Re: [xmca] Lindqvist on Leontiev on Play - collision between making sense and made sense

[mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>]

Apropos of thinking about the ways in which new forms of mediation shape
forms of thought, here, from the past millenuium, are some possibly relevant
thoughts.
mike

http://lchc.ucsd.edu/People/MCole/Bruner15PDF.pdf

On Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 7:22 AM, <ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org> wrote:

> Leif:
>
> Boats are on topic for me.  We are back at it building a river skiff with
> the students.  Always a blast to see urban kids with planes and spoke
> shavers.  Techniques are 'old school' such as teaching the students to
> find part of their body that equals an inch or a foot, etc.
>
> During the building students learn the 'lingo" of the trade that port is
> left, starboard is right, bow is front, etc.  Inquisitive minds wanted to
> know the reason behind the different words and it falls into the category
> of status and commodity.  If  a boat builder 'owned' the skill then that
> skill was tied into the boatbuilding 'lingo'.
>
> The class isn't about the skill of boatbuildoing but rather about the
> culture of teamwork.
>
> eric
>
>
>
>
> Leif Strandberg <leifstrandberg.ab@telia.com>
> Sent by: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
> 02/03/2010 06:50 AM
> Please respond to "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
>
>
>        To:     "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
>         cc:
>        Subject:        Re: [xmca] Lindqvist on Leontiev on Play - collision
> between making sense
> and made sense
>
>
> Hi,
>
> apropos Aleutian kayaks and oral traditions and IT
>
> I once visited a kayak work-shop where two persons showed different
> ways of finding out the right measures (lenght, width, depth to ridge
> etcetera) of a kayak (in fact an Aleut Baidarka). One person came
> from Akun Island (Alaska) and had learned the handicraft through oral
> tradition (and of course lots of practice). He only used his knife
> and his body (body measures) as tools. The other was a Danish
> engineer using CAD/CAM technique. When they presented their results
> they  both had created almost the same design of a kayak (baidarka).
>
> So, modern technique is not necessarily inferior to older one -
> apropos face-book etcetere.
>
> :-)
>
> Leif
> Sweden
> 3 feb 2010 kl. 11.31 skrev Rod Parker-Rees:
>
> > David,
> >
> > I don't think I am all that optimistic about the ways in which
> > technology is still transforming the relationship between
> > 'individuals' and their cultural ecology. I am interested in the
> > ways in which communication at a distance depends on a
> > sophisticated internalisation of 'primary' aspects of communication
> > - I have never met you but I have a set of assumptions about how
> > you are likely to respond to things I type. What makes me less
> > optimistic is the feeling that 'remote' communication might be
> > eating into the time which people have available for the more
> > intimate, face to face and body to body forms of communication (I
> > mean picking up on cues about feelings which are expressed in vocal
> > tension, gesture, gaze direction etc.). If we see communication
> > more and more in terms of a trading in symbols rather than a
> > sharing of sense (co-creation of common meanings with all the
> > tangles of emotional and corporeal connotations) then I see a risk
> > of social dis-integration. On the other hand, I can see myself as
> > an old chimpanzee grumbling that the newfangled use of speech means
> > that people don't do as much fur grooming and nit-picking as they
> > used to - and I can see in my own children that the massive
> > increase in symbol-trading has not turned them into social
> > isolates, they still manage to get on fine with friends when they
> > do meet up and they seem to enjoy meeting up every bit as much as I
> > do.
> >
> > I came across a lovely analogy on the 'Edge' website recently -
> > http://www.edge.org/q2010/q10_2.html  George Dyson writes about the
> > difference between Aleut kayak building (gather pieces of
> > driftwood, bone etc, tie it all together to make a frame and then
> > stretch skins over it to make a boat) and Tlingit dugout canoes
> > (take a tree trunk and remove as much as you can until a boat is
> > left). Dyson argues that we used to take an Aleutian approach to
> > information, assembling arguments from scarce and hard won pieces
> > of information but that we may now need to focus more on digging
> > arguments out of the mass of information available to us. We have
> > to chop out the spam, the reality TV etc. to make something useful,
> > elegant and pleasing from the mass of stuff at our disposal.
> >
> > Stories for children is a whole other thing! Written, published,
> > sold and bought by adults, even though the stories may be already
> > well within the common domain, they tell us more about adults'
> > anxieties about childhood than about what children are interested
> > in. All the arguments about 'age appropriate material' seem to miss
> > the crucial fact that when an adult shares a book with a child the
> > book is a tool to support, frame and pattern interaction, not a
> > chest of meanings to be delivered from the page to the child's
> > mind! The scary bits of fairy tales (child-killing, eating of
> > people, cutting stomachs open etc.) provide opportunities for a
> > child to experience horrific situations while safely cuddled up
> > with an adult who can offer reassurance and safety - if any
