Re: [xmca] Obama's Learn Act and 2 challenges

[Larry Purss <lpurss@shaw.ca>]

Andy
After writing I turned on the TV and started watching Bill Moyers.  He was interviewing a community activist who was helping families who are foreclosed on to stay in there homes.  He said 95% of the people who don't get help get evicted and 95% of the people who are supported by his organization stay in there homes.
The central guiding narrative of his movement is that the economic structures take a position that there actions are not personal, its just economics.  All his strategies (from picketing the bank that is foreclosing on the family to getting TV cameras to video families who refuse to leave and are being evicted) is motivated by a central impulse to make explicit how personal and moral are the banks actions.  Community organizing is challenging the economics narrative as a story that is outside of MORAL DISCOURSE.  The resistance and purpose of all the actions taken is to make visible and explicit that economic activity is fundamentally a moral discourse.  When structures and institutions are presented as "OBJECTIVE" and morality is seen as an individual decision located within the individual we end up with our current dominant narrative notions of culture, social, society, and schools.
Watching this documentary emphasizes that we must explicitly bring the language of morality back into our theories and academic discourses.  I think the way economic discourse can separate families from their homes and everyone agrees it is a travesty but nobody can act because economics is beyond moral discourse is paradigmatic of how we need to give voice to explicitly moral discourse.
Watching Bill Moyers tonight showed the transformation for families and communities when they labelled what the banks were doing as a moral issue.
Of course the question becomes,  Whose moral issue prevails?  My question is if it was framed in moral language at least we would break the hold of the grand economic narratives and relocate the discussion back to moral discourse about how we ought to act.  This is a relational discourse where I and other may then at least have the possibility to recognize each other and negotiate.  
The standpoints that take positions of  amoral, ahistorical, atheoretical narratives can be challenged with alternative relational and moral discourses.
 
Larry
 
  

----- Original Message -----
From: Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
Date: Friday, December 18, 2009 8:35 pm
Subject: Re: [xmca] Obama's Learn Act and 2 challenges
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>

> Larry, I fully support the "strategy" of simply "speaking 
> up" wherever you are. I think I was about 50 before I 
> figured why it is that other people don't "speak up." I 
> think it is *fear*, fear of humiliation and fear of 
> victimisation. I constantly make a fool of myself and 
> actually however much I have publicly criticized the boss, 
> apart from having a glass ceiling on my career, I have never 
> been really victimized. Most people fear humiliation, and 
> with families to feed, etc., fear the sack. By speaking up 
> and not getting killed for it, you encourage others.
> 
> On "critique": a few years ago I came to the conclusion that 
> "critical" (as in "critical thinking") is an ideal that is 
> shared between the Left and the honest Right. OK, there are 
> the Religious Right and Neo-fascists, and maybe it's 
> different in the US, but in the UK and Oz, which is my 
> experience, I have found "critical" a word with very wide 
> acceptance.
> 
> On strategies: With disillusionment with all forms of 
> party-building, I do think, with Larry, that use of the 
> existing forms of agency has a lot to be said for it. After 
> all, in the heyday of Parties, Fronts and Social movements, 
> left-wing Parties, Fronts and Social movements were fighting 
> against right-wing Parties, Fronts and Social movements. All 
> are now nearly bankrupt as vehicles of social change. Beyond 
> that, my personal strategy is to participate in 
> collaborative projects with as wide a variety of people as 
> possible, long term or short term doesn't matter. I agree 
> (nowadays) with Jay, that little leaps are what is needed, 
> and irreversible reforms.
> 
> Andy
> 
> Larry Purss wrote:
> > Jay and everyone who is looking for narratives.
> > I personally believe the process we are now engaged in with 
> fundamentally viewing the world as relational at its foundation 
> is the new narrative.
> > People like Martin Buber and Neibur are taking these ideas and 
> introducing them into Judaism and Christianity. There is a 
> revolution within Buddhism in Japan as they engage with Mead, 
> Gadamer, and Continental philosophy (See Steve Odin's book "The 
> Social Self in Zen and American Pragmatism.  Developmental 
> psychology (Gergeley) is exploring the relational paradigm at 
> the level of neuroscience.  Sociocultural theory does have 
> a foothold in school settings which challenges Piaget (who is 
> one of the psychologists who has captivated school discourse)
> > I personally believe in the imaginative power of acting "AS 
> IF".  I try to take a position in all activities in my 
> professional role to introduce relational themes. I send an 
> article to the superintendent, talk to our social-emotional 
> steering committee at our board office. Talk to my principals, 
> speak up at staff meetings, and at school based team meetings, 
> when meeting with parents, and when intervening in a bullying 
> incident.  
