Between the warnings about the difficulty of this reading and the Marx quote at the beginning, I fully expected to dislike Vygotsky, but to my surprise I actually found this to be the most interesting article we’ve read. To begin with, I related with his desire for “a comprehensive approach that would make possible description and explanation of higher psychological functions in terms acceptable to natural science.” I’ve long been bothered by the giant gap between the biological working of neurons and the description of psychological mechanisms, and it was nice to see that Vygotsky at least wanted to try to bridge that gap, even if he never fully succeeded.
I was a little bit concerned about Vygotsky’s experimental methods, as the introduction predicted people might be. I think the small number of subjects used in his experiments makes them useful for seeing if that is a potentially fruitful area of investigation, but I would be hesitant to draw any factual conclusions from them. Presumably (or at least hopefully) psychology is like other sciences in that other psychologists would duplicate Vygotsky’s experiments to verify the results, which would help alleviate the problem.
One thing I couldn’t get a handle on was whether or not Vygotsky believes in tabula rasa. One quote: “The child does not suddenly and irrevocably deduce the relation between the sign and the method for using it. Nor does she intuitively develop an abstract attitude derived, so to speak, from ‘the depths of the child’s own mind.’ This metaphysical view, according to which inherent psychological schemata exist prior to any experience, leads inevitably to an a priori conception of higher psychological functions” seemed to indicate to me that he did, but then this one seems like he doesn’t: “The potential for complex sign operations is embedded in the earliest stages of individual development.”
I was also struck by how simple, yet profound some of his statements were, such as: “In the elementary form something is remembered; in the higher form humans remember something.” Statements like this helped me easily grasp the major points of his ideas, which I was expecting to be a difficult task. He goes on to say: “In the first case a temporary link is formed owing to the simultaneous occurrence of two stimuli that affect the organism; in the second case humans personally create a temporary link through an artificial combination of stimuli.” This sounds like classical conditioning and behaviorism are examples of the elementary form. It also emphasizes the importance of active participation for higher learning to occur.
Finally, unlike last week’s reading, which seemed to take the “knowledge as a tool” idea a bit too literally, Vygotsky makes it clear that tools are just a metaphor, and that psychological functions are not literally exactly like tools. There are some useful similarities that allow them to be used an analogy, but there are also important differences.
You pointed out what I think to be one of the most important parts of Vygotsky’s theory:
Students are agents of their own learning. I think that this is an incredible new view, especially for his time. In behaviorism, people are conditioned seemingly without their consent. The theory of socioculturalism emphasizes the active role of the learner in internalization of tools, signs, and symbols. If learners do not choose to absorb information, then it stays outside of them in the cultural realm. There is an engagement with learning that other theories haven’t included. I hope we get to talk about this later today because this is an important part of my own theory of learning.
~Aubree
Hi Ryan,
I agree with liking how Vygotsky is trying to bridge the gap between biology and psychological mechanisms. Too often I feel we try and separate the two in explaining different phenomenon. As I continue to study and research my own projects, I realize we must include a broad spectrum of information such as biology, culture, environment, our own preconceived notions, etc. I like Vygotsky’s theme of how our minds and bodies build knowledge together in developing simple and complex behavior. This especially makes sense when I read how important the process of responding to stimuli was to Vygotsky.
Also, it definitely would be interesting for modern day psychology to try and duplicate his results. Even though the ‘sign meaning’ study cannot be duplicated exactly to mimic Vygotsky’s, at least it could give valuable information backing up his conclusions on development. I would predict similar results in the adolescent and adult group, but considering how our culture has changed (media, education, and social norms) regarding children and childhood a new study might produce different results in the preschool group. It would also be interesting to expand his study with different cultures of people being tests at the same time. I do not believe I read anything about the background of the people he researched for his study. Although language would have to be a common ground (unless there were interpreters or the child was multilingual), I feel very different results would be observed.
-Kate