In this weeks readings I enjoyed learinging more about agency, reflection, collaboration, and culture. In chapters 1-3 I felt that Bruner used these words but just in breif glimpses while trying to explain some deeper topic such as all the tenets of education. I thought it was interesting on pages 92-93 when Bruner stated that agency and collaboration need to be treated together, basically one drives and explains the other and vise versa, this reminded me of his use of "spiraling" in chapter 6... Did anyone else see a correlation between these topics?
Another main idea I picked up on in the reading this week was the differences between explaining and interpreting. Before reading Bruner's perspective I would have said that these terms were synonyms but after reading I can see a very distinct difference. Bruner states, "although there is a link between explaining and interpreting...the two modes of making sense cannot be reduced to each other." (Pg. 101). I believe that once again Bruner's "spiraling" could be seen in the interaction between explaining and interperating. To me Bruner is saying that interpretation is understanding the minds of others and oneself. How to know what someone is feeling or thinking based off of indicators other than being told what the person is going through. Where as explaining is after the interpertation has been made and then the child can truly show or explain to others what took place and how the individuals "feel" or what drove them to the actions they took. Does everyone else see the relationship between explaining and interpreting by Bruner's perspective similar as I do? Did anyone see it differently?
One last thought... I found the further discussion of narrative fascinating especially how Bruner explained that narrative takes a problem and that "trouble" is a feature start for narrative because trouble gives a "problem" (pg 99). I have never thought of there having to be trouble/a problem for narrative to take place but after reading this chapter I have been listening to my own children's narrative this week and I am amazed that each personal or retold story begins with a major "problem"!
What stood out to you this week besides the ideas presented above?
I agree that Bruner makes a distinction between interpreting and explaining in that as interpreting occurs first it is followed by explaining and this fits into Bruner's spiraling idea about teaching.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Bruner (p. 92) that scientific explanations are adjuncts to narrative interpretations but they both have slight differences and limitations, though perhaps sometimes a scientific explanation can be in the form of a narrative.
I also found Bruner's comments about the necessity of narrative to involve dealing with trouble (a problem). It seems like stories that involve human predicaments with fairly universal moral teach people to live our lives in a more positive and meaningful way. For example I like science fiction but my favorite deal with a meaningful moral such as racism or peace and war, etc. If it is only action without a moral it doesn't impact my life much. I can learn more from a story if it has a moral that I can remember when I encounter a similar situation in my life as the characters in the story.
Also I found Bruner's comments (p. 88) about countries policies in the 1990s and the narrative they teach children are still a problem today and I agree with his assessment, in terms of values to teach students, the leaders/teachers should lead by example to make the world a better place.
I also like Bruner's quote in chapter 6 (p. 115) that "you don't really ever get there unless you do it, as a learner, on your own terms." All a teacher can do is aid and abet the student on the voyage, which is called a curriculum. "There is no such thing as the curriculum." I completely agree with this statement.
Alana,
DeleteI agree with your analysis but I have a little different take. I think the interpretive and the explanatory both uses narratives. In the case of the interpretive the narrative provides overall context structure by using stories to supplement the subject matter being thought. That subject matter is usually not scientifically based. Where the explanatory is use more in the scientific community to logically explain a phenomenon or a process. The narrative is use to provide a story for context to enhance this explanation.
In our last blog discussion (or maybe it was a reflection), I made a big fuss about Peter Pan as model for the absence of narrative and the Oakland project as an example of agency by way of collaboration - so I was glad to see Bruner return to those two examples. I feel validated. The Lost Boys delima, not having a story of triumph (or defeat) in which to contextualize their existence, are powerless to situate themselves as in “Trouble”. I’d say that Peter Pan provides that “Other” that Brunner mentions on page ninety-three. Concerning Ann Brown and Exxon Valdez project in Oakland, I sensed a call to anti-laziness (if that qualifies as a word). I appreciate Brunner’s frankness when he states, “What is the point is the procedure of inquiry, of mind using, which is central to the maintenance of an interpretative community and a democratic culture. I think that this type of encompassing statement serves to ground us as readers who may get “lost in the trees” (maybe it’s just me).
