User:John Bessa/Saving Constructivism

Preface

A healthy mind is well-constructed, and thus constructivist. The resulting healthy structure extends out to the "proximal" environment to form and engage in social structures: family, community, society. These social structures help construct the mind, especially during infancy and childhood.

This is a work in progress. Its purpose is to bring construTIVism and social constructION up to date so that it can be meaningfully implemented across the board: in education and the social sciences. I think that what is important to understand, is that there are at least two (and probably more) "threads" of construTIVism that pretty much mean the same thing but are abstracted in different (and equally useful) ways with respect to the human mind and social interaction. For the moment I am starting with the old-school Viennese version (radical constructivism) that draws in ideas of the unconscious, and then I will approach a pragmatist-phenomenological-humanistic version based on Carl Rogers "evolutional interrelation model." I will of course attempt to reconcile the two with SVG diagrams (Inkscape).

I am aggregating my recent writing which was inspired by family therapy ideas as I am working on a psychotherapy masters. Click here for this material in its raw shape.

Basics

I have found epistemology to mean "underlying theory" in education and psychology. For instance, in education, epistemology is what is necessary to create curricula and a syllabus. In psychology, epistomology can mean cognitive-behavioral, humanistic, or psychodynamic (the latter two being related to constructivism).

The Constructivist disambiguation page lists types of constructivist whose underlying theory should be described on this page as collective constructivism as it applies:

• Constructivism (learning theory)
  • Constructivist teaching methods
• Constructivism (psychological school) psychological research and therapy
• Social constructionism knowledge theory through communication as in Family systems
  • Social constructivism cognitive development in the social and cultural context
• Constructivism (mathematics) objective view of math and proofs

1. Social construcTIVism and social construcTIONism probably have the same meaning in the "here and now" as they describe how shared cognition (or consensually accepted reality) is created. Social constructionism is the basis of family therapy, and it has decidedly behavioral roots, which hows constructivism's exceedingly wide scope.
2. Teaching methods might be better called education and can be combined with learning theory, and, as the origin of the epistemology it closely relates to psychology as knowledge building is considered therapy for self-construct (humanistic) or the conscious/unconscious (psychodynamic). The education page's first line describes Piaget as the founder of constructivism, which is pretty far off mark as Vygotsky predated him, and I am not even sure Piaget would agree.
3. Constructivist mathematics is very interesting, as as described here on the Wikipedia, is very interesting because it probably spawned object-oriented programming (as we know computer science has its roots in math). Math and physics have strong influences on psychology and sociology as in organizational psychology (Kurt Lewin)
4. Missing from the above list are arts and architecture (which may be appropriate, but seem off topic as everything left is knowledge-based or Science--which is constructed knowledge.
5. Constructivism is an accepted model for the current Information Society (the Internet), and especially for Wikis, yet no page exists for this--it can be initiated here.

The point I am trying to make, is that this page, and the disambuigation page are virtually the same, in fact, this should probably be the disambigutation page. At very least it needs to be a hub, and the arcane nature epistemology with its roots in ancient philosophy does not help current readers who cannot know what it means as it is rarely used. (This makes it un-encyclopedic as encyclopedias are popular sources.) The page needs a new name that better explains constructivism than epistemology can.

I personally consider myself a constructivst, but it was not until I studied family systems that I realized that constructivism is not about society as much as the person, either through learning or understanding psychology. I formed an idea that the "community of knowledge" was the constructivist goal, but that is really in the direction of social construction. In the end, one isn't going anywhere w/o the other: constructivism and constructionism are together a dimension that is yet to be named (I think).

Constructivism is, however, the epistemology of the Internet (and hence the current Information Society). Also, it is one half of the family systems picture, and it logically extends that it is important to society's picture (sociology). The other half, social construction is more about the formation of "reality" through communication -- it isn't real until we discuss it, and create a common conception, or, more accurately, a shared cognition. (Cool, huh? Didn't you always wonder about reality?)

• Internet: Mitch Resnick
• Family and society: Gavriel Salomon
• Individual structure: Markus Peschl
• Education: Bonnie Shapiro
• Psychology: ??

