Lev S. Vygotsky
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Lev S. Vygotsky |
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Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky was a Russian psychologist who lived from 1896-1934. Although his research and writings were done over a ten year period, he wrote over 180 works. Vygotsky was pressured to modify his theories to match that of the prevailing political ideology. As a result of his refusal to do this, his work was expunged several years after his death. Although many of his colleagues and students carried on his work, they were not able to openly express this tie to Vygotsky's theories until the political climate had shifted in the late 1950s and 1960s. As a result, his final book, Thought and Language, was not translated into English until 1962. (Bodrova and Leong, 1996). Vygotsky studied Piaget, Watson and Skinner, Freud, and Koffka. Vygotsky proposed alternatives to some of Piaget's
early works in the area of language development. Where Piaget saw a child's development as an unfolding through
their actions on the world, Vygotsky saw the child's development as the result of interactions with others. Piaget
believed that all children go through the same stages of development so that universally they will reach
the stage of formal operations at around age 14. Vygotsky, in contrast, believed that the culture in which a child
is raised will influence the operations a child will develop. This enculturation into society, through education,
results in the development of higher mental processes in children (Dixon-Krauss, 1996). This view makes instruction
central to the child's development of these mental processes. Vygotsky brings us a sociohistorical ( Dixon-Krauss, 1996) view of cognitive development. He believed that behavior must be studied in the social and historical context in which it is embedded. We can only understand the mental processes if we look at the tools or signs that mediate them. A tool is something that can be used in the service of something else. A sign is something that stands for something else. Mediation is the use of these signs in mental processing. Vygotsky proposed the concepts of internalization and zone of proximal development to describe how this mediation takes place. Vygotsky believed that culture affects how these higher functions are developed and acquired and to acquire these higher mental functions, a child must already possess the basic mental tools of the culture (Bodrova and Leong, 1996). Because language is one of the most important tools for organizing thinking, Vygotsky conducted much research in this area. In looking at other studies, he took their strengths to form and test his own theories.
Using Vygotsky's approach, teachers are able to help the child acquire mental tools and use these to generalize learning to different situations. Driscoll (2000, p. 248) quotes Vygotsky as saying, " the only good kind of instruction is that which marches ahead of development and leads it." |
| References Bodrova, E., & Leong, D.J. (1996). Tools of the mind: The Vygotskian approach to early childhood education. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Dixon-Krauss, L. (1996). Vygotsky in the classroom: Mediated literacy instruction and assessment. White Plains, New York: Longman Publishers USA. Driscoll, M. P. (2000). Psychology of learning for instruction-2nd edition. Needleham Heights, Mass: Allyn and Bacon. |