ReplyDeleteConcerning the interpretation vs. explanation contrast in chapter five, I want to say that I, too, saw them as synonyms - but Brunner explained it so well that I can’t imagine having ever thought of them as the same. I suppose I did see them as interchangeable, but I now see explanation in the same way I see the rigidity in pre-packaged, de-contextualized history, and I see interpretation as dependent on the tacit theory of mind of the speaker in the presence of the listener. I like to add that I feel bad, a little, for Chomsky, as Brunner makes his idea of a “language organ” (Universal Grammar theory) seem laughable. As a side note - I like the idea of people being born with a “language organ” in their brains; it gives language “know-it-alls” something else to question and talk about. There’s a ton more to talk about from chapter five, like mutual intersubjectivity between a baby’s fixed gaze with the over-analyzing adult. Did anyone find this episode (pg.106) interesting? Why?
Moving on to chapter six, did anyone else interpret Brunner’s statements on pages 116 and 117 (or in chapters one through six, for that matter) as a condemnation of No Child Left Behind? I certainly did. I appreciate Brunner’s declaration that, “ All the standards in the world will not, like a helping hand, achieve the goal of making our multicultural, our threatened society come alive again”. (118)
So, here’s my question: which story is most helpful in his effort to emphasize the importance of developing a skill for narrative? I, personally, like story about the physics colleague searching for a “story” to relate about and endless physical world (125).
Steve,
DeleteIt is interesting that you made the reference to No Child Left behind in Chapter 6. Where I did not necessarily think about Bruner condemning specifically No Child Left Behind, I did feel like he was slapping policy makers on the hand tying to shout at them that standards and testing is NOT going to guarantee the success of an individual student. I immediately thought of a process I was recently involved in and that was re-writing the math standards for the state of Oklahoma. I feel like the team did an amazing job and in my opinion I was able to work with the top experts in math education in the state. When we had put the standards together we purposely left out "rote memorization" we wanted students to understand what it meant to add 2 + 3 to get 5 not the simple memorization of 2+3=5... I am sad to say that the State Board of Education admonished our efforts and demanded that the the words, "will memorize facts..." be included in the standards on many levels, their reasoning was they could "test" that. This was a sad day for me and I believe that Bruner would agree, I love his quote, "Assessment procedures and "standards"? If only that, then we will succeed only in fueling our internal indignation about how little geography our students know, how badly they read, how sorely lacking they are in mathematical skills, how deficient they are in understanding what science is about." (pg 117) To me Bruner is screaming standards and testing does not equate to real knowledge!
A few weeks ago, in week three I believe, Dr. Beach gave us a brief overview of views of knowledge. I’ll admit that I didn’t really understand at the time, but I’m glad I took notes (I’m a kinesthetic learner, I guess). The one term that I did somewhat understand, tacit knowledge as opposed to explicit knowledge. Tacicity, if I remember correctly, is given a place of importance in Davis’ description of complexity science (chapters fourteen and fifteen). Without retrieving the text, I think he said something effect of complexity science involving the tacit emergence of new systems, or discourses (I may be “off” here. Please don’t take my word for it).
ReplyDeleteBased on our class notes, I understand tacit knowledge as knowledge that you have but cannot talk about or explain. I understood explicit knowledge, on the other hand, as knowledge that can be explained. Brunner’s mention of “tacit presuppositions that guide our intersubjective practices, and theories that provide an explicit descriptive calculus for explicating them” (105) reminded me of the tacit vs. explicit juxtaposition. What really “brought it home” for me was Brunner’s example, “Most people have not ‘theory of grammar’ despite speaking well-formed sentences.” (105) I imagine that tacit knowledge comes into play for teachers when “calculating” grades or for people in general when paying bills. Are we thinking about algebraic equations? Could we explain the processes to a child (without being one of those super-smart math people)?
Here’s my tangent question: why do I think of math people as geniuses? Is my “theory of mind” that “mathematician” presupposes “a high level of intelligence”? Have I been so influenced by the mid-20th century exaltation of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math)? This is also my attempt to understand “theory of mind” as explained by Brunner.
Also, did I understand correctly that thought itself is a theory of mind? (109) I’m struggling with this entire section on pages 104 - 110. Does someone have a good grasp on Brunner’s idea of “theory of mind”?
