Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky (1896 – 1934)
is a world-famous Soviet psychologist and teacher, whose works include research into the psychology and cognitive development of children.
For some time, a real cult of Vygotsky was developing in the USSR and throughout the world, which resulted in his “debunking” carried out in recent years, often based on distortions and falsifications of his real works and ideas.
Biography of L.S. Vygotsky
L.S. Vygotsky was born on November 17, 1896 in Orsha, the second child in a large family of a bank employee. In 1897, the family moved to Gomel, where it became a kind of cultural center (the father is the founder of the public library).
Lev was a gifted boy and was educated at home. From 1912 he completed his studies at a private gymnasium.
In 1914, after graduating from high school, Vygotsky entered the medical faculty of Moscow State University, and a month later he was transferred to law and graduated in 1917. At the same time, he received an education at the Faculty of History and Philology of the Shanyavsky University.
In 1917, with the beginning of the revolution, the young man returned to Gomel. The Gomel period lasted until 1924 and was the beginning of his psychological and pedagogical activity. Here he marries and has a daughter.
At first he gave private lessons, then taught a course in philology and logic at various schools in the city, and took an active part in the formation of a new type of school. He also taught philology at the Pedagogical College, where he created a consulting room for psychology. Here Vygotsky began his psychological research.
In 1920, Lev contracted tuberculosis from his brother, who died.
In 1924 he was invited to the Moscow Institute of Experimental Psychology. From that moment on, the Moscow period of the scientist’s family began.
In 1924 – 1925 Vygotsky created his own cultural and historical psychological school on the basis of the institute. He began to become interested in working with special needs children. Continuing his psychological research, he simultaneously worked in the People's Commissar of Education, where he proved himself to be a talented organizer.
Through his efforts, an experimental defectology institute was created in 1926 (now the Institute of Correctional Pedagogy). He headed it until the end of his life. Vygotsky continues to write and publish books. From time to time the illness put him out of action. In 1926 there was a very severe outbreak.
From 1927 – 1931 The scientist published works on the problems of cultural-historical psychology. During these same years, he began to be accused of retreating from Marxism. It became dangerous to study psychology, and Vygovsky devoted himself to pedology.
The disease periodically worsened, and in 1934 Lev Semenovich died in Moscow.
Pedagogy
After graduating from university, Lev Vygotsky faced the problem of finding a job. He, his mother and younger brother first go to Samara in search of a place, then goes to Kyiv, but in 1918 he returns to Gomel. Here he gets involved in the construction of a new school, where he begins to teach together with his older brother David. From 1919 to 1923, he worked in several educational institutions in Gomel, and also headed the department of public education. This teaching experience became the basis for his first scientific research in the field of methods of influencing the younger generation.
He organically entered into the pedological direction, which was progressive for that time, which united psychology and pedagogy. Vygotsky creates an experimental laboratory at the Gomel Technical School, in which his educational psychology is formed. Vygotsky Lev Semenovich actively speaks at conferences and becomes a prominent scientist in the new field. After the death of the scientist, works devoted to the problems of developing skills and teaching children will be combined in a book called “Educational Psychology.” It will contain articles on attention, aesthetic education, forms of studying a child’s personality and teacher psychology.
Main directions of Vygotsky's research
Vygotsky was, first and foremost, a psychologist. He chose the following areas of research:
- comparison of adults and children;
- comparison of modern man and ancient man;
- comparison of normal personality development with pathological behavioral deviations.
The scientist drew up a program that determined his path in psychology: to look for an explanation of internal mental processes outside the body, in its interaction with the environment. The scientist believed that these mental processes can only be understood through development. And the most intensive development of the psyche occurs in children.
This is how Vygotsky came to an in-depth study of child psychology. He studied the patterns of development of normal and abnormal children. In the process of research, the scientist came to study not only the process of child development, but also his upbringing. And since pedagogy is the study of education, Vygotsky began research in this direction.
He believed that any teacher should base his work on psychological science. This is how he connected psychology with pedagogy. And a little later, a separate science in social pedagogy emerged - psychological pedagogy.
While engaged in pedagogy, the scientist became interested in the new science of pedology (knowledge about the child from the point of view of various sciences) and became the main pedologist of the country.
He put forward ideas that revealed the laws of cultural development of the individual, his mental functions (speech, attention, thinking), explained the internal mental processes of the child, his relationship with the environment.
His ideas on defectology laid the foundation for correctional pedagogy, which began to practically help special children.
Vygotsky did not develop methods for raising and developing children, but his concepts of the proper organization of education and upbringing became the basis of many developmental programs and systems. The scientist’s research, ideas, hypotheses and concepts were far ahead of their time.