> > The paradigm we are articulating puts discourse and 
> conversation at its center and I believe every time we act and 
> speak and write (even a "behavior plan" as part of an individual 
> education plan) we are influencing the emerging narrative.
> > The central question I am puzzled about is why most people 
> stay silent and let the "committed few" dominate the 
> conversation. Why have we retreated into the private realm where 
> we converse with ourselves (even when the conversation is about 
> not being private) This is where feminism has done a lot of 
> thinking about finding your own voice within a community of others.
> > Yes,  I find it challenging to be offering an 
> "alternative narrative" to the dominant discourse of 
> individualism and being seen as this person who seems to be 
> questioning every program and initiative presented.  
> However, whenever  new ideas (to the staff) such as 
> "dynamic assessment" "reciprocal reading" etc are explored I 
> contact the people to offer support and connect them to others 
> in the district who are  acting relationally. Many of them 
> have no idea the ideas are coming from Vygotsky but they are 
> clearly moving in the direction of "Scaffolding" students work 
> and having students teach each other.  In this way I'm 
> acting "AS IF" my actions are contributing to a new emerging 
> paradigm that is challenging the dominant narrative. Narrative 
> therapy calls this introducing an alternative narrative.
> >  I am trying to understand the historical background that 
> got us to this point in the narrative but it is not a monolithic 
> story.  Entrenched, yes, but not monolithic. If the 
> majority of people are walking around having an uneasy sense 
> that things aren't working then that is the precise condition 
> required to introduce a new alternative narrative INTO 
> PSYCHOLOGY, EDUCATION, CHRISTIANITY, politics, the law, 
> economics, and philosophy etc. When we start to see articles in 
> Psychology Today, or the Economist, or the Christian Science 
> Monitor, then viewing the world relationally will come to 
> challenge the "almost" monolithic view of Cartesian individualism.
> > My point is do we need grand narratives, or many particular 
> situated narratives to shift cultural values?  I know I'm 
> being idealistic but so be it.  Hopefully there is a bit of 
> objectivity in my suggestion
> >  
> > Larry
> > 
> > 
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Jay Lemke <jaylemke@umich.edu>
> > Date: Friday, December 18, 2009 5:45 pm
> > Subject: Re: [xmca] Obama's Learn Act and 2 challenges
> > To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> > 
> >> I like the idea of collecting narratives that have some 
> chance 
> >> of  
> >> going viral, or of becoming part of the evolving folk wisdom 
> of 
> >> a  
> >> community (or whatever an over-scale network like the USA is).
> >>
> >> Some of these may be generic narratives: that formal 
> schooling 
> >> keeps  
> >> dumbing down standards (not one that serves our purposes, 
> alas, 
> >> as it  
> >> presupposes that standards are desirable, and standards means 
> >> test  
> >> results, not quality). Some may indeed be personal narratives 
> of 
> >> how  
> >> we came to a habitus of critical thinking.
> >>
> >> I was appalled a few years ago when some influential 
> >> faculty  
> >> colleagues protested at the inclusion of the word "critical" 
> in 
> >> the  
> >> title of a new PhD subprogram. Their most pragmatic argument 
> was 
> >> that  
> >> it would make us unpopular in (then Republican) Washington, 
> but 
> >> in  
> >> fact they also just felt viscerally that "critical" implied 
> some 
> >> sort  
> >> of anti-American agenda. I thought I'd slipped through a time 
> >> rift  
> >> back to the 1950s. And this was in a university that prides 
> >> itself on  
> >> its liberal progressive heritage and support for minorities 
> and 
> >> social  
> >> justice in higher education.
> >>
> >> I asked whether they were against critical thinking, and they 
> >> said of  
> >> course not, but the word "critical" implied a political 
> agenda. 
> >> (Of  
> >> course, university programs, in public universities, could 
> not 
> >> be  
> >> overtly political -- according to nearly all my colleagues, 
> even 
> >> the  
> >> genuinely liberal ones.) I felt like offering a course on 
> >> the  
> >> educational theories of Chairman Mao, just to see what would 
> >> happen! I  
> >> didn't, but I found my phd students quite receptive to 
> critical 
> >> views  
> >> of the educational establishment and even of basic 
> >> educational  
> >> assumptions in many other courses. In another university 
> where 
> >> I've  
> >> taught, with colleagues a bit more to the left, the phd 
> students 
> >> were  
> >> very left-critical, while the undergrads and MA students were 
> >> much  
> >> more conservative.
