Re: [xmca] motive/project

Mike:

Thank you for bringing wertsch into the discussion. He is certianly a
strong voice of using the english language to 'mean' what is written in
Russian or german. Hence the multi-word descriptors and clarifiers. In
defining motivation I believe it is necessary to look at goal directed
activity pertaining to contextual biases. An eon ago I wrote my senior
paper on "motivation in the autistic" and was left with the summary that
motivation was determined by context. Didn't go over to well in the
behavioral catacombs of Skinner University but all of the research
conducted up to that point gave no clear description of what could motivate
an autistic person to do anything that they didn't find self-satisfying.
In some studies food worked for a while but the tokens lost their luster.
In some instances music did but over time the autistic individual would
find an alternative to the reward; one they didn't have to jump hurdles to
achieve. I did not conclude that Autistic people could not be motivated
but rather what motivated them was extremely biased by context.

Think of this, how many times has a committee been organized that was to
solve a problem and as the committee meets and discusses the issue the
problem solves itself without anything actually being done by the
committee? The committee then disolves because. . .no motivation.

more obtuse thoughts on a chilly december afternoon

eric

                                                                                                                               
                      "Mike Cole"
                      <lchcmike@gmail. To: "Wolff-Michael Roth" <mroth@uvic.ca>
                      com> cc: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
                      Sent by: Subject: Re: [xmca] motive/project
                      xmca-bounces@web
                      er.ucsd.edu
                                                                                                                               
                                                                                                                               
                      12/15/2008 01:56
                      PM
                      Please respond
                      to mcole; Please
                      respond to
                      "eXtended Mind,
                      Culture,
                      Activity"
                                                                                                                               
                                                                                                                               

Thanks David and Michael.

Unhappily, the main take home message is that the answers are beyond my
reach for linguistic/cultural reasons. Emphasizing that American don't get
it
because of conflation of two terms is a clear warning. But the rocks don't
go
away because we are told they are there.

In English, task is related to goal. but goal is related to action. Which
is
why, I
suppose, Wertsch and others prefer to talk about "mediated action in
context"
as unit of analysis. THAT is a reduced system which we can kind of
"surround"
and analyse, but all the while, as Yrjo, who states that "the activity is
the context"
and that the "motive is always just over the horizon" activity escapes us.
This fails to solve the problem too, it just displaces it.

It would be nice if we had a solution to these highly organized
misconstruals.
mike

On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 8:08 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth <mroth@uvic.ca> wrote:

