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Re: [xmca] Can the Right Kinds of Play Teach Self-Control?
Thank you!! Beth
On Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 12:58 AM, Jay Lemke <jaylemke@umich.edu> wrote:
> Perhaps a second, more serious response.
>
> Critical thinking, I believe, is a "habit of mind". That is, it's not
> something one turns on and off, or something that we can stimulate in a
> single class or around a single issue or text. It inhabits a longer
> timescale, it is more of an acquired disposition, and once you acquire it
> it's there with you in relation to pretty much everything.
>
> How we acquire it is a big, important question. I think we know,
> epidemiologically, that those who are marginalized in society are more
> likely to acquire it spontaneously. I always found Freire a useful text with
> Brooklyn College pre-service and new teachers, initially to talk about how
> to stimulate critical thinking in others who were already living in
> conditions that limited their human potential. But it always wound up being
> about how these students/teachers themselves were being limited by
> institutions, biases, power inequalities, etc. (even those in our own
> college classroom). They, too, were living in conditions that made them
> ready to discover critical stances. It took a while, and I don't know for
> sure how long the active critical disposition lasted in the face of the pain
> of seeing the pain around us, and the ease of easing off from a critical
> stance in life.
>
> One critical breakthrough can catalyze a more generalized critical
> disposition, but "transfer" is often as much a learned capacity in regard to
> critical thinking as in regard to any other higher intellectual function.
> But the deeper, the wider, and the longer it sinks its teeth into us, the
> more likely we will be looking and feeling critically for the rest of our
> lives.
>
> I know that you and your students will keep at it!
>
> JAY.
>
> Jay Lemke
> Professor (Adjunct)
> Educational Studies
> University of Michigan
> Ann Arbor, MI 48109
> www.umich.edu/~jaylemke
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sep 30, 2009, at 7:23 PM, Beth Ferholt wrote:
>
> An interesting twist as I used this paper in a class of student teachers
>> here at Brooklyn College:I was excited to bring in Bodrova from the New
>> York
>> Times. I thought I could encourage critical thinking about the
>> troublesome
>> 'frame' in which the article presented this exciting work with play. I
>> overestimated my abilities to encourage critical thinking about the piece
>> ... but comments from the students after class made me think that these
>> teachers-to-be may included more dramatic play in their classrooms because
>> they read these ideas in the Times.
>> Beth
>>
>> On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 7:23 PM, Jay Lemke <jaylemke@umich.edu> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> David and all,
>>>
>>> Briefly, the dynamic, in the sense of the mechanisms at work, may be much
>>> the same, but the degree of residual choice, or freedom-in-practice,
>>> remains
>>> considerably greater. Call is power-within-the-system as opposed to
>>> power-over-the-system, which, I agree, individuals in general, regardless
>>> of
>>> social class lack. That's why collectives are more formidable in
>>> resisting
>>> or changing the system. A deep question I think is whether the
>>> marginalized
>>> or the middle class in fact play this role. The former, I think, find it
>>> harder to organize and participate in collective action over longer time
>>> spans, but if they do are more likely to initiate major changes. The
>>> latter
>>> aggregate in search of their interests more often and easily, but are
>>> less
>>> likely to do more than negotiate relative advantage within the existing
>>> system. Here too one sees, I think, the implied powers of burgher and
>>> pauper. (Genuine princes are in a much more paradoxical position!)
>>>
>>> JAY.
>>>
>>> Jay Lemke
>>> Professor (Adjunct)
>>> Educational Studies
>>> University of Michigan
>>> Ann Arbor, MI 48109
>>> www.umich.edu/~jaylemke
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sep 27, 2009, at 10:36 PM, David H Kirshner wrote:
>>>
>>> But there is a world of political difference among controlling
>>>
>>>>
>>>>> yourself, carrying out commands, and controlling others.
>>>>
>>>> Jay,
>>>> Not to dispute the critical stance of your concerns re self-regulation,
>>>> I wonder to what extent the politicization of the issue obscures its
>>>> dynamics. Even the wealthy scion inheriting position and power has to
>>>> learn to navigate in an existing system "he" (most likely, he) hasn't
>>>> created. The rewards for self-control undoubtedly are much greater and
>>>> much more readily forthcoming for the prince than the pauper. But isn't
>>>> the dynamic the same?
