Good afternoon!
I still have part two of Chapter 9 to read, but I had a lot of thoughts I wanted to get out before I forget them or they get muddied with the rest of the reading.
Chapter 7 goes even deeper in to the idea of narrative. How we use it, its constraints, its universals, and of these he lists 9. Under the #2 Generic particularity, he discusses, among other things, the idea that "we people our world with characters out of narrative genres, making sense of events by assimilating them to the shape of comedy, tragedy, irony, romance." p 135. That genres are "culturally specialized ways of envisaging and communicating about the human condition." Understanding it. Making meaning of it for ourselves and with others by sharing experiences. For me this is profoundly important to learning. I continually catch myself ( as some of you might as well) making references to pop culture: music, movies, TV, etc. It made me think even more about this considering his #7 universality, The Centrality of Trouble. Like in the Matrix when all the people died because the machines provided them an experience devoid of "trouble". That we as humans have to experience a right of passage, a coming in to our own. And if we don't, we'll make something up; hence "first world problems". My constant reference to pop culture is a way for me to make sense of my world through narrative, and to perhaps work my own narrative in when trying to help others make sense of things.
I thought it was interesting the mention of big T truth on page 148. " No sensible human being would deny that the methods of science have vastly increased man's power of predicting and controlling his environment, particularly his physical environment." What did the rest of you think about this quote and the subsequent sentences? Any connections to Davis that you saw?
Also the mention of intersubjectivity on page 161 and the difference between "classical" psychology and "folk" psychology. "A culture's folk theories about the nature of human nature inevitably shape how that culture administers justice, educates its young, helps the needy and even conducts interpersonal relationships- all matters of deep consequence." I think as he mentioned earlier the relegation of these topics as enrichment as far as education goes is a grave mistake. What are your thoughts about how we reconcile hard science with matters of culture in the realm of educating our youth?
All of this again back to the big ideas of culture, knowledge and learning.
The biggest questions for me for this entire text has been, what does it mean? (others behavior, symbols we create, text we write/read) and what have we learned about how we "should" act? To me, thats the point of learning, and thats culture.
I can see a connection to Truth as mentioned by Bruner and the chapter on poststructuralism from Davis. Bruner states, “truth-finding is the prerogative of science and logic alone—the paradigmatic mode of knowing” (p. 148). For the poststructuralist, Davis states, “science has displaced religion as the arbiter of truth in the modern world” (p. 140). While Bruner sees science as increasing man’s power of predicting and controlling his environment, postructuralists see the work of science as an outward movement, one in which “researchers elaborate, correct, reinterpret, or disprove the words of their predecessors” (Davis, p. 140).
ReplyDeleteWell that's hard to argue with. It seems that as Ph.D. students we do not spend our time creating "new" knowledge, and not that we could or should. We do what you quoted we, elaborate, correct, etc. I think that this is a good place for us to be as a field, it's a refinement that brings us closer to Truths. I wonder what the hard sciences were like or seen as when they were first beginning to emerge.
DeleteAnd probably because Davis' work was a type of history, he started with the ideas of big T truth and worked his way to knowledge as created. I feel like Bruner did not go as far back when exploring these theories of mind and theories of learning.
ReplyDeleteIt seems when studying man, Bruner believes that we must have both a grasp of man’s biology and evolution as well as an understanding of how culture shapes man. According to Bruner, to ignore biology is arrogant and to sneer culture is moral suicide(p. 184). As I tried to relate this back to what we learned from Davis, I got stumped. From Davis’ perspective humanity is understood as biological-and cultural forms (p. 110), yet he was describing interobjectivity, not intersubjectivity. Davis described intersubjectivity discourses as being “focused on the human--on language and...on culutre…(p. 110), which closely aligns to the definition that Bruner gave, “focus on how humans developed the capacity to read the thoughts, intentions, beliefs, and mental states of their conspecifics in a culture” (p. 174). I guess my hangup is where biology fits into Bruner’s idea of intersubjectivity? Any idea?
