The story of a crying farmer

Let's apply Activity Theory to analyze the "vegetable growing activity" by the old farmer.


The object of the activity could be the grown vegetable. We don't know the farmer's needs and motivation behind this object. It could be motivated by his need to feed himself, or to fulfil a promise to his dead wife, well, only he knows. In order to achieve his object, we can assume that he started a series of actions such as weed the grass, plant the seeds, water daily, etc, in different stages, under different situations and conditions, and mediated by different tools.

The story focuses at the growing stage. The goal was to raise the leaf up. To achieve this goal, he consciously carried out a series of actions, one after another despite the failure. He was determined to "raise the leaf up". He thought hard and experimented with different tools, e.g. He used the traditional pail and water; knife and stick; came up with innovative use of nails and magnet; string and balloon; and by coincidence, he found the most effective one being his tears! Once he found a good way (model) to achieve his goal of raising the leaf up, he immediately started another series of actions to improve the model. The goal now is to generate more tears. He achieved this goal by yet another series of actions, namely 1. Using a machine that used onion, hammer, and needle to generate pain (hence generate more tears); 2. Using his dead wife's skull to generate sadness; and 3. Reading sad story to generate tears. We can imagine that the crying farmer was so good at these actions that they became his daily routine operations. Occassionally, the hammer installed at the machine might break down and the farmer would need to do the hammering manually. Thus, the routine "hammering" operation returns to its conscious action.

We can reason that the sad ending (undersirable outcomes) was because the crying farmer had left out an important pest control stage. He wasn't aware of the presence of the snails, which were part of the community, and they too were motivated by the same object of the activity (the grown vegetables). We can also assume that this negligence (can't possibly happen to an experienced farmer) was due to the fact that he was totally exhausted after working on such a huge field and we all know that crying was a very tiring task. Despite being such a focused and effective worker in achieving his goals, because of a negligence - he forgot the existence of other members (the snails) in the same activtiy system (even if they are unwelcome), the activity that he had so deligently and whole heartedly crafted had cost his life and many other lives.

Even though the crying farmer is fictitious, we see too many crying farmers around us. We "cry" at the undesirable outcomes generated by a failed activity even if its object is a noble one. We "cry" at our carelessness (a wrong or inappropriate step), our negligence of the members in a community, or our ignorance to the changes in environmental conditions that jeopardise the whole activity. Worst of all, we sometimes are so focus at the tasks that we are not consciously aware of the activity we're participating and hence its object. It is not uncommon to hear urban workers crying, "Why are we doing all these (tasks)?", "I'm so busy everyday but I don't know what I'm busy at?"

I find Activity Theory useful in providing us with a vocabulary for talking about human activity in meaningful terms and giving us the necessary attention to what we bring to a situation.

We can never be certain of the consequences of our actions and be fully aware of a situation, which implies that we can't be sure we will achieve the object of the activity that leads to desirable outcomes. However, human beings are good learners. We can learn to become aware of some of our prejudices (or pre-understanding) and our actions, and in that way emancipate ourselves from some of the limits they place on our thinking.

In the next session, I'll discuss a useful tool developed by Engestrom. He extended Activity Theory by adding another main component "community" (those who share the same object of activity) to the subject-tool-object structure. The new structure enables explicit consideration of the systemic relations between an individual and his environment.

Activities, Actions, and Operations (II)

Activity Theory proposes that our "ways of knowing" are shaped by practice, and that people and artifacts mediate our relationship with reality. Consciousness is produced in the enactment of activity with other people and things, rather than something confined inside a human head. The theory is grounded on our everyday practice, not confine to "snap-shot" testing and evaluation of performance.

Leont'ev was the first to use the analytical distinction of three qualitatively different hierarchical levels of human behaviors: Activities, Actions , and Operations.

An activity is composed of actions or chains of actions, which in turns consists of operations.

Action is the goal-oriented process not engendered by the goal alone but by the motive of the activity as a whole, which the given action realizes. One activity may be realized using different actions, depending on the situation and conditions. On the other hand, one and the same action can belong to different activities, in which case the different objects and motives of the activities will cause the action to have a different personal sense for the individual in the context of each activity. We might not be conscious of our activity, but we are conscious of our actions. Before an action is performed, it is typically planned consciously according to a model of the situational circumstances. The better the model, the more successful the action. Different actions may be taken to meet the same goal. When a model for a conscious action is good enough, the action has been practiced long enough, and the situation is sufficiently stable, the action loses its "orienting basis" and becomes "routinized" into an operation. Actions consist of chains of operations.

Operation is the way the action is carried out. It depends on the conditions under which the action is being carried out. If the goal remains the same while the conditions under which it is to be carried out change, then the operational structure of the action will be changed. The routine operation becomes "unfold" and returns to the level of conscious actions.

