Eric,
Thanks for the compliment but I think that of the many learned scholars on xmca, I occupy a minor position if I can be considered a "scholar" at all. There are and have been since I started participating in xmca in 1996 a lot of truly brilliant minds and also a lot of scholars too have been present. But scholars publish, which is something I rarely do. Right now my main project is a movie about a 16th century native andean chronicler. My other significant project, on the back burner while developing the movie, is getting the public schools and universities in Peru to adopt online learning. These are really more practical projects and don't result in the same kinds of products that scholars produce.
But I love learning and totally agree with you about xmca being a place where interactions between all kinds of folks with people who are very learned in different fields of studies and others do occur. I've learned a lot over the years and try to keep up with at least one thread at any given time but they happen so fast and the contributions are often so detailed that it is pretty hard to do that. Nevertheless, I would have to say that it is my favorite classroom/online seminar and I wish that I could get the students in my online critical thinking class to participate in discussions the way people on xmca participate.
Paul
ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org wrote:
Paul:
Very true that there is no agreement at the present time but I do not
believe this precludes the impossibity of such an agreement. Discussions
and give and take across disciplines is extremely fruitful in moving
towards an agreement. I beleive XMCA is a zoped that allows a schlep
teacher such as myself to enter into discourse with such a learned scholar
such as yourself. No sarcasm intended. I view myself as a practitioner
and not a researcher or theorist. Thank you greatly for your time.
eric
Paul Dillon
yahoo.com> cc:
Sent by: Subject: Re: [xmca] perhaps. . . sensei
xmca-bounces who-is-at web
er.ucsd.edu
12/21/2006 11:53
AM
Please respond
to "eXtended
Mind, Culture,
Activity"
Eric,
I don't think the idea of a "cultural systems" has a "theoretical
construct" upon which all anthropologists agree (or any others who use the
concept of culture) so I think the zpd and culture are about at the same
level in this sense. I say this as a practicing anthropologist (ie, one
actively involved the study of "culture", in my case Andean culture) which
is also the field in which I have my advanced degrees.
Like the zpd , "culture" can be looked at from a lot of perspectives.
There are different schools of thought about it, there is no paradigm (in
the Kuhnian sense) for "culture" or for "cultural systems" so the problem
is just moved back one level when you use that concept to talk about the
limitations of another one.
Nevertheless, both culture and zoped are extremely useful concepts for a
variety of practical and theoretical applications. Maybe the desire to
have scientific concepts that resemble those of the natural sciences is
just starting of on the wrong foot when dealing with the socio-cultural
(and by implication psychological) level.
Paul
ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org wrote:
Paul:
As a metaphor Vygotsky's ZPD explains his thinking very well, as a
theoretical construct it does not have the capacity to be analyzed in a
manner that separates an individual's systems from the cultural systems
which are elucidating and canalizing an individual's developments,
subsequently Valsiner has dissected Vygotsky's ZPD into three zones that
not only explain human development more precisely but provide
methodological tools that allow researchers to discuss developmental
systems with more specific lucidity.
Valsiner separated Vygotsky's ZPD into three different zones that he
labeled the Zone of Free Movement (ZFM), the Zone of Promoted Action (ZPA)
and a much more specific Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). When I
introduced his "Process structure of semiotic mediation" paper a few months
back it did not meet with much support. I do not want to spend much time
discussing his more specific zone approach because that as well may not be
what people are interested in. If people are it is available in his book,
"Culture and the development of children's actions."
eric
Paul Dillon
yahoo.com> cc:
Sent by: Subject: Re: [xmca] perhaps. . . sensei
xmca-bounces who-is-at web
er.ucsd.edu
12/21/2006 10:33
AM
Please respond
to "eXtended
Mind, Culture,
Activity"
Eric,
I wasn't denying that there are "logical matrices" within the individual
practices, only that the search for one overarching definition that would
encompass all of the practices might be trying to make a road that really
goes nowhere. But even within hospitals and other institutions there are
lots of different areas of practice ranging from the technical (eg surgery)
to the political (learning how, as a nurse, you need to relate to doctors
or administrators)
Paul
ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org wrote:
Paul Dillon wrote:
"Sensei, nothing more nor less than someone farther down the road, what's
the practice and what needs does it relate to? Looking for some absolute
concept of zoped seems pointless, trying to define it so that one could
identify it in any context on the basis of a Carnapian logical matrix,
impossible. The key I think is to look at the practice, identify its road
and see how far people are along that road and how they make that road
relevant to someone who might not even know the road is there. Expanding
is moving beyond the known roads into what was previously unknown."
I beleive on the ontogenetic level (learning/development) this is extremely
helpful, but on the phylogenetic level(personality/socialization)it misses
much of the cultural-historical emphasis. Engstrom's learning by expanding
emphasises broad cultural entities (hospitals and other work places). In
these settings there are logical matrixes/structures.
what do you think?
eric
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