ReplyDeleteI don't know if this is correct, but Bruner says"biology and culture both operate locally." So what I got from this is, we can't link up with someone, share an experience, communicate, (intersubjective stuff) without sharing an experience of the world. I looked for more help on this idea and found an article about Husserl, who is, according to this source, the original formulator of the notion of intersubjectivity. The article is titled, "Husserl, Intersubjectivity and Anthropology" by Alessandro Duranti as published in Anthropological Theory. Durante says,
ReplyDelete"By exploring the role of the living human body, empathy, tools, and the natural and cultural world, Husserl comes to see intersubjectivity as a domain of inquiry that spans the entire scope of human experience."
So, do you mean biology as our evolutionary progression, or as all the life that surrounds us? Or am I missing your idea altogether? :)
I kind of feel like that by looking to closely, perhaps Bruner's message has become convoluted in a way. Instead of trying to look at it more closely, try stepping back to see it from a distance for a moment.
DeleteOn p.164 Bruner describes the "'cultural turn' in human evolution from two perspectives": the individualistic and the transactional. The individualistic perspective connects our adaptation (evolution) to our experiences and the lessons we take away from them (the oven it hot so I shouldn't touch it). The transactional perspective connects our own experiences to the experiences of others. As a result, the lessons taken away are not only our own, but those we acquire from others. These experiences and lessons are recorded in the form of art, poetry, music, narrative, which now act as a "manuscript" or even a "yearbook" of sorts to guide/capture the cultural evolution of that particular time.
Does that make sense?
link to article
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/anthro/faculty/duranti/Husserl-Intersubject-AT.pdf
In chapter 8, Bruner suggests “doing” as a way of learning. He reminds us of our ancestors who understood how to do something without explaining it in words. There are times when we do things without having the words to explain it. Not only are there many real world examples that apply to this, but also examples in the classroom. Bruner gives us a few: the building of pyramids, learning to ski, tending a garden, speaking in well-formed sentences. Most of us don’t have a “theory” to explain how people do them, yet they can do them. Can you think of some examples of “Learning by doing?”
ReplyDeleteI think people can tell you how to do these things. Telling may not be the best way to teach these things but it can be done. When you speak of learning by doing I think of running, jumping, and so forth, there is just a natural intuition to it. It may be lacking in form but you understand the basics. Maybe swinging in swing is a better example. Or perhaps that in the actual teaching of the thing we can go further than we could by experimentation alone?
DeleteMaybe we could think of these things as being those that we can teach the fundamental skills of, but the finesse and deepening of which can only be developed through experience. For example, we can give instructions on how to tend a garden with regards to watering, weeding, etc, but one can not become proficient and skilled until they have encountered a variety of timely, naturally- occurring situations.
DeleteSomething that stuck out to me in this weeks reading (so much so that I ALMOST highlighted it. I know, you should really let that sink in for a moment.) is what Bruner discusses with regards to genre on the bottom of page 135. He sets it up by discussing the idea that regardless of the intention of the writer, the reader can and often does interpret the writing based on the cultural contexts in which they are reading it. We know this well, and feel like this reflects on our conversation of interpretation that we had in class a few weeks ago.
ReplyDeleteWhat I was intrigued by was his continuance: "The existence of genres is universal. No natural language that has been studied is without them: ways of conducting discourse, ways of construing the topics involved in the discourse, speech registers, and even idiolects characteristic of the discourse, often a specialized lexicon as well. We would not know how to begin construing a narrative were we not able to make an informed guess about the genre to which it belonged."
So why is this intriguing to me? Well, when thought of in conjunction with the idea of knowing and knowledge and and teaching and learning, all of the pieces described here are essential to the success of the learner, even when the learning is taking place in the form of something other than consuming a written narrative.
This may not be nearly as much of a "super glue moment" for you as it was for me, but hey, I've got to celebrate them when I've got them, right? :)