Em, Steve, Andy, and even Mike...
Wittgenstein talks about how meaning something looks like going up
to someone and touching them on the shoulder. He also says, in the
famous passage of "Philosophical Investigations" devoted to
"language games", that we have to LOOK at games and SEE family
resemblances instead of thinking about them.
So take a look at this. The data is fictionalized, but not that much.
T: The objective of today's lesson is self-introduction. We're going
to learn about how to give our names and get other people's names
when we meet for the first time. (going up to a child) Hi, there!
S: Hi.
T: I'm Mr. Kim. And you?
S: Sujeong.
T: Hi, Sujeong. And her?
S: Inkyeong.
T: Hi, Inkyeong...
etc.
T: That's all for today. Today we learned about giving and getting
names. Tomorrow we'll learn more about self-introductions.
Now, if you put this on your word processing program and you block
it off and "center" it instead of having it all crammed up against
the left hand margin, you will get a good VISUAL (and microgenetic)
representation of the points I'm going to make (about ontogenesis).
It has a long sentence at the top and another long one at the bottom
and it's slim and narrow in between, like a capital "I" or maybe an
underlined "T".
Of course, some teachers have a "wine glass" shape. That is, the
teacher and the kids take pretty long turns at the beginning of the
class and then there's a lot of short and fast back and forth in the
middle, and then there's something long at the very end, like the
base of a wine glass. And other teachers are "hour glass" shaped,
with a buxom introduction and generous hips, but a narrow waist in
the middle. (I myself, I'm afraid, am rather pear shaped). But in
general, a lesson is shaped like the letter "X", fat on top and
bottom and thin in the middle. (I've run a lot of statistics on
this, and I can say it with some confidence.)
Why? Well, I think what is going on at the top of the lesson is the
unpacking of complex words like "self-introduction" into simple
words with complex grammar ("We're going to learn about how to get
names and give our names when we meet for the first time").
But the teacher is teaching children. So the complex grammar also
has to be deconstrued, and the way that is done is to render it
"interpsychological", that is, social. (I don't really understand
why Andy objects to this term; perhaps he can explain). In other
words, just as complex morpology is re-expressed as complex syntax,
complex syntax is re-expressed as complex discourse (the "waist" of
the lesson).
At the end of the lesson, there is the "inflowing of sense" that
Vygotsky talks about. The word "self-introduction" absorbs all of
the sense that the complex discourse released during the 'waist" of
the lesson, and it becomes meaningful for the first time in the mind
of the child, in much the same way that the word "Anna Karenina" or
"Dead Souls" means very little except the picture on the cover of
the book when you open it and turn to the first page, but it has
absorbed all of the sense of the text when you turn the last page
and put it back on the shelf.
Vygotsky believed that ontogenesis too is like this. At least in
terms of the conscious processes that the child controls, education
is a pair of deconstruals and reconstruals.
First, the child understands grammar through taking it apart into
discourse. Conditionals like "if you do that again, I'll smack you"
are deconstrued as ungrammatical questions and answers, like "Who
did that?" "Me". "Why?" "Well, I...ouch!", a process that is also
highly observeable in classrooms when we break texts up by inserting
interstitial questions bewteen sentences.
Then the discourse is reconstrued as grammar. This reconstrual is
what Vygotsky means by internalization: it's really in-"turn"-
alization, you know. Vygotsky says quite explicitly that when he
says "exernal" he really only means SOCIAL, and when turns are
directed at the speaker himself, THAT is internalization.
That's the first step, and it's absolutely right that it has to be
on the curriculum in elementary school. Vygotsky is absolutely clear
on this, p. 205 of your Minick translation of Thinking and Speech.
It reads like this (more or less) in Meccaci's somewhat better
Italian translation:
"The problem of school instruction in grammar is one of the most
complex problems from the point of view of methodology and
psychology because grammar is a specific subject that seems of
little necessity or utility to the child. Arithmetic brings to the
child new capacities. The child is who is not capable of adding or
dividing learns to odo so thanks to arithmetical knowledge. But
grammar, it seems, does not give any new capacity to the child. Even
before going to school, the child knows how to decline and how to
conjugate. What does grammar instruction bring that is new? As we
noted, it is on the basis of this judgment that the idea at the
bottom of the movement against grammar concludes that grammar must
be eliminated from the system of school subjects because of its
uselessness, because it does not furnish any new capability in the
field of language use that the child did not have before.