It is possible that the object/motive remains fixed but goals, actions and operations change as the situation and condition changes. Similarly, the activity/object might change if the condition change and hence the actions/goals change. This activity-action-operation dynamics is the fundamental feature in human development. Learning begins in the form of learning operations and learning actions embedded in activities where its essential feature is mediated by tools.

Activities, Actions, and Operations (I)

Like the Simpsons, we are engaged in all kinds of activities every day. Ever wondered why we seem so occupied everyday but not sure what we are busy with? Why do we sometimes act so rashly, hastily, or irrationally, feeling "I should have said..." or "I shoudn't have done..."? Why do we behave differently in different situations? Do you understand yourself? Do you care?

Gadamer said in Truth and Method (1975) that "Long before we understand ourselves through the process of self-examination, we understand ourselves in a self-evident way in the family, society and state in which we live. The focus of subjectivity is a distorting mirror. The self-awareness of the individual is only a flickering in the closed circuits of historical life. That is why the prejudices of the individual, far more than his judgments, constitute the historical reality of his being."

We can't achieve a full explicit understanding of ourselves. It is in this essence that we need to gain more understanding of our assumptions so that we can expand our horizon. Contrast to traditional individual-centered cognition pyschology, Activity theory holds that each instance of human behavior is to be considered in light of its history and socio-cultural context. The integral units of human life, the way we interact with each other and the world, can be conceptualized as activities which serve to fulfil distinctive motives.

The structural units of human behavior, according Activity Theory, are Activities, Actions and Operations. Through the analysis of our activities, actions, and operations, we hope to gain more insights into our behaviors.

The Object of Activity

Every murderer has a motive. Every game has an object. What do you think is the object of a blogger?

There's no such thing as "objectless" activity according to Leont'ev. The object of an activity is that to which the activity always answers. We construct the object that meets our needs, and it orients our attention and actions to fulfil a motive. Thus the object of activity is both a projection of human mind onto the objective world and a projection of the world onto human mind. It motivates and directs the activity.

On the other hand, our experience tells us that in a collaborative joint activity, it is common to find its participants have different goals, nor do they necessarily share same beliefs and values. But clearly, for collaboration to occur, there must be a degree of overlap in goals and a willingness to attempt to understand the perspective of others. In other words, the object of the activity is cooperatively defined by the whole set of motives that the participants strive to attain in their activity, but it could be different from any of the effective motives.


The relations between object and individuals' motives and goals are dynamic one. Activity does not have a direction and start until the object of the activity is defined. But the object itself maybe shifted as the participants respond to change (in conditions or social context) and thus change their goals/actions/motives.

Tools

There're no other species than human beings in the world that has developed such a diverse and sophiscated array of tools, or built such an elaborate cultural life around their use, and the tools we use are not limited to artifacts but also signs and symbols such as language, music, words, works of art, diagrams, maps, etc. We found the tools, fashioned the ways of using them to extend and mediate our actions, and we passed them on, improved upon, from one generation to the next.

Every day and every moment, we use these "cultural and historical" tools to mediate our interactions with each other and with our surroundings for achieving goals to which our activities are directed. In a profound way, we are so wedded to and constituted by the tools we use that we cannot be understood apart from them. As Vygotsky had insightfully pointed out "Tools are not only as aids developed historically to mediate relationships with society or reflections of the external world but as main means of mastering psychological processes that have a decisive influence on the formation of man's psychological activity."

Learning

Like a toddler, we, younger or less-experienced people, learn by picking up the habits, attitudes, methods and skills of problems solving and playing, way of thinking and speaking, etc. from our parents, more experienced friends, relatives, teachers, colleagues, as well as books, computers,... It is through the taking part in such joint activities that we, a member of the society, are inducted into "ways of knowing" and "making" our own values, skills and knowledge along our growing process.

On the other hand, unprecedented issues and problems continually arise throughout our life. It is through joint collaboration in search for solutions that we learn and develop new skills and understandings. When we carry forward these skills and understanding to other situations and appropriated by different individuals, we pass on our values and knowing to culture at large...

Activity Theory is a theory of human development that sees human societies and their individual members as mutually constitutive. Cultures and individuals' background play a large role in shaping the development of individual; and individuals' thoughts and deeds serve to maintain or to alter the cultural milieu.

Don't we ever wonder how a little baby who could hardly walk develops into a skillful soccer player; how so many people go crazy over world cup but not to some; how a soccer player can influence other people, the society, etc.

Introduction

Toddler Walking
The ways we think, learn and know develop in the same way...

With the aid from mediated instruments such as tools, parents, peers, co-workers, as well as mental tools like language, words, etc., and most importantly, oriented by an "object" in mind. For the walking toddler, the object being his biological needs to walk.