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Re: [xmca] Hedegaard article
So, I find a couple of issues here, David.
One is the question of what is developmental vs. what is higher. A
kind of thinking in which we make judgments about which
contextualizations are relevant (so, says S1, bring in the contextual
factor of visual-gender vs. linguistic-gender and say "he" in this
case) both tends to come later in ontogeny and to be "higher" in some
sense (more complex, built on the preceding processes, more widely
usable, as you say). I would see it as developmental in terms of when
it first becomes established: previously none, then a first instance,
then other instances, some backsliding, some extension to wider
domains, eventually a ready resource, if still limited in some ways).
But long after that, we still find people NOT using it when they
could, and instead relying on the lower forms, for many possible
reasons. Now when it occurs, it need not be "developmental", need not
in any way necessarily be part of a longer term trajectory of change
in how the person thinks. It is still, in the above sense, "higher".
Acting "smarter" in the moment is not always part of long-term
development towards being more capable. When it first happens it
probably is (though not always, as we know). Much later, probably not.
Similarly, we also have the problem of "scientific" vs "everyday"
thinking. Sometimes instances of the former represent part of a
developmental process going beyond the latter. But eventually they
don't any more. I assume that every culture has some form of thinking
that works enough like what we call "scientific" thinking to count as
similarly higher, and there I can also be a relativist, to each their
own. But some technologies are products of, embodiments of, and very
often affordances for the development of kinds of thinking that might
be called higher. Riding a bike might not qualify, but repairing a
bike might. Designing a better bike almost certainly would. Bikes are
a way in to our kind of scientific thinking, a potential way in -- you
can also ride them along without riding them "up". Some other culture
will have other ways in to its higher forms of thinking.
But I did not understand the book vs painting example. Were you saying
that you haven't ridden paintings as a medium "up" to any higher
mental functions?
JAY.
Jay Lemke
Professor
Educational Studies
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
www.umich.edu/~jaylemke
On Mar 4, 2009, at 10:41 AM, David Kellogg wrote:
If one reads Thinking and Speech with a jaundiced eye, one might
think that LSV has a down on cycling for some reason. On p. 200 (of
the Minick version) he lists riding a bicycle as an example of a
skill which does not lead to child development in any important way.
Again, on p. 212 he describes it as a "specialized, technical skill"
which does not play a developmental role.
I think there are two reasons for this, and neither one really has
to do with distaste for bicycling--or for that matter a view of
human development that is narrowly restricted to the higher mental
functions.
But I think both reasons DO have to do with the sense that the
RESULT of development (which includes the restructuring of lower
level functions, e.g. learning how to RACE a bicycle) is necessarily
wider than the PROCESS (in which the higher mental functions really
do play a dominant role and bicycling has to take a back seat, so to
speak).
The first reason is that lower level skills are piecemeal and
specific and don't seem to generalize very well. Here's some data we
were just looking at. The teacher is showing pictures and giving the
names:
T: Now you, ask me and I'll answer.
SS: What does he do?
T: He is a cook.
SS: What does she do?
T: She is a teacher.
SS: What does she do?
T: She is a pianist.
SS: What does she do?
S1: Anya, "he" jana, namjandae... (familiar, self-directed speech:
"Naw, it's "he", 'cuz it's a guy.").
T(overhearing): He or she...?
SS: He..
T: So what does...
SS: What does he do?
This often happens in the classroom; the kids get into a rut of
lower level skills based ont the rote repetition of the last thing
they heard themselves say. It's only the higher level thinking of S1
that gets them out of it. It's one of the reasons why "Listen and
repeat" meanings don't seem to transfer to "Listen and answer"
exchanges: they aren't WORD meanings at all; they are just noises.
The second reason that Vygotsky seems to deprecate bicycle riding is
that there is a very important sense in which Vygotsky really IS a
cultural relativist: there is nothing culturally superior about
riding a bicycle or even a motorcycle, for the same reason that
cricket is not a higher pursuit than baseball.
For Vygotsky ALL forms of complexive thinking (thinking you are a
red parrot, associating "baby" in baby whale with a human baby,
associating a bowler hat with good sex) are basically at the same
developmental level, whether they belong to children, Bororo
tribesmen of Central Brazil or college professors before they've had
their first cup of coffee in the morning.
By the same token ALL forms of conceptual thinking are at the same
level, whether they belong to Trobriand Islanders arguing a legal
case, children playing twenty questions, or college professors after
they've had their coffee. But that means that no forms of complexive
thinking are at the level of conceptual thinking; in fact, that's
what it means to say that the former develop into the latter and the
latter grow down into the former.
I remember than when I read "Talking Science" I was very struck by
the implicit argument that science concepts are mutually
determining, that each piece of the puzzle only makes sense in the
light of the others (pp. 16-17). This is seems untrue of complexive
thinking; on the contrary, concrete objects (a baby, and a baby
whale) stand alone and even metaphorical thinking only relates them
as alike in one way and unlike in all the others.
I think we implicitly recognize this hierarchy between concepts and
complexes, which cuts across culture, gender, and even age, when we
discount sloppy handwriting and funny accents and pay attention to
the logic and the content of what people say. I also think this is
why I have a much better memory for even a lousy book than I do for
even a wonderful painting, even though I, being intellectually lazy
and rather epicurean, would rather look at paintings.
David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Education
PS: There wasn't much of a connection between evolution and the
Hedegaard article at all, Jay. It's just that I find it a lot easier
to think about the issue of reductionism in context, and it seems to
me that the Darwin/Wallace distinction is really about Wallace's
(and Dawkins') reductionism.
One effect that reduction of a process into elements seems to have
is to eliminate or downplay the crisis, and make development much
more incremental. "Evolutionary" rather than "revolutionary", as
people like to say, but in Gould's theory of punctuated equilibrium
evolutionary is profoundly revolutionary. That is why I think it's
probably a mistake to reduce Vygotsky's concept of "crisis" to a
series of verbal misunderstandings.
dk
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