Lev Semenovich Vygotsky (1896-1934)
Lev Semenovich Vygotsky developed a theory of mental growth which emphasised
the role of language, explanation, and interaction between different children,
as well as the individual child's own play. "In play, a child is always
above his average age, above his daily behaviour; in play, it is as though he
were a head taller than himself." His work ranged from psychology to aesthetics.
At the University of Moscow, he studied linguistics, sociology, psychology, philosophy,
literature and art. After graduating in 1924, he started his work on developmental psychology,
education, psycho-pathology and primatology. 10 years later, he suffered an untimely death from
tuberculosis.
One central theme in his work is what he calls 'the problem of consciousness' and 'the crisis
in psychology'. How can the mind come to be aware of itself? He poured scorn on theories
of psychology which either did not attempt to answer this question, or tried to do so with
what he saw as an unscientific focus on the apparent needs of society. Such thoughts
did not find favour with Stalin and the forces he led. Soon after his death, Vygotsky's name
became unmentionable in Soviet psychology. His reputation was only re-established in the 1960s.
But in his short working life, he led
what seems to have been the first experimental study of the relation between language and
consciousness, and what he calls the 'genetic roots' of this relation.
Another central theme in his word concerns the differences between individuals.
He was interested in what has now come to
be known as the 'nature/nurture' issue. Vygotsky was strongly on the nurture side.
For Vygotsky, intelligence and ways of thinking are the products of the world
in which the individual grows up. For the sake of their future development, children
need to be given the right sort of information in an appropriate way at the point
when they are best able to absorb it.
For Vygotsky, intelligence was a readiness to listen, and language was language,
whether words were spoken out loud or just in the mind. In this respect,
his thinking foreshadows that of
Noam Chomsky a generation later.
Education would thus consist in an ongoing process of adjustment between teacher
and child. Consciousness was based on a complex layering of different levels of
awareness. Vygotsky distinguished between 'spontaneous concepts' which the child
could discover from active exploration of the environment and 'scientific concepts'
which the child needed to be taught. By this thinking, teaching should be based
on the next stage in the child's development rather than on the current one.
The purpose was to extend the child's current thinking, and provide a setting for
the next, higher level of understanding.
Vygotsky is mainly known for Thought and Language, originally published in 1934
just after his death, translated into English in a highly abridged form
less than half the length of the original Russian edition.
Piaget and Vygotsky knew of each others work, each clearly respecting that of the other,
but disagreeing profoundly on various issues. Piaget thought language emerged
from thought. From his studies of apes, Vygotsky thought language must have
its own genetic roots. Chomsky would support Vygotsky on this.
Vygotsky challenges Piaget's failure to explain the emergence of inner thought and
scientific concepts. For Vygotsky, Piaget hugely exaggerates the scale and significance
of children's egocentricity, and underestimates the complexity of what they need to
learn - particularly about the social world.
Pigeon Post is designed to draw the child out in a process of creativity, revealing where he or she is at in exploring
the worlds of literacy and arithmetic, but in a way that makes it fun to send messages, and relate to peers, friends and family.