Re: [xmca] Ways With Words

[mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>]

Both of you messages D&D, are helpful.
David Ki, do you have a manuscript on the en-ac-ulturation distinction and
the genre approach?
mike

On Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 6:56 PM, David H Kirshner <dkirsh@lsu.edu> wrote:

> David,
>
> Thanks for the lovely wedding anecdote, and also the example of your
> mother-in-law inducting you into practices of pecan cracking through her
> verbal instructions. The model of enculturation that most of us have to go
> by comes from the situated cognition literature grounded in examples of
> craft apprenticeship. In this model, identity development (from peripheral
> to central participation) as well as the production of skills and concepts
> are incorporated into a complex integrative model of learning. This seems to
> be the frame that you are bringing to bear in understanding my enculturation
> genre.
>
> It is precisely this integrative assumption that the genres approach
> resists. The sculpted genres of teaching enable a parsing of the discrete
> elements interacting even within complex settings. For instance, the
> shelling of pecans, though certainly a cultural practice, is precisely
> defined and hence subject to being learned as a skill, outside of cultural
> context. (Contrast this with open-ended cultural practices like politeness
> or approaches to solving of non-routine problems which cannot be precisely
> specified and hence must be learned in cultural context.) Indeed, though
> your pecan-shelling lesson did transpire in an authentic cultural locale, I
> would want to argue that the structure of the learning support for your
> pecan-shelling prowess is from habituation instruction, not from
> enculturation.
>
> The key to habituated learning is unconscious (subcognitive) association of
> perceptual stimuli and motor responses. Your mother-in-law's directions for
> how you should hold and operate the apparatus served to make perceptually
> salient certain aspects of the stimulus and response domains, and your
> practice served to establish the requisite subcognitive linkages between
> them. I think we can probably rule out concept teaching, as presumably your
> mother-in-law was telling you what to do, rather than explaining principles
> to you (not discounting the possibility that you, independently, chose to
> "make sense" of what you were being asked to do). From a genres perspective,
> habituation would be a sufficient explanation to account for your newfound
> skill in pecan shelling. In fact, the requirements for enculturational
> learning of this "practice" probably were not present.
>
> Let me take a moment to unpack the two enculturation-related pedagogies in
> order to be able to continue the genres analysis of your pecan-shelling
> learning episode. One of the difficulties, given the prior model of situated
> cognition theory and craft apprenticeship, is to imagine how enculturational
> learning could be separated from identity development. However, in the
> genres analysis, identity becomes a salient concern in the case of
> alternative identity possibilities. For instance, in entering a craft
> apprenticeship, one makes a decision to "become" a craftsperson (of a
> certain sort). Thus one is actively seeking to acculturate oneself to the
> practices of the culture.
>
> This dynamic helps structure the "acculturation pedagogy" genre that I will
> soon distinguish from the "enculturation pedagogy." In acculturation
> pedagogy, a bona-fide member of the culture models mature cultural practices
> in order that novices seeking to acculturate themselves to the culture can
> emulate those practices. In your case, David, it doesn't seem that you
> considered this to be a Chinese cultural practice, or even that you expected
> your mother-in-law to be proficient in it. If anything, what you most
> admired about her was her ability to transfer from her prior experience with
> cracking peanuts and pumpkin seeds to new nuts and new devices. However, the
> ability to transfer was NOT what you were learning. You were learning to
> shell pecans.
>
> Enculturation is an even worse fit than acculturation to your
> pecan-shelling episode. Enculturation is the process of cultural absorption
> that comes about when one is immersed in a unitary cultural milieu, for
> instance a child within the national culture adopting the characteristic
> practices of the culture. This kind of learning is accomplished without
> conscious intention or awareness. The associated pedagogical genre has the
> teacher work surreptitiously to develop the classroom microculture so that
> it gradually comes to resemble the reference culture with respect to valued
> practices. Students learn not because of an intention to assume a new
> identity, but because they're immersed in a classroom culture that they
> gradually become enculturated to, even as it continues to evolve. For
> instance, a math teacher might seek to shape the culture of argumentation in
> the classroom so that it comes to more closely resemble the kinds of logical
> chains of reasoning that characterize mathematical proof. This is a gradual
> process over a long period of time--not a good fit for your pecan-shelling
> experience.
>
> Thanks for engaging with the genres approach. I hope this helps clarify
> some of the genres, and the way the genres framework is used to analyze
> situations of learning and teaching.
>
> David
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
> Behalf Of David Kellogg
> Sent: Sunday, January 30, 2011 6:20 PM
> To: Culture ActivityeXtended Mind
> Subject: [xmca] Ways With Words
>
>
>
> David (Kirshner) is of course quite correct to point out that narrative is
> not a necessary or sufficient element in his “enculturation” educational
> genre. But it does seem to me that the “enculturation” educational genre is
> distinguished by greater discursivity; it’s a much talkier model, and I
> think it is for this reason we often find it in traditional, more oral
> cultures. Unfortunately (I think) we also find it in foreign language
> classrooms, where I think it is fundamentally inappropriate.
>
> First of all, it seems to me that enculturation almost necessarily involves
> some kind of legitimate peripheral participation, non-essential but
> nevertheless participatory roles in an activity that can in theory be taken
> by children and outsiders. This clearly suggests a very hierarchical set of
> roles, which, since they are not set by skills or by knowledge must be set
> by some other criterion (e.g. being a so-called “native speaker”)
>
> Secondly, it seems to me that enculturation models place a premium on doing
> fairly simple, general, everyday things with great adroitness, creativity,
> and confidence. An obvious example of this would be cooking, something which
> everybody has to do but which can be done either with routinism, or with
> verve and inspiration, or with the consummate mastery that is born of
> endless routines illuminated by flashes of inspiration.
>
> Thirdly (and as David says, this is where narrative “kicks in”)
> enculturation means learning what Shirley Brice Heath calls “ways with
> words”. If it were simply a matter of “Watch this” “Now you try it”, then
> there would be no difference between the discursive model and the skills
> model. Even if we add “Now, what was the difference?” we only get a skills
> model plus explicit knowledge, and that is not what the enculturation model
> is really about.
>
> That’s really all I have to say here. The rest of this post is just two
> anecdotes to illustrate. and if I had any sense I would just shut up at this
> point. I am sure that many readers will stop reading at this point, if not
> long before. But of course in the enculturation model, ways with words are
> very important, and sometimes anecdotes and illustrations are more important
> than the actual skills and concepts imparted.
>
> The other day I was sitting here at this very table cracking newly imported
> American pecans for my mother-in-law, who has had a stroke and can barely
> speak. She was watching me intently, having never seen either pecans or the
> jar-opening device I was using to crack them, and began to make speaking
> sounds. I leaned over to listen and suddenly realized she was giving very
> precise instructions about how to use the device so that the meat would not
> be shattered.
>
> Her body no longer obeys her brain, and she has reacquired the skills that
> an infant must have in getting others to obey it instead. But in normal
> times this simply involves laughing or crying, not “ways with words”. The
> unusual thing about this was the objectivity, the precision, and efficiency
> of her instructions: as soon as I held the jar-opening device the way she
> told me to, my speed doubled, my efficiency tripled, and not a single
> nut-meat was broken.
>
> I realized that cracking peanuts and pumpkin seeds with immense precision
> is something she has spent a large stretch of her non-working life doing
> (she retired from the textile mill where she worked at forty years of age)
> and she obviously had very developed views, transferable to entirely new
> products and even completely new tools, about how it should be done. In
> normal times (when we were both twenty years younger) she would have simply
> shoved me out of the way and done it herself. But in this situation,
> absolutely no other way of transferring her knowledge than a slurred mixture
> of Shaanxi and Henan dialects, to which I am normally fairly impervious.
>
> This circumstance is probably not unique; over thousands of years of human
> history there were probably many situations where knowledge had to be
> transferred in this highly imperfect way from disabled elders to not yet
> able juniors. And so ways with words turn out to be as important as skilled
> performances.
>
> But unskilled performances also have to be included, first of all, to
> provide the contrast that we have in skills models (“Watch this” “Now you
> try it”) and the explicit knowledge we have in conceptual models (“See the
> difference”), secondly to allow the elders to show the mastery on which
> their authority must ultimately be based (we cannot always live off of the
> capital of social position), and thirdly to allow some means by which
> outsiders can teach insiders, as well as insiders teach outsiders, making
> the enculturation model not entirely a closed system and allowing the whole
> to develop new forms of knowing.
>
> Yesterday my brother-in-law and I went to a wedding in a nearby village
> where he is doing some business with the local village head, whose friend
> had a son getting married. Village weddings in China are what I would call
> loosely scripted: certain things must be done, but they are not done to
> schedule; they happen when all the principals are accounted for and there is
> enough of an audience to make it worthwhile. In order to make sure that the
> audience shows up and stays, a huge tub of “saozi mian” (noodles) is kept on
> the boil all day, and anyone can eat as much as they like, whether they are
> related to the bride and groom or not.
>
> There are lots of roles that call for little skill, but there are also
> roles which can be fulfilled very skillfully. For example, when we first
> arrived at the wedding, they were carrying the bride’s gifts to her new
> inlaws into a room where the inlaws sat before portraits of their ancestors
> to receive them.
>
> My brother-in-law and I, along with some neighborhood children, took some
> of them in (I took a large, purple plastic thermos bottle) and in return the
> male adults were given cigarettes and the children were given milk sweets.
>
> While my brother-in-law was smoking his cigarette (I stuck mind behind my
> ear because I don’t smoke and I didn’t want another pressed upon me), the
> bride herself arrived. The groom’s sister barred and locked the door, and
> then the spy-hole was prized out so that negotiations could begin.
>
> The bride had to knock, of course. The groom’s sister, as per tradition,
> eyeballed the spy hole (she had to stand on tippy-toe) and then, in standard
> Chinese, told the bride’s family that the door was barred, and if the
> bride’s family really wanted to cross the threshold, they had to give a
> “hongbao” (a red envelope, with money).
>
> An envelope was produced, but when it the groom’s sister opened it she
> found it only had a light greenish one yuan note in it (I think that’s about
> twelve cents at current exchange rates). She complained that the bride’s
> family was “xiaochi” (stingy) and began to open the door.
>
> My brother-in-law finished his cigarette and sprang to his feet. He barred
> the door with is wiry frame and let out a torrent of choice insults in the
> local dialect. Egged on by hilarious laughter (from both sides of the door),
> he finished with a rhetorical flourish based on slightly different
> emphases—he wants a BIG red envelope, and big RED one (one hundred yuan
> notes are red).
>
> Another envelope was produced (with a blue five yuan note) and my brother
> in law relented. The bride came in and bowed to the ancestors, and they went
> off to enjoy their new marital status, their sumptuous (by peasant
> standards) new lodgings and the spiffy new plastic purple thermos I had
> carried up the stairs.
>
> As we left, we noticed that another wedding being held nearby. On closer
> inspection, this turned out to be wedding we had really been invited to—we
> had peripherally participated in the wrong wedding, and nobody cared or even
> noticed. And so the concept of party crashers was introduced to a remote
> village in Northwest China.
>
> David Kellogg
> Seoul National University of Education
> --- On Sat, 1/29/11, Rod Parker-Rees <R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>
> From: Rod Parker-Rees <R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk>
> Subject: RE: [xmca] Folk Psychology from a narrative perspective
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Date: Saturday, January 29, 2011, 9:38 AM
>
>
> Children with older siblings observe the way they manage indignant parents
> and can quickly work out what works and when (back in the 1980s Judy Dunn
> found plenty of evidence of 2 year olds - who had older siblings - appealing
> to parents for support but not when they 'knew' that they were responsible
> for a conflict). They don't need to know HOW or WHY a particular appeal
> works before they start to use it and they 'join in' well before they
> develop this sort of understanding (a particularly clear example of the
> general genetic law). Only children have a tougher job to work out how to
> manage their parents but they at least have the advantage of plenty of
> practice.
>
> All the best,
>
> Rod
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
> Behalf Of Robert Lake
> Sent: 29 January 2011 17:23
> To: lchcmike@gmail.com; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: Re: [xmca] Folk Psychology from a narrative perspective
>
> Yes, I appreciate your comments as well Greg.
>
> I only have one thing to add and LSV might appreciate this.
>
> My grand daughter was saying "It was an accident" when she was 3.  :-)
>
> Robert
>
> On Sat, Jan 29, 2011 at 11:17 AM, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > An interesting elaboration of the idea of the retrospective construction
> of
> > meaning, Greg. I had not thought about it in these terms before.
> > mike
> >
> > On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 11:55 PM, Gregory Allan Thompson <
> > gathomps@uchicago.edu> wrote:
> >
> > > Yes, and the insistence on ascribing motive to practice starts early.
> My
> > > favorite is the parent that looks at his two year old who has just torn
> > half
> > > the pages out of a cherished book of his (substitute lipstick all over
> > the
> > > dining room table or paint on the new carpet) and chastises the child
> > "Why
> > > did you do that?" or better "What were you thinking?"
> > >
> > > As if the child has some complex motivation and thought behind what
> they
> > > did. The child can only stare back in shock wondering what is
> happening.
> > >
> > > But there is important work being done in those ridiculous questions.
> Put
> > > together enough of these moments and by the time they are 7 or so, they
> > get
> > > it - "It was an accident" and "I didn't mean to do it" become stock
> > > responses regardless of what happened. And by 12 they have become
> nearly
> > > fully competent at manipulating the situation, intentions and all, e.g.
> > "I
> > > was trying to help my sister... and...". For each event, they are able
> to
> > > reconstruct a philosophy of the act, so to speak.
> > >
> > > -greg
> > >
> > > >
> > > >------------------------------
> > > >
> > > >Message: 2
> > > >Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2011 11:53:27 -0600
> > > >From: "David H Kirshner" <dkirsh@lsu.edu>
> > > >Subject: RE: [xmca] Folk Psychology from a narrative perspective
> > > >To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> > > >Message-ID:
> > > >       <731CECC23FB8CA4E9127BD399744D1EC02E0CDFD@email001.lsu.edu>
> > > >Content-Type: text/plain;      charset="us-ascii"
> > > >
> > > >As with Tollefsen, who reviewed Hutto's book, I'm not quite sure what
> > > >kinds of specialized narrative practices are supposed to be needed to
> > > >establish our folk psychology's rational ascriptions. The ascription
> of
> > > >motive to behavior is ubiquitous. Admittedly, it may take one a long
> > > >time to get good at ascribing particular motives to particular
> actions.
> > > >But our social/cultural frame demands such ascription, so presumably
> we
> > > >all are going to get a lot of practice.
> > > >
> > > >It is one thing to look to narrative as a site for development of a
> > > >particular cultural practice--the folk psychology ascription of
> > > >motives--quite another to associate narrative with the fundamental
> > > >process of enculturation, itself. My approach to enculturation does
> not
> > > >take narrativization of one's identity as fundamental. That only kicks
> > > >in in the specialized process of "acculturation"--intentional
> emulation
> > > >of cultural practices to fulfill goals of cultural membership. But
> > > >enculturation functions more fundamentally as a spontaneous adaption
> to
> > > >the culture in which one is enmeshed.
> > > >
> > > >David
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >-----Original Message-----
> > > >From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
> ]
> > > >On Behalf Of Larry Purss
> > > >Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2011 7:21 PM
> > > >To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > > >Subject: Re: [xmca] Folk Psychology from a narrative perspective
> > > >
> > > >Hi David Ke
> > > >
> > > >David
> > > >Your distinction between history and narrative is interesting.  Do you
> > > >think
> > > >Bruner collapses the distinction. Hutto's framework on narratives is
> > > >that
> > > >they are forms of story-telling that give "reasons for actions" in
> terms
> > > >of
> > > >beliefs and desires which are the folk psychological frameworks that
> are
> > > >culturally grounded frames of reference.  He suggests this form of
> > > >explanation is socioculturally grounded.  My recollection of Bruner's
> > > >work
> > > >is he suggests it is one of the two basic forms of constructing
> meaning.
> > > >Therefore, for Bruner, history would be a particular form of
> narrative.
> > > >
> > > >David, if Hutto's work interests you, I would also google his edited
> > > >book
> > > >"Folk Psychology Reassessed" which gives alternative theoretical
> > > >approaches
> > > >which are challenging the "theory theory" model and "simulation" model
> > > >of
> > > >folk psychology.  The edited volume situates Hutto's work in a larger
> > > >stream
> > > >of thought.
> > > >
> > > >On this topic of folk psycholgy I'm currently reading a book
> "Philosophy
> > > >in
> > > >the Flesh" by Lakoff & Johnson that posits BASIC or PRIMARY forms of
> > > >cognition as fundamentally metaphorical. We imaginally compare a
> source
> > > >concept to a target concept.   The SOURCE concept of these primary
> > > >cognitive
> > > >structures are ALWAYS based in our physical bodies. Lakoff & Johnson
> > > >suggest
> > > >from these primary metaphors more complex metaphorical meanings
> develop.
> > > >If
> > > >this perspective is accurate, then language is not the SOURCE of our
> > > >most
> > > >basic metaphors. The source is in the sensory-motor or somatic
> embodied
> > > >cognition. Language expresses these basic metaphors.  If there is some
> > > >merit
> > > >in this position then education and developmental science should
> engage
> > > >with
> > > >basic primary metaphors as foundational in the emergence of cognitive
> > > >capacity and in how these basic metaphors IMPLICITLY structure our
> folk
> > > >psychology.
> > > >
> > > >>From this perspective of primary metaphor as embodied  it is not too
> > > >big a
> > > >step  to reflect on primary intersubjectivity as a precursor to
> > > >secondary
> > > >intersubjectivity.  I have a hunch these 2 constructs are intimately
> > > >related.
> > > >
> > > >Larry
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >On Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 4:14 PM, David Kellogg
> > > ><vaughndogblack@yahoo.com>wrote:
> > > >
> > > >> Wow--I have to get that book! Thanks, Larry.
> > > >>
> > > >> The way I understand David Kirshner's work is this: there is really
> > > >only
> > > >> ONE of the three meta-discourses in education that is narrative, at
> > > >least
> > > >> narrative in the sense of oriented towards the action of a hero in a
> > > >problem
> > > >> space who evaluates and achieves some kind of resolution.
> > > >>
> > > >> That's his THIRD meta-discourse, the one which sees education as a
> > > >process
> > > >> of becoming a participant, a member, a practioner and as mastering a
> > > >> particular set of discourses that accompany membership.
> > > >>
> > > >> It seems to me that his first meta-discourse, which sees education
> as
> > > >a
> > > >> process of mastering skills, is not narrativist, because it focuses
> on
> > > >> problem solutions and pretty much ignores the hero and the
> evaluation
> > > >of the
> > > >> problem space.
> > > >>
> > > >> His second meta-discourse, which sees education as a process of
> > > >acquiring
> > > >> conceptual knowledge, is not narrativist either, because it sees
> this
> > > >> knowledge as being not embodied in a particular hero and because it
> > > >sees the
> > > >> knowledge as being quite separable from the solution of problems.
> > > >>
> > > >> I don't think this means that DHK would consider the third
> > > >meta-discourse
> > > >> the most complete. I think it's only the most complete if we view it
> > > >from a
> > > >> narrativist point of view, and that is no coincidence, since it
> > > >co-evolved
> > > >> with a lot of Bruner's work.
> > > >>
> > > >> I have a question about the difference between narrative and history
> > > >(as in
> > > >> "cultural historical"). It seems to me that everything we say about
> > > >> narrative (its structure, it's "I-ness" and even its past-to-present
> > > >> orientation) is radically UNTRUE of history (because history is not
> > > >> structured around heroes in problem spaces, it is not "I" shaped,
> and
> > > >it is
> > > >> oriented present-to-past). Why, then, do people of our peculiar
> > > >historical
> > > >> epoch treat the two as synonymous?
> > > >>
> > > >> David Kellogg
> > > >> Seoul National University of Education
> > > >>
> > > >> --- On Wed, 1/26/11, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >>
> > > >>
> > > >> From: Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>
> > > >> Subject: [xmca] Folk Psychology from a narrative perspective
> > > >> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> > > >> Date: Wednesday, January 26, 2011, 2:38 PM
> > > >>
> > > >>
> > > >> I have attached a book review for others interested in a perspective
> > > >on
> > > >> folk
> > > >> psychology that assumes a perspective inspired by Jerome Bruner's
> work
> > > >on
> > > >> narrative practices,  Hutto is positing a 2nd person dialogical
> > > >grounding
> > > >> for understanding "reasons for actions"  He suggests this mode of
> > > >> understanding is most pronounced when actions are unpredictable.
> > > >Hutto
> > > >> suggests there are other more direct embodied forms of recognition
> and
> > > >> engagement that are not narrative based.
> > > >>
> > > >> I see some affinity in this perspective to David Kirschner's
> approach
> > > >to
> > > >> learning theory as narrative based genres.
> > > >>
> > > >> Larry
> > > >>
> > > >> -----Inline Attachment Follows-----
> > > >>
> > > >>
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> > > >>
> > > >>
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>
> --
> *Robert Lake  Ed.D.
> *Assistant Professor
> Social Foundations of Education
> Dept. of Curriculum, Foundations, and Reading
> Georgia Southern University
> P. O. Box 8144
> Phone: (912) 478-5125
> Fax: (912) 478-5382
> Statesboro, GA  30460
>
> *Democracy must be born anew in every generation, and education is its
> midwife.*
> *-*John Dewey.
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