Soviet Psychology, Vol. XXI, No. 2. pp. 50-76 M. E. Sharpe, Inc., 1983V. V. Davydov and A. K. Markova
--------------------------------------------------------
A CONCEPT OF EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITY FOR SCHOOLCHILDREN
V. V. Davydov and A. K. Markova
About two years ago, on a cool Southern California day, Vasili Davydov addressed a group of social scientists at the University of California, San Diego. He began his talk with a paradox. He had come, he said, to tell us about educational activity. He promised to exhibit principles that promote educational activity, and applied programs deriving from those principles. Then he laughed. “But you’ll never see educational activity in the school,” he said, and laughed again.
Problems of translation between Russian and English can be severe, but in this case there wasn’t as much room for erroneous interpretation as usual, because I was acting as Dr. Davydov’s translator. He said what he meant, and he meant what he said. It is very difficult to find real educational activity in a school setting, at least the normal school settings that occupy millions of Russian and American children daily. Although we might seek to interpret this kind of comment as a slur on teachers or educational psychologists, it was nothing of the sort. It was a simple postulate of a central theorem within Dr. Davydov’s theory: for human action to be endowed with the properties of activity, it is essential that the subjects formulates and accept the goals toward which his actions are directed. Translated roughly in Deweyian terms, this means that discovery of the goals is essential to true activity. Translated more roughly back into dialectical materialist philosophy, it mean
s that freedom is the recognition of necessity.
A concomitant of the bureaucratization of educational activity is that units low in the hierarchy of control are routinely governed by goals not of their own choosing. These prepared goals reflect the multiple ways that education fits into society, and are not governed purely by the logic of discovery. As every child learns, some of these prepared goals are very difficult to accept; they require a lot of self-control. Recognizing these limits, Davydov and his colleagues have at least worked out systematic ways of getting as much real educational activity into a working curriculum as possible (see, for example, A. K. Markova’s book The teaching and mastery of language , published by M. E. harpe, Inc., in 1979).
The article that follows summarizes in brief form the overall state of the enterprise at the present time.
Michael Cole, Editor
----- Original Message -----
From: "Cunningham, Donald J." <cunningh@indiana.edu>
Date: Thursday, September 30, 2004 1:30 pm
Subject: RE: Educational activity and school
> Yes!
>
>
>
> Don Cunningham
>
> Indiana University
>
> _____
>
> From: Peg Griffin [Peg.Griffin@worldnet.att.net]
> Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2004 2:59 PM
> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: Re: Educational activity and school
>
>
>
> Do you still want to know?
>
> Peg
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>
> From: Cunningham, Donald J. <cunningh@indiana.edu>
>
> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>
> Sent: Thursday, September 16, 2004 5:58 PM
>
> Subject: RE: Educational activity and school
>
>
>
> Peg, what did you see?
>
>
>
> Don Cunningham
>
> Indiana University
>
>
> _____
>
>
> From: Peg Griffin [Peg.Griffin@worldnet.att.net]
> Sent: Thursday, September 16, 2004 5:27 PM
> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: Re: Educational activity and school
>
>
>
> Hi,
>
> Two years ago from when? Longer ago than that I remember (it
> being translated that) Vasili Vasilovitch said that is was hard to
> findeducational activity in schools in his country or in ours.
> Not never.
> I think I saw it in Schola 91 in Moscow not too long after that longer
> ago talk.
>
> Peg G
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>
> From: Phil Chappell
> <phil_chappell@access.inet.co.th>
>
> To: xmca <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
>
> Sent: Thursday, September 16, 2004 9:17 AM
>
> Subject: Educational activity and school
>
>
>
>
> About two years ago, on a cool Southern California day,
> Vasili Davydov addressed a group of social scientists at the
> Universityof California, San Diego. He began his talk with a
> paradox. He had come,
> he said, to tell us about educational activity. He promised to exhibit
> principles that promote educational activity, and applied programs
> deriving from those principles. Then he laughed. "But you'll never see
> educational activity in the school," he said, and laughed again.
>
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Nov 09 2004 - 11:43:04 PST