Reginald,
DeleteIt is funny that you thing of "math people as geniuses." I often feel that same way, but not about myself. Even though I have a master's in mathematics, I do not feel that I am really a "math person." In my mind the "math people" are those who have so much more knowledge and understanding of mathematics than I do and I see them as closer to that "geniuses" level. But from your comment I wonder if my students currently in college algebra see me as closer to "genius" because my mathematical level may be high than their own? To me those individuals who have a great grasp on language and specifically spelling are in my mind the true "geniuses." It is always beyond my understanding how some people can speak and understand 5, 6, 7 different languages or those people that can just spell any word.... so does that mean that I was really more inately designed to understand mathematics but others are more internally programmed in languages? Or has my exposure to my culture played a role in the understanding I seem to have?
As far as the "theory of mind" goes, I believe that Bruner was trying to convey that each person has their own thoughts and beliefs that are internal based off of what they have been exposed to either up front or through a tactic experience. I believe that Bruner was wanting to highlight that the "theory of mind" is not just what someone thinks and believes but if that child can seem to understand others beliefs, actions, and thoughts without being told directly. To basically be able to look into oneself but at the same time view others from the outside determining what makes them who they are on the inside. I believe that Bruner would say that it takes all of the above to truly develop a "theory of thinking" that will then change the child's view of the things happening around them and possibly change their "self" view. "The 'theory of thinking' embodied in the use of 'culture conversation' seems to shape and categorize experience itself, defining thinking in terms of certain effortful experiences of a particular kind." (pg. 109)
I really wonder if there truly are geniuses or is that a label given to some people by others. I think society doesn't help people learn enough in part because a small a subset of the population is glorified too much. I think contributions are usually more distributed and not just the sole work of a few geniuses.
DeleteThanks for taking on that question. That explanation makes sense to me – that our particular ways of thinking or viewing the world are culturally shaped. I may have missed it in the reading, but I imagine that recognizing our own “theory of mind”, and developing a sense of “self”.
ReplyDeleteOne of the books we read earlier in the semester, for a different ILAC class, touches on this idea of development of “self”. The book is titled The Other Wes Moore, and it relates the lives of two black males who both grew-up in poor socioeconomic conditions. Both experienced legal trouble as children, but Wes Moore, the author, went on to earn a degree from Oxford and the Other, also named Wes Moore, went on to prison. As the author outlines his journey from troubled youth to bestselling author, I noticed that it was not until he did even see an opportunity for upward mobility until he was able to compare his “theory of mind” with that of the higher-ups at military school. If I have time (and that’s a big “if”), I’d like to re-read the book and see how Wes Moore, like Peter Pan, was able to construct his own narrative and break-away from his native environment and how the Other Wes Moore could not.
In this weeks reading I was able to get a better grasp of significance of narrative according to Bruner. He insists that the narrative mode of thinking and organizing knowledge must become a more integral part of American public education. While the narrative approach has always played a key role in the teaching of literature, history, and other interpretive subjects, it can also be useful in science education, in his view. Bruner states that the narrative perspective is ground on the fact that even the grand theories of science are fundamentally story-like, in the sense that they rely on metaphors, interpretive frameworks, and epistemological assumptions. The goal of narrative instruction is not to undermine the idea of objective knowledge so much as to emphasize the process- oriented nature of science, to shift the focus from an exclusive concern with "nature-as-out-there" to a concern with the search for nature — how we construct our model of nature. "What I am proposing," Bruner says, "is that our instruction in science from the start to the finish should be mindful of the lively processes of science making, rather than being an account only of `finished science' as represented in the textbook, in the handbook, and in the standard and often deadly `demonstration experiment.'"(p. 127) What do you think? Am I going in the right direction?
ReplyDeleteAlana, I think memorization is necessary, but I think the meaning (connection) to the narrative is important so that students understand the relevance to the list memorized. Memorization without a context is quickly forgettable, but if the student finds it relevant then I think it is easier to remember. The State Board doesn't make that distinction but only stresses that the content is testable.
ReplyDeleteMaru, I think there is a lot of narrative in science. I know narratives about how the universe began that are spiritual in origin such as the Navajo creation story, religious such as Genesis in the bible, and scientific such as the Big Bang theory in astronomy. The Big Bang theory has direct connection to other concepts in physics which gives it a scientific basis. The spiritual or religious narratives would be harder to justify using science.
My take on Bruners’ “theory of mind” is that he is concerned with the ability of humans to work out with a fair degree of accuracy what other people know or believe about a particular topic or event. He believes that the teacher should have a clear idea of the ways in which their students think and what they are likely to understand. At the same time, Bruner also claims that the students’ own understanding of other people’s mental process plays a role in their progress at school.
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