> >>
> >> I offer these anecdotes as a reminder of the difficulty of 
> >> promoting a  
> >> discourse that espouses "critical" anything as a goal of 
> >> education. It  
> >> is not so long ago in the US that "developing patriotism" was 
> >> an  
> >> explicit educational goal, morphed post-Vietnam into 
> "good  
> >> citizenship", but with more or less the same meaning.
> >>
> >> My own story is that home was a place where I was simply 
> >> encouraged to  
> >> think for myself, and my primary introduction to critical 
> >> thinking  
> >> came because my parents were of different religions and I 
> >> was  
> >> encouraged to sample various ones and choose for myself. At 
> >> quite a  
> >> young age. I decided that some were nicer than others, but 
> none 
> >> of  
> >> them made much sense. I was a matter-of-fact atheist until I 
> got 
> >> as  
> >> far as the eastern "religions" and realized things were a lot 
> >> more  
> >> complicated than what the Judaeo-Christian-Islamic tradition 
> >> sees. In  
> >> any case I got to do a lot of critiquing of religious belief, 
> >> which  
> >> made me seem quite odd at school. I believe this was the 
> >> early,  
> >> developmental foundation of my critical habitus.
> >>
> >> My high school had someone with a PhD who taught odd elective 
> >> courses  
> >> in sociology and the like, and was sponsor of the Philosophy 
> >> Club. We  
> >> actually discussed Marx in the club meetings (along with many 
> >> others),  
> >> and he asked us not to mention this outside the club. We were 
> >> not  
> >> being indoctrinated, just exposed and had some prevailing 
> folk- 
> >> discourses about communism (early 60s) corrected. And hardly 
> >> anyone in  
> >> the club was pro-Marx, but at least people were questioning 
> what 
> >> he  
> >> actually said, rather than the myths about what communism 
> was. 
> >> I  
> >> myself was not pro-Marx until a few years later.
> >>
> >> My point in these stories is that critical and Left are far 
> >> from  
> >> synonymous. There are many grounds on which to critique 
> social 
> >> beliefs  
> >> and social institutions. Once you get in the habit of doing 
> so, 
> >> you  
> >> are, I think, more likely to wind up agreeing with a lot of 
> >> Marxist  
> >> analysis, at least of capitalism and the history of how we 
> got 
> >> the  
> >> political economy we have and what some of its basic flaws 
> are. 
> >> But I  
> >> think the fundamental outcome I would be looking for is just 
> >> a  
> >> widespread dissatisfaction with basic institutions and the 
> >> beliefs  
> >> that legitimate them. That is of course very dangerous 
> socially 
> >> and  
> >> politically, and conservatives are not entirely wrong in 
> being 
> >> fearful  
> >> of it. It leads quite as easily to HItler as to Lenin.
> >>
> >> My own analysis, for what it's worth is this: it is nearly 
> >> impossible  
> >> to foment radical cultural change in any predictable fashion 
> on 
> >> a  
> >> timescale of decades, but it is possible to marginally 
> increase 
> >> the  
> >> normal rate of cultural and social-institutional change well 
> >> past the  
> >> point at which conservatives start screaming about "anarchy" 
> >> while  
> >> still having a quite functional social system. I also believe 
> >> that  
> >> fundamental change is not incremental, but saltatory 
> >> (qualitative  
> >> jumps); it's just that the jumps are not all that big. (There 
> >> are,  
> >> very rare, exceptions.)
> >>
> >> So what's a small, realistic jump in the right (left?) 
> direction 
> >> for  
> >> our educational goals? I, too, would like to hear narratives, 
> >> either  
> >> generic arguments, or personal stories, of how to move 
> towards a 
> >> goal  
> >> for education of fostering critical habitus and away from one 
> >> of  
> >> cumulating testable knowledge.