All these writers are exceedingly current, and quite interesting to read, and I think they have all we need. I am not saying to ignore Vygotski by any means, but I believe we need to look through the current lens. This field, more than any other, is multidisciplinary. For one thing, Peschl marries the psychodynamicists with the humanistics, Freud with Rogers, by showing the classic "unconscious" as the humanistic "frame of reference." What I think is barely mentioned, is that the construction of the "frame of reference" with an epistemology is key to psychological well-being: happiness. This I got from family systems and Bonnie Shapiro's What Children Bring to Light.

There is one item that is often ignored (but not by Resnick): the "artifact." This the thing we focus on in constructivism; what we construct. In economics, it is a product, but in the current economy it is not our product; it is the corporation's. (Think of this in terms of socialism and globalism.) Instead, we have semi-artifacts such as sports and family activities. I imagine cars and houses are artifacts we focus on, but others focus on them for us; I have heard referred to as a form of mediation. If the artifact is essential to psychological construction (along with emotional interrelation which is also scarce), then we have a good picture of why "craziness" is increasing substantially year after year.

There are direct extensions to engineering, such as cybernetics that Bateson of the Mental Health Institute passed along to the Milan school. This mirrors Bandura's efficacy research with physics-like Kurt Lewin. As part of the self-constructs, efficacy is very important, yet is rarely differentiated from esteem.

I think that it is only appropriate that the constructivist page should faithfully imitate itself to create a valid social internet structure. It really is not that tough to understand. It has familiar humanistic (which is North American) Existential (Europe) flavors to it (and I cannot help but think that there are Asian equivalents), the modeling can be done on a single piece of paper (see below).

Epistemology

Epistemology, from the WP: "the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope (limitations) of knowledge." I think that philosophy is something to avoid in the context of Science, so let's say that it is the

"study of the construction of knowledge"

which is, in fact, a sort of redundancy to constructivists, as study is in of itself the construction of knowledge. Constructivsm is the epistemology that is not didactic, or perhaps didactic is the epistemology that is not constructivist. This makes constructivism is the natural, non-forced, artifact- or object-oriented development of concept that extends through social construction to others and groups such as family and society. To support the importance of the artifact, or object that is being constructed in parallel with the construction of knowledge, constructivist math literally requires an object, it is the first object orientation.

As we want scientific study rather than philosophy, then I am thinking that the proper name for this page is Constructivism (current epistemology). As I have been attempting to show, constructivsm is multidisciplinary, and epistemology covers all uses of it as the study of the development of concepts. The meanings are coinciding here and now, hence my idea for using the word current.

Mapping and feedback loops

Maps

Shared cognition is an important constructivist component, especially as we move along the continuum to construction as Resnick describes. An important contribution just after WWI, was by Alfred Korzybski who described comprehension as a map of some land, but not the land itself. If it is a good map, he said, then it is as good as the land as an abstraction, but will not have all the information. In this analogy, distributed cognition is knowledge in the map that is shared; and I extend this by saying that much of the unknown information is actually the private, such as in private property. Some of this private information is shared in circular questioning, updating Korzybski's map. His work may have been the basis for all current diagrams.

Loops

Sociology and social and family psychology work with communication loops, which were initially introduced as something negative by Bowen for families to be treated, but are now recognized as the social network, which is a matrix of all those who know each other, and of each other. Single, double, and triple feedback loops are well described by Peschl, and I have extended them by using the perspective of the individual (which is what I think Peschl meant them for) beyond family to the societal perspective.

Two and apparent and possibly profound problems

What is important in this diagram is that the capital-civil loop of higher society (or civilization) is removed from the normal individual and social structure loops. A good questions is "where is education?" Two important changes result that damage society because of the civil-capital loop to the side. One is that critical inquiry / analysis is halted and there is nowhere to go with information about needs for improvement in society. Alternate paths can be built, but they are maladaptive. The other problem, which became apparent because of the diagram, is that there is no necessary artifact in the middle loops, only in the capital-civic loop. The artifact is essential for human functioning, and it is not where it is supposed to be--it has been stolen. But, by whom? This, I think, is the essential question humanity faces, and it is not a sociological or political question. It is a psychological question, and it may be psychology itself, because, if you study psychology, you know that the study of the human mind (and families) is about maladaption, and, increasingly, genetic mutations (not good) -- there is no study of the normal human mind.

