AXEL-1) SITUATED MEANING PRINCIPLE, 2) AFFINITY GROUP PRINCIPLE, and 3) Chapter 6 (CULTURAL MODES)

1) The Situated Meaning Principle

The meaning of signs (e.g. words, actions, objects, symbols, texts) are situated in bodily experience. The meaning is not general or uncontextualized. For example, the meaning of a word is learned by seeing how it interacts within the text we are reading. We do not look up the word in a dictionary where we get a general, out of context meaning.

2) The Affinity Group Principle

Learners that are part of an "Affinity Group" join together because of shared endeavors, goals, and practices, and not because of shared race, nation, ethnicity, culture, etc. In other words, this is not a Cultural Group, or a National Group, or an Ethnic Group. It is and "Affinity Group" because they share the same goals and accomplish them together.

Chapter 6: Cultural Models

The main term to know about this chapter is what a Cultural Model is. It is a tacit, taken for granted theory or way of thinking that we subscribe to because we want to be like other members of our Social Groups. For example, an LDS member would (though not necessarily), probably subscribe to the LDS Cultural Model that marriage between a man and a woman is the correct marriage.

He talks about the Sonic the Hedgehog game and explains that video games challenge us to think about our Cultural Models. In the Sonic game, you are able to play as the Good Sonic, or the Bad Shadow Sonic. His son made the comment, "In this game, the bad guy is the good guy." The point was that the bad guy becomes the protagonist and the player need to momentarily adopt the Cultural Models of a bad person who wants to destroy the world.

He also talks about Under Ashes (I think that's the name) where you play as a Muslim militant fighting against Israelis. Normally, you find Mulsums as the bad guys in video games, but this game challenges our Cultural Models. We come to think differently about things (it creates a conflict of Models within us), and we are likely not to be able to kill Muslims in video games in the future without thinking about it.

The last, perhaps most important point is the one about teaching at school. Because students taking physics have, through their own experience, subscribed to the Cultural Model that things that move in this world are being propelled by something, find it hard to understand Plato's theory that what is in motion stays in motion without any force acting upon it whatsoever. He makes the point that a good teacher will not tell students that they are stupid for not understanding, but that they should understand that their Cultural Model does not work for physics and that they need to be open to learning other Models.