> >>
> >> JAY.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Jay Lemke
> >> Professor (Adjunct, 2009-2010)
> >> Educational Studies
> >> University of Michigan
> >> Ann Arbor, MI 48109
> >> www.umich.edu/~jaylemke
> >>
> >> Visiting Scholar
> >> Laboratory for Comparative Human Communication
> >> University of California -- San Diego
> >> La Jolla, CA
> >> USA 92093
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On Dec 17, 2009, at 10:34 PM, Larry Purss wrote:
> >>
> >>> Andy
> >>> I was making a casual comment, but your response does speak 
> to 
> >> the  
> >>> personal biases we all have when we talk about more 
> >> general,  
> >>> abstract theory.
> >>> I wonder how unique each of our paths are to how we start 
> >> to  
> >>> question our assumptions.  I don't think I can 
> personally 
> >> credit my  
> >>> family directly  and I certainly reacted to the 
> >> meaningless of  
> >>> school, quitting school in grade 10 (in the 60's).
> >>> However, I still think I credit school with learning how to 
> >> read,  
> >>> and enjoying fantasy and science fiction in elementary 
> >> school.  I  
> >>> would also credit living in the 60's counter culture as 
> >> formative.   
> >>> I also agree that for many, school closed off exploration 
> >> and  
> >>> stigmatized them (the whole culture of disability)  
> >> However I still  
> >>> think my schooling (even in reaction to it) was formative 
> and 
> >> helped  
> >>> me personally become literate.
> >>> My family narrative was my grandparents were coal miners 
> >> from  
> >>> Scotland who immigrated to Canada in 1914. Therefore when I 
> >> think of  
> >>> how I live today and what I value which is very different 
> from 
> >> my  
> >>> parents and grandparents my personal narrative credits 
> >> schooling  
> >>> (and my disillusionment with schooling) as a formative part 
> of 
> >> my  
> >>> upbringing.
> >>> The question I ask is must the institutional structures 
> >> of  
> >>> schooling  be blown up and we start over, or is it 
> >> possible for  
> >>> schools to evolve?  I recognize either position can be 
> >> defended but  
> >>> I guess I still idealistically am acting AS IF schooling can 
> >> be  
> >>> transformed. I see schools as a reflection of the dominant 
> >> cultural  
> >>> values and if we are attempting to change  cultural 
> >> practises then  
> >>> schools are as good a place as any other to engage in that 
> project.>>> But I do agree with Jay that the people in power who 
> make 
> >> decisions  
> >>> are not thinking about learning theory.  However, the 
> >> question still  
> >>> is do we at least make an effort to transform schools or say 
> >> it is  
> >>> an impossible task.
> >>> I wonder if my personal narrative and how I think about my 
> >> schooling  
> >>> (looking back, projecting into the future, and acting in 
> >> the  
> >>> present) colours the position I take on this debate. Since I 
> >> choose  
> >>> to act within that system I must believe it can be changed. 
> At 
> >> least  
> >>> I think this on good days.
> >>> Larry
> >>>
> >>> ----- Original Message -----
> >>> From: Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
> >>> Date: Thursday, December 17, 2009 8:28 pm
> >>> Subject: Re: [xmca] Obama's Learn Act and 2 challenges
> >>> Cc: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> >>>
> >>>> Larry, speaking for myself, it was more likely my parents,
> >>>> both members of the CPA, but certainly not the MacCarthyite
> >>>> education I got at school, who taught me to critique my own
> >>>> society ... though school gave me plenty of early target
> >>>> practice. And I think the point Mike, Jay and others have
> >>>> made (along with Bourdieu whom I referred to) is that people
> >>>> mostly learn critique at home. Alternatively, their home
> >>>> becomes the first target of their normal adolescent
> >>>> critique. But not school.
> >>>>
> >>>> Andy
> >>>>
> >>>> Larry Purss wrote:
> >>>>> Andy
> >>>>> I agree that the forces of inertia are daunting but there is
> >>>> always an
> >>>>> alternative story.
> >>>>> The question I ask is if the system is so monolithic how did
> >>>> all the
> >>>>> people engaged in CHAT learn to critique their own culture
> >>>> because I'm
> >>>>> assuming you think that is happening on this website.
> >>>> I'm making
> >>>>> another assumption that many or most of us went through that
> >>>> school
> >>>>> system.  You might say that we are the exception to the
> >>>> rule but my
> >>>>> answer is if we are the exception how did that happen.
> >>>>> To me the bigger puzzle is how people who inhabit CHAT are
> >>>> changing the
> >>>>> world?  I will introduce another metaphor that I think
> >>>> can capture the
> >>>>> imagination. It is how we re-establish the "commons".
