"Broken tools" is not the central idea, it's just the lead example.
Heidegger would say we can use tools zuhanden-ly without (in the context of
this thread) being "conscious" of them in the same way as when we think about
them as vorhanden -- like a scientist engaged not in using it, but in
theorizing about it. When a tool stops working, then we shift attitude from
using it in its Zuhandenheit to attending to it consciously in its
Vorhandenheit. The broken tool is just the classic example in H, but I think
the concepts might apply also to the Zuhandenheit of the printed words when
reading for the meaning, versus the Vorhandenheit of the printed text when
it, for whatever reason, becomes the focus of conscious attention.
I don't want to say more about this since others on this list are so much
more knowledgeable than I am about Heidegger.
I don't know much about reading instruction, but I do know absolutely how it
was in my Chinese classes. It was in the third year class that we could read
texts in Chinese characters aloud at a reasonable pace. When others were
reading aloud, I could follow the text with understanding. When I was the one
reading aloud, I was one of the more proficient lectors in the class; but
when I reached the end of my reading I could say nothing about what I had
just read.
On Tue, 18 Aug 2009, Mike Cole wrote:
Sorry this came to me via gmail in two disparate threads.
So Andy IS talking about operations-actions.
Tony asks about broken tools, which, in a way, typos are.
To put a tiny bit more flesh on my questions about consciousness. A
standard
procedure in my college classes when issues of
reading instruction come up is to ask a student to read a passage from the
assigned readings out loud. Sans typos, the standard
reaction, even with text that student can discuss pretty well, is that the
person who reads out loud cannot say anything about the
content of the paragraph read.
What does this mean for the discussion of consciousness?
Why is reading aloud a standard practice in reading instruction
classrooms?
mike
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