> > possibility of upset is edited out (I remember versions of 'Little
> > Red Riding Hood' in which she jumps onto a wardrobe rather than
> > being eaten by the wolf) children will not have the opportunity to
> > enjoy the experience of contemplating danger from a safe vantage
> > point.
> >
> > I have just been teaching a group using Merlin Donald and Steven
> > Mithen's arguments about the importance of mimesis as a kind of
> > 'missing link' between prelinguistic and later ways of making sense
> > of the world and I think Donald's sections on 'mythic culture' have
> > a lot to say about how information has a very different status for
> > oral cultures (if the stories are not retold, the accumulated
> > knowledge of the group is lost) and for literate ones. For children
> > the structure and patterning of stories seem to be at least as
> > important as the details of their content - surprise is fun but
> > knowing what to expect is comforting.
> >
> > Apologies for a rambling response.
> >
> > Rod
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-
> > bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of David Kellogg
> > Sent: 02 February 2010 22:37
> > To: Culture ActivityeXtended Mind
> > Subject: RE: [xmca] Lindqvist on Leontiev on Play - collision
> > between making sense and made sense
> >
> > Rod (not "Rees", Mike!):
> >
> > Thanks for your note. One of my grads is using your work in her
> > work--she's interested in the extraordinary difference we've
> > discovered between the creativity of language (in this case, the
> > GRAMMATICAL creativity of SECOND language) in primary
> > intersubjectivity (which as we all know is the leading edge of
> > first language development) and secondary intersubjectivity (which
> > appears, in some important ways, to lead in second language
> > development). She's trying to operationalize alot of what you said
> > about creativity in your recent article (which you kindly posted
> > for us here) by using Tomasello's neat distinction between fixed
> > expressions, item-based "combinations", and what she calls abstract
> > creative constructions.
> >
> > I'm afraid I'm not as optimistic as you are about the ability of
> > new technological means to make a big difference in the way we
> > think. Perhaps this is true of technological means of production,
> > both because the actual increase in production impacts people's
> > lives in the short run and, in the long run, the DECREASE in
> > SURPLUS value produced leads inexorably to a fall in the rate of
> > profit. Both of these are material constraints on the way we think.
> >
> >
> > It seems to me that the issue you raise, when you talk about how
> > the ability to store track changes, is not a difference in
> > production, but rather a way in which the very distinction between
> > text and discourse (which I have made such hay out of) is starting
> > to disappear, and with it the distinction between sense and meaning
> > (which Vygotsky, in his day, also made hay with). If the visible
> > trace of a discourse is infinitely malleable, unfinalizeable, then
> > it is no longer the trace of a discourse; it's the discourse
> > itself. There is ONLY outside text, and no actual text.
> >
> > You suggest that this might lead to making literature more porous
> > to children's responses; we might actually get a child literature
> > instead of a children's lit, that is, something that is written as
> > well as read by kids the way that, say, Russian literature is
> > written by Russians but read by the whole world.
> >
> > But you also admit, and it seems to me that this more likely, that
> > this child literature might get lost in the flood of adult drivel,
> > exactly the way that child motives, child aims, child goals for
> > play are completely ignored in Leontiev (or, to take a more
> > immediate example, the way that e-mail has been strangled by spam,
> > television throttled by 'reality TV', the cinema devestated by the
> > 'blockbuster', etc.)
> >
> > To me, that's just why Lindqvist's critique of Leontiev is so
> > important. Here is a man around whom the entire world changed,
> > touched, or at least brushed, by the greatest genius in child
> > psychology of the twentieth century, a man who then looked both
> > ways and produced a "theory" of play that is essentially no
> > different from what Piaget comes up with in "Play, Imitation, and
> > Dreams": play is essentiallly assimilative and only labor has
> > accomodational potential. For Piaget, that is almost synonymous
> > with creative potential. But then why create, if the result is the
> > same old drivel?
> >
> > I have on my desk a version of "Goldilocks" by James Marshall,
> > which, I am reliably informed by the cover, won the Caldecott
> > medal, was  a 'pick of the lists' for American Bookseller, and an
> > ALA notable book. We are told that it is an offbeat and inventive
> > retelling of the story tht will "enchant readers young and old" (a
> > nice tip, that; they are going to aim at two audiences, the paying
> > and the non-paying. I wonder who will get priority?)
> >
> > Now, the original story of the Three Bears, by Robert Southey, is
> > not about Goldilocks at all; it's really about three bears  (all
> > male; it's not a family) who resist the intruder, a rude,
> > mannerless old crone, who is collared by the local bailiff for
> > vagrancy. Like most tales of its time (1838) it's a pretty vicious
> > anti-working class diatribe (the Lake Poets, including Southey,
> > were what we would call neo-Cons today). But the Marshall version
> > is not at all "off beat" and it's nowhere near as inventive or