> >>>>> A place where people with their differences gather and
> >>>> interact to find
> >>>>> common ground.  This speaks to the book "Habits of the
> >>>> Heart" which was
> >>>>> popular many years ago. That book saw the loss of the commons
> >>>> as central
> >>>>> to our loss of shared purpose.
> >>>>> In summary, reflecting and critiquing one's own culture as an
> >>>> individual
> >>>>> pursuit of cognition can leave us inhabiting ivory towers but
> >>>> leave the
> >>>>> structures in place.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I know this is common sense on this site but Andy's post
> >>>> generated the
> >>>>> reverie.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Larry
> >>>>>
> >>>>> ----- Original Message -----
> >>>>> From: Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
> >>>>> Date: Thursday, December 17, 2009 3:55 pm
> >>>>> Subject: Re: [xmca] Obama's Learn Act and 2 challenges
> >>>>> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> When I was first exposed to the idea that formal schooling
> >>>>>> is a machine for producing failure (via the MCA
> >>>> article for
> >>>>>> discussion) I recoiled in disbelief, but have come to accept
> >>>>>> it as an obvious truth, despite the efforts of almost
> >>>>>> everyone involved in the system to make it otherwise.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Still, could I throw another question at this idea? During
> >>>>>> the 70s and 80s in Britain, there was a folk belief
> >>>> that the
> >>>>>> school system did everything it could to ensure that a kid
> >>>>>> *never* failed. If a child, for example, was doing
> >>>> poorly in
> >>>>>> maths, they would be moved into a "stream" where the
> >>>> bar was
> >>>>>> set so low that no-one could fail. When kids come out the
> >>>>>> other end of the system (and according to legend) their
> >>>>>> parents believed from school reports which have shown "pass"
> >>>>>> all the way through, that their child has successfully
> >>>>>> "graduated" only to discover that they can't read or do
> >>>>>> basic arithmetic, and cannot get any job they would want.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> I think my interpretation of this story is that this
> >>>> does go
> >>>>>> on, and it is just another way of producing failure, proving
> >>>>>> that it happens despite teachers' efforts. Is that right?
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> And Greg, I think I agree with what I took to be Jay's
> >>>>>> vision of the kind of education we need: training in the
> >>>>>> ability to critique one's own culture. And this is
> >>>> what is
> >>>>>> absolutely ruled out.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> And Bourdieu shows how the dominant social classes deftly
> >>>>>> move the goal posts every generation so that no amount of
> >>>>>> educational efforts at upward mobility are widely
> >>>> successful.>  >
> >>>>>> Andy
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Gregory Allan Thompson wrote:
> >>>>>>> I was intrigued by Jay's post. It seems to cut to
> >>>> the core in
> >>>>>>> a very straightforward manner.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> In response, I wanted to pose two challenges:
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> First, I wonder if there might be ways to present the
> >>>>>>> alternative to thinking of education merely in terms of
> >>>>>>> testable knowledge/skills? It seems that there are
> >>>> circulating>  > > discourses that could be picked up on
> >>>> (troped upon?) and which
> >>>>>>> would help to shed some light on an alternative to
> >>>> this. For
> >>>>>>> example, the common cynicism of people of all political
> >>>>>>> persuasions about testable knowledge.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> It would seem like an important part of this project
> >>>> will be
> >>>>>>> to couch it in terms that aren't so left-ist and
> >>>> exclusionary.>  > > I know this may seem like "selling-out"
> >>>> to some, but in the
> >>>>>>> world of policy pragmatism, it is hard to see any
> >>>> other way to
> >>>>>>> make this change happen (short of revolution - and
> >>>> since I
> >>>>>>> haven't heard this word spoken on this listserve
> >>>> (except with
> >>>>>>> regard to ontogenetic development) I will assume a deep
> >>>>>>> pragmatism resides here).
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> To give an example, I recall a story that one of my
> >>>> mentors,>  > > Frank Margonis, used to tell about Dewey's
> >>>> way of
> >>>>>>> characterizing testing. It went something like this:
> >>>> (actually>  > > this is taken from the only place I could
> >>>> find it, a 1959
> >>>>>>> School Review article - anyone have a better
> >>>> description?).>  > >
> >>>>>>> "Dewey once remarked to a younger colleague in the
> >>>> department>  > > of philosophy at Columbia University that
> >>>> the techniques of
> >>>>>>> "intelligence" tests reminded him of the methods
> >>>> used in
> >>>>>>> Vermont during his boyhood to weigh pigs. A thick
> >>>> plank was
> >>>>>>> laid across a stone wall and then stones of a
> >>>> predetermined>  > > weight were piled on one end until the
> >>>> pig at the other end
> >>>>>>> was brought to balance."