Personal life
Like any scientist, Lev Semenovich Vygotsky, for whom psychology became his life’s work, devoted most of his time to work. But in Gomel he found a like-minded person, a fiancée, and later a wife, Roza Noevna Smekhova. The couple lived a short life together - only 10 years, but it was a happy marriage. The couple had two daughters: Gita and Asya. Both became scientists, Gita Lvovna is a psychologist and defectologist, Asya Lvovna is a biologist. The psychological dynasty was also continued by the scientist’s granddaughter, Elena Evgenievna Kravtsova, who now heads the Institute of Psychology named after her grandfather.
Principles of raising children according to Vygotsky
The scientist believed that education does not consist in adapting the child to the environment, but in the formation of a personality that goes beyond this environment, as if looking forward. At the same time, the child does not need to be educated from the outside, he must educate himself.
This is possible with proper organization of the education process. Only the personal activity of a child can become the basis of education.
The teacher should only be an observer, correctly guide and regulate the child’s independent activity at the right moments.
Thus, education becomes an active process from three sides:
- the child is active (he performs an independent action);
- the teacher is active (he observes and helps);
- The environment between the child and the teacher is active.
Education is closely related to learning. Both processes are collective activities. The structure of the new labor school, which Vygotsky created with his students, is based on the principles of the collective process of education and training.
Unified Labor School
It was the prototype of a democratic school based on a creative, dynamic, collaborative pedagogy. It was ahead of its time, imperfect, and made mistakes, but it was still successful.
Vygotsky’s ideas were implemented by teachers Blonsky, Wenzel, Shatsky and others.
The pedological theory was tested at the school:
- there were rooms for psychological and pedological diagnostics;
- constant medical and psychological monitoring was carried out;
- classes were created according to the principle of the child’s pedological age.
This school existed until 1936, when the Soviet authorities began attacking it. The school was repurposed as a regular one.
The very idea of pedology was distorted, and it fell into oblivion. Pedology and the idea of a labor school received a second life in the 90s. with the collapse of the USSR. A unified labor school in the modern sense is a democratic school, very appropriate in today's education.
Development and education of special children
Vygotsky developed a new theory of abnormal child development, on which defectology is now based and all practical correctional pedagogy is built. The purpose of this theory: the socialization of special children with a defect, and not the study of the defect itself. It was a revolution in defectology.
He connected special correctional pedagogy with the pedagogy of a normal child. He believed that the personality of a special child is formed in the same way as that of ordinary children. It is enough to socially rehabilitate an abnormal child, and his development will follow the normal course.
His social pedagogy was supposed to help the child remove the negative social layers caused by the defect. The defect itself is not the cause of the child’s abnormal development, it is only a consequence of improper socialization.
The starting point in the rehabilitation of special children should be an unaffected state of the body. “We should work with the child based on what is healthy and positive,” Vygotsky.
By starting rehabilitation, you can also start the compensatory capabilities of the special child’s body. The idea of the zone of proximal development has become very effective in restoring the normal development of special children.
Quotes
- “A child needs never-before-seen things only when he is well established in the past.”
- “Tragedy is a riot of maximum human strength, therefore it is major.”
- “Man is always full of unfulfilled possibilities.”
- “Having the end of the path, it is easiest to understand both the entire path as a whole and the meaning of the individual stages.”
- “The execution of an automatic act does not give our mind any task. There is no difficulty, which means there is no need, and therefore there is no consciousness.”
Zone of Proximal Development Theory
The zone of proximal development is the “distance” between the level of a child’s actual and possible development.
- The level of actual development is the development of the child’s psyche at the moment (which tasks can be completed independently).
- The zone of proximal development is the future development of the individual (actions that are performed with the help of an adult).
This is based on the assumption that a child, learning some elementary action, simultaneously masters the general principle of this action. Firstly, this action itself has a wider application than its element. Secondly, having mastered the principle of action, you can apply it to perform another element.
This will be an easier process. There is development in the learning process.
But learning is not the same as development: learning does not always push development; on the contrary, it can become a brake if we rely only on what the child can do and do not take into account the level of his possible development.
Learning will become developmental if we focus on what the child can learn from previous experience.
The size of the zone of proximal development is different for each child.
It depends:
- on the needs of the child;
- from its capabilities;
- on the willingness of parents and teachers to assist in the development of the child.
Personal-active approach
Lev Semenovich Vygotsky believed that human personality is formed in the process of complex interaction with the environment. There is no unmotivated activity. Its motive comes from a certain need. The mental development of an individual is aimed at the formation of internal actions aimed at achieving conscious goals.
Vygotsky’s personality theory puts the student himself, his goals, motives, and individual psychological characteristics at the center of the learning process. The teacher determines the direction and methods of teaching based on the interests and perspectives of the child.
Vygotsky's merits in pedology
At the beginning of the 20th century, educational psychology appeared, which was based on the fact that learning and upbringing depend on the psyche of a particular child.
The new science did not solve many problems of pedagogy. An alternative was pedology - a comprehensive science about the full age development of a child. The center of study in it is the child from the point of view of biology, psychology, sociology, anthropology, pediatrics, and pedagogy. The hottest problem in pedology was the socialization of the child.