>>>> David
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
>>>> On Behalf Of Jay Lemke
>>>> Sent: Sunday, September 27, 2009 11:26 PM
>>>> To: lchcmike@gmail.com; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>>>> Subject: Re: [xmca] Can the Right Kinds of Play Teach Self-Control?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> As a footnote to my worries about the politics of teaching "self-
>>>> control", and in response to Mike's note about re-framing in cognitive
>>>> psych discourse, a thought or two about "executive function".
>>>>
>>>> There is a value connotation in this term, from "executive" in its
>>>> sense of high-status individual in a managerial role (cf. "Executive
>>>> MBA program" or "Executive Summary" not to mention "Executive
>>>> Washroom"!).
>>>>
>>>> And it's not so semantically distant from the putative denotative
>>>> meaning of the term: the function of executing decisions. The history
>>>> comes, I believe, from computer programming and computer processor
>>>> design, where the executive function carries out the commands of the
>>>> program.
>>>>
>>>> So there is a sort of root cultural meaning-message here: "it's good
>>>> to be in charge" conflated with "self-control is good". But there is a
>>>> world of political difference among controlling yourself, carrying out
>>>> commands, and controlling others. Or as I argued in my other post,
>>>> learning how to control yourself to act your part in someone else's
>>>> drama.
>>>>
>>>> It may be obvious but perhaps still worth noting that there's also a
>>>> difference between the meaning of "self-control" or "self-regulation"
>>>> as the basic and necessary ability to focus your own attention and
>>>> action in order to get something done beyond the single instant vs.
>>>> their meaning as conforming to the norms of behavior set by others. In
>>>> free cooperative or collaborative activity, where group norms are
>>>> agreed and remain subject to challenge by all and to revision, this
>>>> latter difference fades. But how often does that happen in schools? or
>>>> any late capitalist institution?
>>>>
>>>> JAY.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Jay Lemke
>>>> Professor (Adjunct)
>>>> Educational Studies
>>>> University of Michigan
>>>> Ann Arbor, MI 48109
>>>> www.umich.edu/~jaylemke
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Sep 27, 2009, at 9:22 AM, mike cole wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I am pushed to get ready for classes monday, Ageliki.
>>>>
>>>>> I would be glad to discuss the issue I referred to as re-framing
>>>>> within the
>>>>> context of the discussion of learning sciences and vygotsky just to
>>>>> keep it
>>>>> in the bounds of time constraints-- have you read that discussion?
>>>>> Otherwise
>>>>> my comments will make no sense.
>>>>>
>>>>> Within that context, I might start with executive functioning as a
>>>>> "neuroscience term," the discourse on 0-3 and ways to make babies
>>>>> brains
>>>>> develop more quickly (see xmca discussion of brain and
>>>>> education),and the
>>>>> linkages to no-child-left behind. Seems a long way from Kharkov in
>>>>> the late
>>>>> 1930's, or 1990's, or the recent (to the NYTimes) discovery of
>>>>> Vygotsky.
>>>>>
>>>>> mike
>>>>> Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 9:15 AM, Ageliki Nicolopoulou <agn3@lehigh.edu>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Hi Mike,
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Can you explain a bit what you mean by re-framing and why you see
>>>>>> it as an
>>>>>> issue of re-framing?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>> Ageliki
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> **********************************************
>>>>>> Ageliki Nicolopoulou
>>>>>> Professor
>>>>>> Department of Psychology, Lehigh University
>>>>>> 17 Memorial Drive East
>>>>>> Bethlehem, PA 18015-3068
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Personal Webpage:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://www.lehigh.edu/~agn3/index.htm<
>>>>> http://www.lehigh.edu/%7Eagn3/inde
>>>>>
>>>> x.htm
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Departmental Webpage: http://www.lehigh.edu/~inpsy/
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> nicolopoulou.html<http://www.lehigh.edu/%7Einpsy/nicolopoulou.html>
>>>>>> **********************************************
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> mike cole wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks Peter-- I was just about to forward this story. Apart from
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> its
>>>>>>> considerable intrinsic interest to members of this group, it seems
>>>>>>> relevant
>>>>>>> to the prior discussion the origins of learning sciences and the
>>>>>>> ways in
>>>>>>> which re-framing can operate to change the terms of discourse.
>>>>>>> mike
>>>>>>> On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 7:36 AM, Peter Smagorinsky <smago@uga.edu>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> September 27, 2009 The NY Times Magazine Section
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> The School Issue: Preschool
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Can the Right Kinds of Play Teach Self-Control?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> By PAUL TOUGH
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
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