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Here is a rhetorically powerful way of criticizing
> >>>>>>> intelligence testing - but, of course, it is one
> >>>> that wouldn't
> >>>>>>> carry much weight today because it is far from most folks'
> >>>>>>> experience. So, what kinds of pithy stories can we
> >>>> tell today
> >>>>>>> that would point out the problems with the testable
> >>>>>>> knowledge/skills paradigm?
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> I don't know if this listserve is the place to share such
> >>>>>>> stories, but I just wanted to put it on people's
> >>>> minds. But if
> >>>>>>> anyone has a brief narrative to share, I'd be
> >>>> interested in
> >>>>>>> helping to make it "go viral" (as they say today -
> >>>> or maybe
> >>>>>>> someone could make a 2 minute Youtube video?).
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Oh, and I promised two challenges at the outset but I've
> >>>>>>> already mentioned the second: how do we make this
> >>>> agenda not
> >>>>>>> simply a "leftist" agenda? I would think that
> >>>> Dewey's notion
> >>>>>>> of "democratic education" might be useful (if only
> >>>> it could be
> >>>>>>> purged of its apparent political affiliations). Or maybe
> >>>>>>> "citizenship education" (although i suspect those on
> >>>> the left
> >>>>>>> would feel that this is not sufficiently
> >>>> pluralistic). Would
> >>>>>>> there be a way to dovetail this with some type of Ethics
> >>>>>>> education that would appeal to those on the right
> >>>> who get all
> >>>>>>> excited about "character education"?
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Dewey is said to have learned from Jane Addams (in
> >>>> what must
> >>>>>>> have been a somewhat "antagonistic" moment of
> >>>> debate) that
> >>>>>>> antagonisms are "unreal". Addams believed that
> >>>> antagonism was
> >>>>>>> always unnecessary and never arose from real objective
> >>>>>>> differences. Rather it was simply due to the
> >>>> injection of the
> >>>>>>> personal attitude and reaction, thus delaying and
> >>>> distorting>  > > the recognition of meaning. Dewey says
> >>>> that he realized that
> >>>>>>> he had been interpreting the [Hegelian] dialectic
> >>>> "wrong end
> >>>>>>> up" - he had seen the unity as the reconciliation of
> >>>>>>> opposites, instead of the opposites as the unity in its
> >>>>>> growth.
> >>>>>>> I wonder if there might be some truth to this in all this
> >>>>>>> political bickering about what is best, educationally
> >>>>>>> speaking, for our children? (and btw, kudos to the
> >>>> folks on
> >>>>>>> this listserve for avoiding simple politicizations
> >>>> of the
> >>>>>>> problem, as we often see around us: "we're
> >>>>>>> right/good/intelligent and they're wrong/bad/stupid").
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Whether with this administration or others, it seems like
> >>>>>>> there might be hope (!?) to move beyond the testable
> >>>> knowledge>  > > view of things, and, more importantly,
> >>>> beyond a view of
> >>>>>>> antagonisms between people as inherent to human
> >>>> nature (wasn't
> >>>>>>> this at the heart of Marx's vision of communism?).
