The Concrete Child at the Center of Collective Learning: Subjectivity, Symbolic Play, and Learning Activity in "Far Beyond the Cognitive"

Abstract

The article presents a critical analysis of the monograph Muito além do cognitive: articulando aprendizagem, didática e subjetividade [Beyond the Cognitive: Articulating Learning, Didactics, and Subjectivity] by Roberto Valdés Puentes and Flávia Pimenta de Souza Carcanholo, devoted to the problem of subject formation within mathematics study activity during the early years of schooling. The analysis focuses on the theoretical and methodological dialogue between Developmental Didactics within the Elkonin–Davydov–Repkin tradition and González Rey’s Theory of Subjectivity. It is demonstrated that the authors of the work seek to overcome a predominantly cognitive interpretation of developmental learning by placing intentionality, goal formation, subjective sense, fantasy, symbolic play, and the child’s emotional involvement at the center of analysis. Special attention is devoted to the concept of study activity, to the modeling of the relations between magnitude, measure, and number, as well as to the problem of theoretical generalization in mathematics learning. It is argued that the work opens new perspectives for understanding mathematics not as a neutral cognitive sphere, but as a cultural, symbolic, and subjective activity. At the same time, the article discusses the theoretical tension present in the monograph between the logic of study activity and the expansion of the problematic of subjectivity, emotion, and creativity. It is concluded that the work constitutes an important contribution to contemporary international discussions on developmental learning, subjectivity, and the formation of the subject in education.