Nevertheless the analysis of grammatical learning, like the
analysis of written speech, suggests what an immense significance
grammar has for the general development of child thinking."
I'll say! Actually, the reconstrual of complex discourse as complex
grammar is almost the whole content of primary education. The
child's main task is reconstruing talk as text and then re-
reconstruing text as talk again.
In the same way (I think) higher education is largely a process of
re-reconstruing complex grammar as complex morphology (that is, as
science concepts, which are, as a rule, morphologically complex).
David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Education
--- On Mon, 3/1/10, Duvall, Emily <emily@uidaho.edu> wrote:
From: Duvall, Emily <emily@uidaho.edu>
Subject: RE: [xmca] new national curriculum in Australia
To: ablunden@mira.net, "eXtended Mind, Culture,Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>
Date: Monday, March 1, 2010, 10:09 PM
I've been out of the loop. Are we talking about scientific concepts?
~em
-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
On Behalf Of Andy Blunden
Sent: Monday, March 01, 2010 8:45 PM
Cc: eXtended Mind, Culture,Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] new national curriculum in Australia
I had a real MacCarthyist fascist teacher in sixth grade
primary school (1956) who belted gramar into our heads. I
never forgot the grammar or stopped hated he who gave it to
me. Progressive education put an end to all that in the late
60s or early 70s I think.
But my interest is in the Davydov take on this. Let's assume
that people don't need to learn grammar in order to use it
effectively as a citizen, any more than they need Euclidean
geometry. Isn't it the case that being required to think
about how you compose language formally is an important part
of acquiring that type of thinking that formal schooling is
supposed to provide? It is like literacy plus. Here I get
wires-crossed with Mike's questioning of formal schooling
altogether, but Ah! what the hell?
Andy
Duvall, Emily wrote:
Interesting about the grammar.
I had a father who was fanatical, so I think that lay the foundation
for
me... he was always studying his German (later his Russian) and took
language study, and grammar especially, quite seriously. One of my
favorite books of his was (and still is) the Loom of Language... I
became fascinated by the similarities.
At any rate, when we moved to Germany (I was 9) I encountered grammar
in
an upfront way and it was really through the study of foreign
language
that I began to learn about grammar in a deep way. Now it is forever
visible... :-)
NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English) members have some
disagreement as to whether it should be taught explicitly or absorbed
in
context. ATEG, the Assembly for Teaching of English Grammar has a
brief
monograph on the topic. http://www.ateg.org/monographs/mulroy.php
If
you go to the home page and play around you will find more links than
you ever imagined on grammar.... :-)
That said... for my money, grammar is best taught in short bursts
when
it is needed. Assess the individual's development... look at what
they
are closest to and work on that area... don't tackle what is
"missing",
but what is developing. A little formal, explicit teaching can really
support what we have already acquired.
~em
-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-
bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
On Behalf Of Andy Blunden
Sent: Monday, March 01, 2010 6:21 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [xmca] new national curriculum in Australia
Our immensely incompetent Labor Government yesterday
announced their new national curriculum for schools
(formerly this was a state responsibility).
It features the teaching of history from the very beginning,
including indigenous history (this is an unambiguous good)
and emphasises the 3 Rs, including grammar. No curriculum
has been set yet in Geography and other subjects.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/a-sound-beginning-20100301-p
dlv.html
Helen raised with me off-line this problem of reintroducing
the teaching of grammar: who is going to educate the
educators? Anyone under 55 today did not learn grammar at
school or until they did a foreign language, when they
learnt the grammar of the other language. (Grammar means
"Which icon do I click now?")
What do xmca-ers think about teaching grammar? (I am in favour.)
Also, many progressive educators here are opposed to
curricula in toto: education should be about learning not
content. Do xmca-ers agree?
Given the disastrous implementation of policies by this
government over the past 2 years, I fear for our education
system. What do people think?
Andy
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden http://www.erythrospress.com/
Classics in Activity Theory: Hegel, Leontyev, Meshcheryakov,
Ilyenkov $20 ea
_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden http://www.erythrospress.com/
Classics in Activity Theory: Hegel, Leontyev, Meshcheryakov,
Ilyenkov $20 ea
_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca