Re: [xmca] Taking culture into account/Doing harm?

[mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>]

I think if people are satisfied that the issue of cultural assimilationism
is, for better and for worse, the
dominant source of social support for this kind of
teaching/enculturation/socialization, in so far was what
we do is inclusionary and exclusionary in what we guestimate its
consequences will be, lets
go to question two. The issue of that alternative epistemology. Human's
learning to live *within* a sustainable biosphere, of the subordination of
human life to biospheric necessities.

There is plenty of writing about spirituality in the CHAT tradition and
there is the ongoing interest in marx's theory of ecology. The notion of
triumphing over nature was alive and well when the infrastructure of
modern life was first being put in place. Zinchenko is widely available.
Ilyenkov. Shpet. Florensky......
all the way back to Russian orthodox mysticismj.... all are cited. The term
soul remained professionally acceptable across an amazing range of
ideological contexts in the vocabulary of Russian/Soviet/Russian
writing.

So, Larry, speak up. Question 1 will not go away, but lets take on
spirtuality.

On Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 8:57 AM, White, Phillip
<Phillip.White@ucdenver.edu>wrote:

> Huw, i do agree with what you write:
>
>  "My reading of colonization in this context was of an enforced mediation,
> e.g. railroads, television, computing, money & consumerism, of which the
> only defence is conscious organization, e.g. intracultural agreement to
> sustain the means of production in which values are education/practice are
> inherent."
>
> and the article that Andy attached - Scribner's take of Vygotsky's uses of
> history, unwittingly supports Richardson's as well as your contentions.
>
> Scribner writes on page 122:
>
> "One of their (Marx and Engels) kernel ideas was that the human species
> differs from all others because, through its manipulation of nature, it
> frees itself from biological determinism and begins to fashion its own
> nature.  Productive activities (generically 'labor') change in the course
> of history as new resources and new forms of society come into being.  This
> history is material because it establishes the material activities of
> people and their intercourse with one another as the source of ideas and
> mental life (Marx and Engels, 1846)."
>
> further on she states:
>
> "Changes in social activities that occur in history have directionality:
> hand-powered tools precede machines; number systems come into use before
> algebra.  This movement is expressed in the concept of historical
> development in contrast to the generic concept of historic change, and its
> reflection in human mental life is expressed as mental development."
>
> both of these epistemologies Richardson are not epistemologies shared by
> indigenous epistemologies.  these are european based epistemologies.
>
> later on in this chapter that Scribner writes, she recounts the
> experiences of the Oksapmin people of Papua New Guinea that used "a
> rudimentary number system" and are now beginning to use pocket calculators.
>  noting the shift in the use of number systems Scribner moves into
> reflection, page 142:
>
> "One might ask how adult-child dyadic learning relationships are affected
> when both members of the dyad are novices and are acquiring new number
> facts and computational skills together.  Or we might want to inquire into
> the development of 'binumeracy' (drawing an analogy with biliteracy) among
> adults and children and investigate how uses of one of another number
> system are influenced by the characteristics of the particular arithmetic
> tasks that Oksapmin now encounter in their communities.  We might be
> concerned to document whether social pressures are being generated for
> conversion to a modern number system at a faster rate than some adults are
> prepared to accept  and what consequences such a situation might have for
> their children's learning progress."
>
> i suggest that here, Scribner assumes that the conversion to a modern
> number system is a given, whether or not some adults are prepared to accept
> it.
>
> and there is clearly no indication that the original, "rudimentary" number
> system of the Oksapmin is connected to any epistemology, though of course
> all number systems have epistemologies.
>
> so, yes, Huw, i'd say that "colonization in this context was of an
> enforced mediation", buttressed with the assumption that modern is
> superior, and clearly it can unwittingly play out in the uses of CHAT
> epistemologies.
>
> to quote Foucault: "People know what they do; frequently they know why
> they do what they do; but what they don't know is what what they do does."
>
> it's a mighty big freight train!
>
> p
>
>
> Phillip White, PhD
> Urban Community Teacher Education Program
> School of Education & Human Development
> University of Colorado Denver
> phillip.white@ucdenver.edu
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