> > appealing as the original, of which it is apparently unaware. The
> > funniest it gets is when baby bear tastes the porridge and says
> > "I'm dying" at which Mama Bear suggests "That's quite enough. Let's
> > go for a walk."
> >
> > Part of the problem is precisely this unawareness, this loss of
> > track changes. Of course, we all know that it is perfectly possible
> > to understand the original of something through the parody. Many of
> > us have read Don Quixote without reading Amadis de Gaul, and more
> > of us know Goldilocks as a heroine than as a villain.
> >
> > But parody is always a very BACKWARD looking understanding; in many
> > ways like the replacement of sense with meaning of which you speak
> > (meaning SUBSUMES sense, but in so doing a lot of the vigor and
> > liveliness and directness of sense is lost). And when the original
> > is entirely lost sight of, the child has sacrificed sense and
> > gained no meaning in return; we have somehow managed to produce
> > disenchantment without having any enchantment in the first place.
> >
> > David Kellogg
> > Seoul National University of Education
> >
> > --- On Tue, 2/2/10, Rod Parker-Rees <R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk>
> > wrote:
> >
> >
> > From: Rod Parker-Rees <R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk>
> > Subject: RE: [xmca] Lindqvist on Leontiev on Play - collision
> > between making sense and made sense
> > To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> > Date: Tuesday, February 2, 2010, 3:36 AM
> >
> >
> > I have always been struck by Vygotsky's reference (in 'The
> > development of higher mental functions') to the collision between
> > the creative meaning making of children and the created meanings
> > available to them in the culture in which they swim:
> >
> > "The very essence of cultural development is in the collision of
> > mature cultural forms of behaviour with the primitive forms that
> > characterise the child's behaviour." (not sure about the
> > translation here).
> >
> > For me it is the active making of sense which each new generation
> > contributes which keeps the 'made sense' of culture alive and
> > responsive to changing circumstances. There is also an argument
> > that the made culture feeds back into the process in that oral
> > cultures tend to be much more conservative, keen to maintain and
> > preserve their lore, than literate cultures which can rely on books
> > to 'keep track' of changes and allow us to go back if we find that
> > changes don't work out too well. New technologies which allow
> > massive amounts of information to be stored, including endless
> > versions with all their 'track changes' annotations and
> > commentaries should make us more open to the sparks struck by
> > collisions with children's 'outsider' perspective but I wonder
> > whether they might also tend to exclude these 'naïve'
> > contributions, much as literacy tends to shut out the preliterate
> > and the illiterate.
> >
> > All the best,
> >
> > Rod
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-
> > bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of David Kellogg
> > Sent: 02 February 2010 05:24
> > To: xmca
> > Subject: [xmca] Lindqvist on Leontiev on Play
> >
> > Or rather, Monica Nilsson on the magnificent Gunilla Lindvist on
> > Leontiev on play, writing in one of the papers in the current issue
> > of MCA:
> >
> > "Lindqvist is critical of how Vygotsky's successors came to
> > interpret his theory of play. Vygotsky emphasized teh dialectics
> > expressed through the relation between the adult world and the
> > child's world and also between the will and the emotion. She writes
> > that Leontiev sees no tension between the adult world and the
> > child's world and that play, for him, is about a child's inability
> > to acquire adult roles. When a child can't perform adult actions he
> > instead creates a fictitious situation. This situation, Lindqvist
> > writes, is, for Leontiev, the most significant sign of play. Thus
> > play is the sign of the child's inferiority, and hence play is in
> > fact an infantile activity because, as Lindqvist states, from this
> > perspective, the child will gradually grow into the adult world and
> > play is diected toward the future. Moreover, she claims that the
> > implication is a stress on reproduction (of adult roles) at the
> > expense of creativity. Therefore, she attempts to
> > reinterpret Vygotsky's play theory, based on his original thoughts
> > in The Psychology of Art, and his inquires (sic) into creativity
> > and imagination. According to Lindqvist, Vygotsky's idesas give
> > rise to a creative pedagogical approach instead of an instrumental
> > one. This is because Vygotsky shows how children interpret and
> > perform their experiences by creating new meaning and how emotions
> > characterize their interpretations, that is, how emotion and
> > thought unit in the process of knowledge construction." (p. 16).
> >
> > Kozulin remarks (on p. 25 of HIS magnificent book, Psychological
> > Tools, on how Leontiev's emphasis on practical activity instead of
> > semiotic tools led him into a kind of "Piagtian program of
> > exploring the internalization of sensorimotor actions".
> >
> > But it really took Gunilla Lindqvist to point out the terrible
> > consequences that a neo-Piagetian program like Leontiev's might
> > have for children at precisely the age that Piaget called
> > "sensorimotor".
> >
> > David Kellogg
> > Seoul National University of Education
> >
> >
> >
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