> HI David and others,
> I have repeatedly emphasized in my writings that the problem lies in part
> in the English term 'activity', which collapses the German Tätigkeit and
> Aktivität into one, unfortunately, because it also gives rise to problems
> with motives. I think if you think about what children do as 'tasks' and
> that these tasks are completed as part of the activity 'schooling', which
> has as motive the reproduction (transmission...) of collective knowledge
> then you are getting closer.
> But children often don't even know the goals, in fact, because of the
> 'learning paradox', cannot know the goals of the task. This is no more
clear
> than in the frequent student question, 'teacher, am I write so far?'
> Students CANNOT intend the very thing that they are asked to, namely
learn a
> concept. To be able to orient themselves intentionally to the concept,
they
> need to know it, but if they already know it, they don't have to orient
> toward learning it.
>
> Holzkamp has a lot to say about this, and he describes those things in
> "Lernen: Subkjektwissenschaftliche Grundlegung" (Frankfurt: Campus).
>
> If anyone has implemented Leont'ev's program, it certainly is Holzkamp.
>
> By the way, further to motive, the German edition of Activity,
> Consciousness, Personality has an additional chapter where Leont'ev
> explicitly addresses questions of learning in schools, motives, etc.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Michael
>
>
>
> On 15-Dec-08, at 7:32 AM, David Kellogg wrote:
>
> Mike, Steve:
>
> Like you, I am thoroughly befuddled by the word "motive", and I've
decided
> that applied to children in general and to child play in particular it is
> anachronistic; children do not yet have "motives" in the sense that
Leontiev
> is talking about here. Last week we had thesis defenses, and I took mild
> exception to a thesis which tried to ascertain changes in "motives" for
> learning English in children by the use of Likert-style questionnaires.
(My
> mild exception to these theses is really pro-forma, and a matter of
> tradition in our department; nobody ever fails as a result.)
>
> I notice that LSV (at the beginnning of Chapter Seven of Mind in Society,
> which I don't have with me just now) talks about the child's "needs" and
> "desires". These he defines "broadly" as "whatever induces the child to
> act". If he were going to proceed to construct a Leontiev-like tristratal
> theory of activity, this would lead to something circular: a motive is
what
> drives the child to act, and action is defined by its motive.
>
> Let me first take a look at Leontiev, A.N. (1979, 1981). The problem of
> activity in psychology. In Wertsch, J.V. (ed.) The concept of activity in
> Soviet psychology. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
>
> On p. 48, ANL's got this:
>
> "The basic characteristic of activity is its object orientation. The
> expression 'nonobjective activity' is devoid of sense. Activity may seem
to
> be without object orientation, but scientific investigation of it
> necessarily requires discovery of its object."
>
> Already I'm in trouble. Scientific investigation is sometimes required to
> discover the object orientation of an activity (e.g. sleep, whose object
> orientation we still do not really understand but which will presumably
be
> discovered some day).
>
> But people who do not have the training or the time or the inclination
can
> and do conceptualize activities such as sleep or language play or
> daydreaming. They conceptualize these activities as being without any
> tangible object. Why would an expression that refers to this everyday
> non-scientific conception be devoid of sense? Are non-scientific
expressions
> devoid of sense?
>
> OK, then ANL argues that the object of an activity emerges "in two ways:
> first and foremost in its dependent existence as subordinating and
> transforming the subject's activity, and secondly as the mental image of
the
> object, as the product of the subject's detecting its properties. This
> detection can take place only through the subject's activity."
>
> Presumably he's talking about the way in which scientific investigation
> determines the object orientation of an activity, and not the everyday
> non-scientific detection of the object (which I think of as the
> ethnomethodological motive, the one that participants are conscious of).
But
> empirically both methods are the same: they take place through examining
the
> activity of the subject with the detectionof an object in mind.
>
> On p. 49 he's got this: "All activity has a looplike structure:
> afferentationàeffector processes, which make contact with the object
> environmentàcorrection and enrichment, with the help of feedback to the
> initial afferent image."
>
> This suggests to me that PERCEPTION is in some sense the archetypical
> activity. That would explain the OBJECT orientation! But it is going to
mean
> big problems when Leontiev tries to explain play, because as LSV remarks,
> play is precisely the moment when children tear their meaningful
orientation
> away from the perception of tangible objects. (Yes, Lewin and Lewin's
"field
> of action" is a big part of this, and with respect to the child and the
> stone LSV is clearly closer to Lewin than to ANL!).
>
> Maybe there's a way out, though. ANL then argues that the crucial problem
> here is not the loop itself but rather that mental images are not
produced
> directly but rather through practical activity in the world:
>
> "This means that the 'afferent agent' that directs activity is primarily
> the object itself and only secondarily its image as a subjective product
of
> activity that fixes, stabilizes and assimilates its object content. In
other
> words, a twofold transition takes place: the transition from object to
the
> process of activity and the transition from activity to subjective
product
> of activity. But the transition of the process into a product takes place
> not just form the subject's point of view; it occurs more clearly from
the
> point of view of the object that is transformed by human activity."
>
> Hmmm. When a child picks up a stick and decides to play horsie the
> transformation occurs more clearly from the point of view of the stick
(or
> from the point of view of the horse-play) than from the point of view of
the
> child. This does look a little sticky.
>
> On p. 50, ANL explicitly goes against LSV's portrayal of "needs" and
> "desires" as "anything that motivates the child to act". He
differentiates
> between desire as a precondition of activity and "desire as a factor that
> guides and regulates the agent's concrete activity in the object
> environment". Only the latter is the object of psychology.
>
> OK, now let me turn to the only text I can find where ANL really goes
into
> play, which is a later chapter of his book "Problems of the Development
of
> Mind".
>
> On p. 366 he begins with the rather startling statement that play has no
> object (and thus by his previous account does not constitute an
activity).
> He says:
>
> "Satisfaction of its vital needs is actually still distinct from the
> results of its activity: a child's activity does not determine and
> essentially cannot determine satisfaction of its need for food warmth
etc.
> Characteristic of it, therefore is a wide range of activity that
satisfies
