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This is where I'll give my thoughts to Alvin T's question "Do you think today's kids deserve more Dvoretsky or Razuvaev?"

Feel free to jump in with your thoughts too

My thoughts are:

1. Actually I think Razuvaev approach can accommodate Dvoretsky way.

The other way round is probably not true.

This is a point I am not confident enough of an author to make so I didn’t.

Meaning to say, I can totally imagine a Razuvaev will at the right time based on the student's disposition impose a more rigid framework to get the student to learn a specific lesson.

True flexibility allows the right amount of rigor at the right time.

True flexibility is not anti-rigor.

2. There's a piece of writing by David Chapman who applies Robert Kegan developmental theory to the understanding of rational systems.

I'll put the link here: https://metarationality.com/stem-fluidity-bridge#:~:text=Building%20a%20bridge%20to%20stage%205%20may%20be%20critical%20to%20keeping%20the%20bridge%20to%20stage%204%20open.%20Because%20the%20postmodern%20critique%20is%20correct%2C%20it%E2%80%99s%20intellectually%20indefensible%20to%20insist%20on%20rationality%20as%20The%20Way%20and%20The%20Truth%20and%20The%20Light

Chapman maps Kegan's stage 3 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_developmental_framework#:~:text=childhood%20to%20adolescence).-,Stage%203,-%3A%20The%20person%27s%20sense) where a person's sense of self is socially determined to be similar to how a person is "pre-rational"

He maps Kegan's stage 4 where the person now determines their own sense of self and values to adopting "rational systems"

Finally, he maps Kegan's stage 5 where the sense of self is no longer tethered to any aspect of history or lives to "post-rational or meta-rational"

Coming back to this question of Razuvaev and Dvoretsky, I see Dvoretsky as a stage 4 or rational systems stage and Razuvaev as a stage 5 meta-rational, meta-systems stage.

To a person in stage 4, Razuvaev's way sounds like a pre-rational or anti-rational person at a stage 3 of development.

To a person in stage 3, the very same Razuvaev way can sound like a stage 4.

So a Razuvaev is not so much opposed to Dvoretsky so much as a Razuvaev also "contains" Dvoretsky. Just as a "meta-rational, meta-systems" approach also "contains" rational systems approach.

It's not ANTI-systems nor ANTI-rational.

Children are still developing so they are where they are. It's the educators who we want ideally to be at a stage 5 Razuvaev who can adjust on a moment by moment basis, case by case basis what to do or say to guide our children.

So, for me it's not a case of choosing one over the other.

When you can have a Razuvaev, they will know when to turn Dvoretsky at the right time.

Unfortunately, if Kegan is right, there are very few stage 4 people let alone stage 5.

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