Blog #3 September 22, 2009

Gee: If the human mind is a powerful pattern recognizer—and the evidence very much suggests it is—then what is most important about thinking is not that it is “mental,” something happening inside our heads, but rather that it is social, something attuned to and normed by the social groups to which we belong or seek to belong (192).

Priebe: Certainly we are shaped by society and the social groups that we are members of—and some shape us that we are not members of, but I simply do not understand why our great ability to recognize patterns means that we are automatically shaped by social groups. So what? Why would my ability to recognize different species of birds or races or adherents to a particular religion mean that I am normed by my social groups. I am normed by my social groups but this has nothing whatsoever to do with my ability to recognize patterns, and I don’t think that you articulated this very well at all. I know what you are trying to say. You’re saying that society teaches us what to recognize. OK, fine. I can go along with this, but I still think you’re really stretching it to say that “what is most important about thinking is . . . social.” There are still rebels in this world that will rebel and recognize what they want to recognize. Many times they are called artists. Independent thinking still exists--thank God--although you would obviously prefer our young people to band together into think tanks where they are never separated from their tools (the computer) lest they actually learn how to act autonomously. What a picture you paint! We had damn well better leave room in our curriculum for independent thinking and action lest we raise a generation of the helpless. I know what you’re driving at, but again, don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Gee: I have first wanted to argue that good video games build into their very designs good learning principles and that we should use these principles, with or without games, in schools, workplaces, and other learning sites (216).

Priebe: This I understand, and this I agree with wholeheartedly. I am doing my best to bring some of your practices into the classroom. Here is one last thing I will say to you, for I have now finished your book. I am convinced that young people spend so much time with these games because they have the time to spend with these games. But what if I told young Adrian that he was to practice his violin three hours a day? There is a reason why young people are more adept with computers than their parents; they have the time to play with them!

Williams: Lack of alignment is probably the biggest cause of unpleasant looking documents. Our eyes like to see order (43). Strong alignment is often the missing key to a more professional look (46). I want to repeat: find a strong line and use it (48). The trick is you cannot be timid about breaking the alignment—either do it all they way or don’t do it. Don’t be a wimp (49).

Priebe: What can I say but what I said last week? I am learning a lot from you. Your field is really never something that I considered or ever really knew about, but I think that you have designed and written your book brilliantly, and I am learning about design. I just hope that I can retain these principles. Your book is a keeper! I hope that my cards and websites will look as good as yours.

Russell: Discussions of “practical” writing in the disciplines went against the grain of the conference, with its concern for liberating students from “the system, the machine” (11).

Priebe: Typical rhetoric of the period. Youth versus the establishment or the system. It is to these educators’ credit however, that they were trying to help.

Russell: I think John Dewey, now much maligned in America, took a more comprehensive, balanced view of education with a clearer eye to both practical and intellectual interests, and to individuality as something that can be fully developed through communtiy (11).

Priebe: Hey, you sound just like Gee when you talk about developing through community.

Pratt: I propose to say a few more words about this erstwhile unreadable text, in order to lay out some thoughts about writing and literacy in what I like to call contact zones. I use this term to refer to social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power, such as colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths as they are lived out in many parts of the world today.

Priebe: asymmetrical means having parts that fail to correspond to one another or that are unequal, so you are talking culture clashes where cultures don’t fit together, and in fact, fight with each other because of some perceived inequality.