> >>>> But my
> >>>>>>> analysis thus far is simply interpreting the world
> >>>> in various
> >>>>>>> ways, as someone once said, the point is to change it.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> -greg
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> p.s. Having read Marx in some detail this quarter, I
> >>>> wanted to
> >>>>>>> add a critique of "pscyhologism" ("individualism" in the
> >>>>>>> translation of Marx that we read) to Jay's critique
> >>>> of the
> >>>>>>> dominant view of education, but I fear that it will take
> >>>>>>> nothing short of a Revolution to allow us to see
> >>>> ourselves as
> >>>>>>> anything but self-determining psychological
> >>>> individuals (or
> >>>>>>> rather, psychological realizations of our genetic
> >>>>>>> individuality). But in the event that anyone has any pithy
> >>>>>>> narratives that capture the absurdity of this rather
> >>>> hegemonic>  > > belief, please do share. I've got a career
> >>>> ahead of me in
> >>>>>>> which I hope to develop this critique, but there is
> >>>> no time
> >>>>>>> like the present for developing such a database of
> >>>> narratives.>  > >
> >>>>>>>> Message: 7
> >>>>>>>> Date: Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:37:58 -0800
> >>>>>>>> From: Jay Lemke <jaylemke@umich.edu>
> >>>>>>>> Subject: Re: [xmca] Obama's Learn Act
> >>>>>>>> To: lchcmike@gmail.com, "eXtended Mind, Culture,
> >>>> Activity">  > >>  <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> >>>>>>>> Message-ID: <C1BF12E2-5893-4BB5-AE8C-
> >>>> 3D721BF8D958@umich.edu>>  > >> Content-Type: text/plain;
> >>>> charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed;
> >>>>>>> delsp=yes
> >>>>>>>> Let me sound a slightly skeptical note, though with the
> >>>>>>> greatest
> >>>>>>>> admiration for the efforts of Kris and other
> >>>> sophisticated>  > > educators
> >>>>>>>> to influence policy in Washington. Maybe some of
> >>>> these points
> >>>>>>> may also
> >>>>>>>> be informative for the non-US xmca-ers.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> I don't really think that US educational policy is about
> >>>>>>> learning. It
> >>>>>>>> is a branch of SOCIAL policy. It is, for
> >>>> politicians and many
> >>>>>>> voters,
> >>>>>>>> about equity, justice, moral values, quality of the labor
> >>>>>>> force.
> >>>>>>>> Conservatives by and large won the battle from the
> >>>> 1970s-90s
> >>>>>>> over the
> >>>>>>>> definition of educational quality: it means
> >>>> knowledge and
> >>>>>>> skills, as
> >>>>>>>> assessed by simple, mass-administered tests. They
> >>>> succeeded>  > > because
> >>>>>>>> what they proposed was very close to common folk-wisdom
> >>>>>> about
> >>>>>>>> schooling. They proposed what they did to prevent
> >>>> education>  > > from
> >>>>>>>> becoming about learning how to critique and change
> >>>> the status
> >>>>>>> quo.
> >>>>>>>> Within the framework they established, the liberal left
> >>>>>>> looked to see
> >>>>>>>> how they (we?) could still use education as an tool for
> >>>>>> social
> >>>>>>>> justice. The answer basically, from Head Start to
> >>>> NCLB (the
> >>>>>>> Bush-era
> >>>>>>>> policy) was to try to insure that children from
> >>>> poor families
> >>>>>>> got
> >>>>>>>> enough extra programs to help them compete with
> >>>> middle-class
> >>>>>>> kids in
> >>>>>>>> the world of testable knowledge/skills. I think
> >>>> that is the
> >>>>>>> course
> >>>>>>>> that Obama is still on. It seems likely to me that his
> >>>>>> personal
> >>>>>>>> experience would be telling him that kids in under-
> >>>>>> resourced
> >>>>>>>> communities go to school relatively unprepared for its
> >>>>>>> demands, and so
> >>>>>>>> pre-school programs should be targeted to diagnostically
> >>>>>>> specific
> >>>>>>>> needs relative to predictable school demands. That
> >>>> how the
> >>>>>>> language of
> >>>>>>>> the proposed bill sounds to me.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> Politicians, senators, and even higher level staff people
> >>>>>>> probably
> >>>>>>>> don't know much about learning theory and don't
> >>>> have the time
> >>>>>>> to
> >>>>>>>> learn. If it is theory or models that use
> >>>> unfamiliar ideas,
> >>>>>>> all the
> >>>>>>>> less likely to be able to persuade or communicate.
> >>>>>> Neuroscience
> >>>>>>>> evidence for early social learning or artifact-hybridity
> >>>>>> in
> >>>>>>>> development may as well be discourse from Mars in their
> >>>>>> world.