I put more writing in the comments section for the feedback loops diagram; it is SVG so it can be edited if you feel the urge.

Institutionalized education

Where is education in this picture? Constructivst education would be complete with the insertion of the Artifact into the center, but didactic education has to be parallel as a business, as it operates for profit (even if it has been socialized). As didactic information is supplied (with little "back talk"); this was mis-attunement to Carl Rogers as it was not the product of experience, and probably misinformation. So, another box has been placed above Knowledge for inserted knowledge that is separate from the collective experience.

On the topic of education, constructivists education has always hit a roadblock which is that the only possible use for it is in the capital-civic loop (for reasons I describe in the map comments at the link above). What this means is that constructivist education is framed in the context of didactic education, which has no use for it. Didactic education, which from this diagram is not in the constructivist loops, which implies that (cognition from the didactic perspective) is not in the loop and is different from knowledge (episodic memory) and frame of reference (working memory) and may, along with behavior, be some other kind of psychology such pathology. There is another abstraction for the human system that comes from the pragmatists-phenomenoligists-humanistics, such as Carl Rogers and John Dewey that is purely based on experience and the construction of self, and might be the basis of a map that does not refer to cognition or behavior, as they are didactic and hence counter-thetical. I refer to this in Wikiology in the Carl Rogers section.

(It may be important to note that constructivist structure long-predates wikis, and that wikis don't necessarily use constructivist structure especially the Wikipedia, which attempts to preserve sequential (and hence unstructured) narrative. It may also be that to be truly constructivist, constructivist wikis have to have some different name that "wiki," as wikis are named for an express airport shuttle for tourists to Hawaii. (Weird naming conventions are typical of the Web, especially for this website: wikimedia, mediawiki-- is it designed to confuse? It probably is. Many constructivist structures may be defined in the scope of the Internet's unique ill-logic, but this in not the fault of constructivism! Constructivism has been suppressed, and, as typical of information control, sometimes maligned to some other meaning (but not too often).

Post-modernism

I think it is important to look that this as well, as constructiVism and constructioNism are clearly marked "post-modern" as is construcTIONism. From reading Peschl, the radical constructivist, I can only conclude that post-modernism is the creation of the modernists. From researching the roots of analytic thought, it became apparent to me that modernism is about 2500 years old (rather than dating back to the Enlightenment as many state), if you believe Socrates and Plato founded modern civilization with the first academy and the republic documents. (It may be helpful to note the context of this map and the problems it describes that the Socratics shunned the Athenian forum.) It is not as if armed construcTIVists and social construcTIONists invaded the classrooms and tossed the modernists. (Note the importance of academic education to perceptions.)

pre-misconceptions

Prior to learning this, I took post-modern to mean the tribal culture that has been absorbed in art (such as Picasso), and something relating to the post-apocalyptic thought by the SCA (what I would call re-enacted ancient Roman "campaignism"). I considered aboriginal preservation and restoration to be post-modern as genuine aboriginal culture has been so maligned by colonialism (or perhaps just civilization) that the native relationship with the environment is perceived to be entirely about killing animals. What has been lost is the aboriginal relationship with the environment that is exceedlingly relevant in this context because this relationship actually a fundamental component of constructiVism and construcTIONism: the community of knowledge. While this may appear to be post-modernism, it is really a pre-classical-ism that has survived civilization to this day by existing as parallel cultures, for instance, as folk music, community farming, and urban rebellion. The capital-civilized are increasing absorbing traditional human properties (really the public domain) while evicting historical farmers as part of globalism, which is considered by many to be post-modern because it is feminist, for instance.

Struggle between East (Vienna as the doorway) and West (New World plus the Western Isles)

I feel that there is an underlying struggle between classical thought, which is centered in Vienna and focuses on the unconscious, and classical modernism) and new thought, which is native to North America in too many ways to count, but has traces back to David Hume's 1700s Scotland with its concept of "God within us" that became scientific with the "self <-> experience" process that is the hallmark of humanistic thinking. As I think about it, it may be premature to exclude one model or the other, as abstractions are just that, comprehensions based on what we know, which is constucTIVism.