> needs which are unrelated to its objective result."
>
> Curiously, he then uses "object" activity to differentiate human from
> animal play!
>
> "Where does the specific difference between animals' play activity and
> play, the rudimentary forms of which we first observe in preschool
children,
> consist in? It lies in the fact that it is not instinctive activity but
it
> is precisely human, object activity which by constituting the basis of
the
> child's awareness of the world of human objects, determines the content
of
> its play."
>
> Now this is starting to look suspiciously like the thesis I mildly
objected
> to last week, where the adult's attitudes are simply projected onto the
> child and then "detected" using Likert scales. On pp. 367-368, ANL
develops
> his thesis that play is a substitute for the handling of adult objects.
So
> for example on p. 368 ANL speaks of "let me" and "don't", the struggle
> between the adult who wants to protect the child from himself and the
child
> who wants to drive a car and row a boat. This leads, on p. 369, to the
idea
> of a leading activity which is indeed equivalent to a neoformation
without
> the crisis. He then returns uncomfortably to his nagging suspicion that
that
> play is an activity without an object, and therefore not an activity at
all.
>
> On p. 370, he's got this: "As we have already said, play is characerized
by
> its motive's lying in the process itself rather than in the result of the
> action. For a child playing with wooden bricks, for example, the motive
for
> the play does not lie in building a structure, but in the doing, i.e. in
the
> content of the action. That is true not only of the preschool child's
play
> but also of any real game in general. 'Not to win but to play' is the
> general formula of the motivation of play. In adult's games, therefore in
> which winning rather than playing becomes the inner motive, the game as
such
> ceased to be play."
>
> Contrast that with LSV's observation in Chapter Seven that children do
NOT
> like running around without any rules or goal, and in games the meaning
of
> the game is entirely to win. Of course, we might be talking about
different
> children: Leontiev might be talking about pre-schoolers, and LSV is
> certainly talking about school-age kids. But the gap is remarkable;
> something rather important is getting lept over.
>
> OK?so then ANL says that in play there is a mismatch between operation
and
> action, in that the operation is performed with the meaning of the stick
and
> the action is performed with its sense. He says that this split is not
given
> in advance but only arises in play action and that children do not
imagine
> play without actually playing. If this were true, of course, it would be
> very hard to see how children are able to plan play, read about it, or
> reflect upon it, much less day-dream or indulge in language play.
>
> No, this isn't going to work. And it gets worse. Look at this, from p.
381:
>
> "Games 'with rules' i.e. like hide and seek, table games, etc. differ
> sharply from such 'role' games as playing doctor, polar explorer, etc.
They
> do not seem to be related to one another by any genetic succession and
seem
> to constitute different lines in the devleopment of children's play, but
in
> fact the one form develops from other (sic) by virtue of a need inherent
in
> the child's play activity itself (?), whereby games 'with rules' arise at
a
> later stage."
>
> So ANL explicitly denies that whole discussion (in Vygotsky's Leningrad
> lecture) about the intrinsic link between games with roles and games with
> rules. (There's a pretty good account of this lecture, which I have
always
> seen as the starting point for his elaboration of the zone of proximal
> development, in Chapter Seven, but it's well worth reading the original
> lecture, which is at
>
> http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1933/play.htm
>
> ANL then has to explain why there appears to be a developmental sequence
> linking role based play and rule-based games. For LSV this is no problem:
> they ARE genetically linked and in fact the child creates rule based
games
> iteratively, by varying the roles in systematic ways. But for ANL, who
> denies the genetic link, this is rather harder to explain:
>
> "Why do games with rules only arise at a certain stage of development,
and
> not simultaneously with the genesis of the first role games? It depends
on
> the difference in their motivation. Initially the first play actions
arise
> on the basis of the child's growing need to master the world of human
> objects. The motive contained in this action itself is fixed in a thing,
> directly in its object content. The action here is the path for the child
> that leads it first of all to the discovery of objective reality; the
human
> still emerges for the child in its objectified form. The role of the
> horseman, the play action of riding, is playing at horses, the action
with a
> block of wood that the child 'drives' from one chair to another is
playing
> cars.
>
> And MORE:
>
> "But during the development of these games the human relation included in
> their object content itself comes out ever more clearly in them. The tram
> driver not only 'acts with a tram' but is obliged at the same time to
enter
> into certain relations with other people?with the conductor, the
passengers,
> and so on. Therefore, at relatively early stages of the development of
play
> activity, a child finds not only man's relation to it in the object but
also
> people's relations with one another. Group games become possible not only
> alongside one another but also together. Social relations already come
out
> in these games in overt form, in the form of the players' relations with
one
> another. At the same time the play 'role' is also altered. Its content
now
> determines not only the child's actions in regard to the object but also
its
> actions in regard to the other players in the game. The latter also
become
> content of the play activity, for which its motive is
> fixed. Games are distinguished in which actions in regard to other
people
> become the main thing."
>
>
> OK--so the reason why there is no genetic link is that the child goes
from
> focussing on material objects in role play to focussing on human
relations
> in rule play? No, that's not right either, because:
>
> p. 372: "We already know how play arises in the preschool child. It
arises
> from its need to act in relation not only to the object world directly
> accessible to itself but also to the wider world of adults."
>
> Mike--it looks like we're not the only ones befuddled by Leontiev's
> "motive" applied to children; he appears to have thoroughly befuddled
> himself. Leontiev's "motive" applied to children is a little like the
clocks
> that keep going off in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, a thousand years
before
> they were invented.
>
> This is yet another reason for prefering Andy's term "project" in
> describing play: unlike "activity" or "motive", it's a real Gestalt, in
that
> a "project" can be, for the child, action/meaning, and for the adult,
> meaning/action, whence the possiblity of transforming, outside in, the
one
> into the other!
>
>
> David Kellogg
> Seoul Natoinal University of Education
>
>
>
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Received on Mon Dec 15 12:29:00 2008