> >>>>>>>> National political policy I think cannot be realistically
> >>>>>>> expected to
> >>>>>>>> embody advanced learning theories. That discourse
> >>>> should have
> >>>>>>> its
> >>>>>>>> practical effects far more locally, in terms of
> >>>> what teachers
> >>>>>>> get
> >>>>>>>> taught about good practice in schools, and maybe
> >>>> what others
> >>>>>>> who are
> >>>>>>>> trying to innovate new approaches to education that
> >>>> go beyond
> >>>>>>> the
> >>>>>>>> classroom-only paradigm take into account.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> Apart from trying to avoid overly narrow language (and
> >>>>>> more
> >>>>>>>> importantly, administrative interpretation of
> >>>> language) about
> >>>>>>> what
> >>>>>>>> kinds of programs can get federal funding, I think
> >>>> the core
> >>>>>>> issues at
> >>>>>>>> the national policy level ought to be more about
> >>>> goals. Equal
> >>>>>>> learning
> >>>>>>>> opportunity in practice is a widely shared goal;
> >>>> the means to
> >>>>>>> it are
> >>>>>>>> much debated. What is less addressed, I think, is whether
> >>>>>>> knowledge
> >>>>>>>> and skills acquisition should be in itself the primary
> >>>>>>> educational
> >>>>>>>> goal. So long as that conservative principle is
> >>>> maintained,>  > > social
> >>>>>>>> equity goals will lead to bad educational practice
> >>>> for all,
> >>>>>> and
> >>>>>>>> especially for those most in need.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> Reading, for example, is NOT "fundamental". It is a
> >>>> diversion>  > > from
> >>>>>>>> serious educational thinking. (R.I.F. was a slogan long
> >>>>>>> supported by
> >>>>>>>> the right, though not only by them.) Reading is a
> >>>> tool, to be
> >>>>>>> learned
> >>>>>>>> and used as part of larger inquiries and activities with
> >>>>>>> goals that
> >>>>>>>> mean something to the learners. Those could be play
> >>>> goals, or
> >>>>>>> self-
> >>>>>>>> empowerment goals, or altruistic goals. So long as what
> >>>>>>> schools will
> >>>>>>>> demand of kids on arrival is that they be prepared to
> >>>>>> learn
> >>>>>>>> decontextualized de-coding skills (i.e. "reading"),
> >>>> and do
> >>>>>>> well on
> >>>>>>>> tests of these that are even more isolated from
> >>>> anything with
> >>>>>>> larger
> >>>>>>>> meaning, then all pre-school preparation programs
> >>>> will be
> >>>>>>> targeted at
> >>>>>>>> preparing students for mindlessness. And social
> >>>> equity and
> >>>>>>> social
> >>>>>>>> justice agendas in social policy will support this.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> It's not about the means. It's about the goals.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> JAY.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> Jay Lemke
> >>>>>>>> Professor (Adjunct, 2009-2010)
> >>>>>>>> Educational Studies
> >>>>>>>> University of Michigan
> >>>>>>>> Ann Arbor, MI 48109
> >>>>>>>> www.umich.edu/~jaylemke
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> Visiting Scholar
> >>>>>>>> Laboratory for Comparative Human Communication
> >>>>>>>> University of California -- San Diego
> >>>>>>>> La Jolla, CA
> >>>>>>>> USA 92093
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> ---------------------------------------
> >>>>>>> Greg Thompson
> >>>>>>> Ph.D. Candidate
> >>>>>>> The Department of Comparative Human Development
> >>>>>>> The University of Chicago
> >>>>>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>>>>> xmca mailing list
> >>>>>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> >>>>>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>> --
> >>>>>> -------------------------------------------------------
> >>>> ----------
> >>>>>> -------
> >>>>>> Andy Blunden http://home.mira.net/~andy/ +61 3 9380 9435
> >>>>>> Skype andy.blunden
> >>>>>> Hegel's Logic with a Foreword by Andy Blunden:
> >>>>>> http://www.marxists.org/admin/books/index.htm
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>>>> xmca mailing list
> >>>>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> >>>>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >>>>>>
> >>>> -- 
> >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
> --
> >> ---
> >>>> -------
> >>>> Andy Blunden http://home.mira.net/~andy/ +61 3 9380 9435
> >>>> Skype andy.blunden
> >>>> Hegel's Logic with a Foreword by Andy Blunden:
> >>>> http://www.marxists.org/admin/books/index.htm
> >>>>
> >>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>> xmca mailing list
> >>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> >>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >>>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> xmca mailing list
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> >>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >>>
> >>>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> xmca mailing list
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> >>
> > d
> >   
> > _______________________________________________
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> 
> -- 
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> -------
> Andy Blunden http://home.mira.net/~andy/ +61 3 9380 9435 
> Skype andy.blunden
> Hegel's Logic with a Foreword by Andy Blunden:
> http://www.marxists.org/admin/books/index.htm
> 
> _______________________________________________
> xmca mailing list
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