It was believed that child development proceeds from the individual mental world to the external world (socialization). Vygotsky was the first to postulate that the social and individual development of a child are not opposed to each other. They are simply two different forms of the same mental function.
He believed that the social environment is the source of personal development. The child absorbs (makes internal) those activities that came to him from the outside (were external). These types of activities are initially enshrined in social forms of culture. The child adopts them by seeing how other people perform these actions.
Those. external social and objective activity passes into the internal structures of the psyche (interiorization), and through general social-symbolic activity (including through speech) of adults and children the basis of the child’s psyche is formed.
Vygotsky formulated the basic law of cultural development:
In the development of a child, any function appears twice - first in the social aspect, and then in the psychological (i.e., first it is external, and then it becomes internal).
Vygotsky believed that this law determines the development of attention, memory, thinking, speech, emotions, and will.
"Psychology of Art"
Another important, landmark book for which Vygotsky Lev became famous is “The Psychology of Art.” It was published many years after the author’s death, but even then it made a huge impression on the scientific world. Its influence was experienced by researchers from various fields: psychology, linguistics, ethnology, art history, sociology. Vygotsky’s main idea was that art is an important sphere of development of many mental functions, and its emergence is due to the natural course of human evolution. Art is the most important factor in the survival of the human population; it performs many important functions in society and the lives of individuals.
The influence of communication on raising a child
A child develops quickly and masters the world around him if he communicates with an adult. At the same time, the adult himself should be interested in communication. It is very important to encourage your child's verbal communication.
Speech is a sign system that arose in the process of socio-historical development of man. It is able to transform children's thinking, helps solve problems and form concepts. At an early age, a child’s speech uses words with a purely emotional meaning.
As children grow and develop, words of specific meaning appear in their speech. In older adolescence, the child begins to designate abstract concepts in words. Thus, speech (word) changes the mental functions of children.
The mental development of a child is initially controlled by communication with an adult (through speech). Then this process moves into the internal structures of the psyche, and inner speech appears.
Developmental education
For the first time in Russian psychology, Vygotsky began to study the relationship between learning and human development. By the term “development” he understood gradual changes in the physiology, behavior and thinking of a child. They occur over time under the influence of the environment and natural processes in the body.
Changes are taking place in several areas:
- Physical – changes in the structure of the brain, internal organs, motor and sensory skills.
- Cognitive - in mental processes, mental abilities, imagination, speech, memory.
- Psychosocial – in personal behavior and emotions.
These areas develop simultaneously and are interconnected. There is a need to draw up an approximate schedule for the appearance of specific forms of behavior in children. Lev Semenovich Vygotsky developed the doctrine of age as a central problem in theoretical psychology. As well as teaching practice.
In subsequent years, Soviet scientists V. Davydov, P. Galperin, M. Enikeev and others, based on the theories of L. S. Vygotsky about the psychology of child development, developed the concept of developmental education. That is, the scientist’s works were continued by his followers.
Criticism of Vygotsky's ideas
Vygotsky's research and ideas on psychological pedagogy were subjected to the most vehement condemnation.
His concept of learning, based on the zone of proximal development, carries the danger of pushing forward a child who does not have sufficient potential. This can dramatically slow down children's development.
This is partly confirmed by the current fashionable trend: parents strive to develop their children as much as possible, without taking into account their abilities and potential. This dramatically affects the health and psyche of children and reduces motivation for further education.
Another controversial concept: systematically helping a child perform actions that he has not mastered on his own can deprive the child of independent thinking.
Dissemination and popularity of Vygotsky's ideas
After the death of Lev Semenovich, his works were forgotten and did not spread. However, since 1960, pedagogy and psychology have rediscovered Vygotsky, revealing many positive aspects in him.
His idea of the zone of proximal development helped assess learning potential and proved fruitful. Her outlook is optimistic. The concept of defectology has become very useful for correcting the development and education of special children.
Many schools have adopted Vygotsky’s definitions of age standards. With the advent of new sciences (valeology, correctional pedagogy, a new reading of previously perverted pedology), the scientist’s ideas became very relevant and fit into the concept of modern education, a new democratic school.
Many of Vygotsky’s ideas are being popularized here and abroad today.
Michael Cole and Jerome Bruner incorporated them into their theories of development.
Rome Harré and John Shotter considered Vygotsky the founder of social psychology and continued his research.
In the 90s Valsiner and Barbara Rogoff deepened developmental psychology based on Vygotsky's ideas.
Vygotsky's students were prominent Russian psychologists, including Elkonin, who also worked on problems of child development. Together with teachers, based on Vygotsky’s ideas, he created an effective Elkonin-Davydov-Repkin development program.
It is used to teach mathematics and language according to a special system; it is approved by the state and is now widely used in schools.
In addition, there are still many talented hypotheses and unrealized ideas of Vygotsky that are waiting in the wings.
