Vygostsky’s theory on psychology attempts to relate culture with human history in terms of learning, or “memorizing” in his terms. In order to make an attempt at understanding Vygostsky’s perspective, I needed to be sure that I started with a concrete definition of the word ‘sign’; this definition being “artificial, or self generated, stimuli” (p. 39). I could only continue reading after grasping and understanding this definition myself. In his discussions of signs, Vygotsky provided a study to illustrate his point that an individual understanding of signs was the result of higher cognitive functions. However, his experiment seemed like it overlooked a few too many variables for me. As a child, I don’t believe that I would have performed entirely well on the test provided; however, I don’t think that this would be due to solely my inability to relate external stimuli to recall. I find myself questioning whether or not these young children performed poorly because they were incapable of this higher level of thought, or if young children just don’t focus enough on the task because they don’t want to. Is it a combination of these two items? Is the inability to focus a result of trying to hide an ability to truly think? I don’t know if there is an answer to any of these questions, but Vygotsky seemed to believe that there was a drastic difference in the ability of a child and an adolescent to utilize signs and tools.
Another point that I found interesting was Vygotsky’s statement that development proceeds in a spiral, “passing through the same point at each new revolution while advancing to a higher level” (p. 56). I guess I have never really thought about learning in these terms. When I think about cognitive development, I don’t really take into consideration the means by which my learning takes place. After reading this section, I stopped to really try to understand this point. It does seem logical that one would learn easy concepts and more challenging ones in a similar manner. The way I learn today may be very different in terms of complexity than the way I learned when I was in elementary school, however, the process of learning for me has not necessarily changed. I still read something, try to relate it to my life in some way, and then make an attempt at understanding it – a process I continue to cycle through as my cognitive abilities grow.
After reading Vygotsky, I am left in an internal debate with myself regarding how successful this theory could be incorporated into the education system of today. The limited research provided by Vygotsky in this article only examined a task of color labeling for people of different ages. Vygotsky made some very insightful points within the context of his theory, yet he did not provide enough research and concrete information to enable me to develop an understanding of how this theory could be applied to a learning environment – i.e. the classroom. With a school system focusing almost solely on test scores, I don’t know if this theory could be applied effectively to the classroom. The system would have to be drastically reformed to emphasize the significance of connections and to utilize the significance of learning how to properly utilize signs to increase understanding. The question then becomes, would this system be based on grades, or would there be some other technique to determine the level of understanding?
Tags: Team MACK
Kristyn, I think you bring up a really important point about your learning style. When you read something and make connections to your life or your previous experiences, that’s illustrates characteristics of successful readers (and learners). But how did you learn that? Were you taught it explicitly, or did it come naturally? It seems to me that for some people, those come naturally, while other less successful learners do not understand how to do it. Perhaps that metacognitive piece is one of the missing pieces to the puzzle…
It is interesting that you brought up the point of how Vygotsky would translate into an era of standardized testing. If teachers could find a way to have students develop their own personal stimuli to elicit the answers that are on a standardized test, this task alone would be very impressive. Yet to have all students, of all different capabilities and backgrounds arrive at the same response seems a bit far reaching. These ideas are something that I struggle to understand as well. How would Vygotsky feel about NCLB?