Pioneers In Our Field: Lev Vygotsky - Playing to Learn

The fourth installment in Early Childhood Today’s series on the Roots of Early Childhood Education

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"In play, a child is always above his average age, above his daily behavior; in play, it is as though he were a head taller than himself." - Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934)

Lev Vygotsky is often called the "Mozart of psychology." Similar to the famous composer, Vygotsky applied his genius early in life to many different areas. And like Mozart, Vygotsky died young, at age 37, after a battle with tuberculosis.

Born in 1896 in Belorussia, he began his career as an educator and a psychologist at the time of the 1917 Russian revolution. After moving to Moscow in 1924, Vygotsky set out to create what he hoped would become a new way to understand and solve the social and educational problems of his time.

At the core of Vygotsky's theory, called the Cultural-Historical Theory, is the idea that child development is the result of the interactions between children and their social environment. These interactions include those with parents and teachers, playmates and classmates, and brothers and sisters. They also involve relationships with significant objects, such as books or toys, and culturally specific practices that children engage in the classroom, at home, and on the playground. Children are active partners in these interactions, constructing knowledge, skills, and attitudes and not just mirroring the world around them.

Vygotsky opposed the psychologists who believed that children's development occurs spontaneously and cannot be affected by education. He also differed with those who claimed that teaching had the power to alter development at any time regardless of the child's age or capacities. Instead, Vygotsky felt that learning could lead development if it occurs within the child's Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). The ZPD contains skills and concepts that are not yet fully developed but are "on the edge of emergence" emerging only if the child is given appropriate support. For the skills and concepts that lie outside a child's ZPD, even significant instructional efforts may fail to produce developmental gains.

Vygotsky recognized that the kind of assistance needed to help children develop new skills and concepts within their ZPD took different forms for children of different ages. For instance, fostering make-believe play with preschoolers could provide the same support that formal instruction offers for older students. "A child's greatest achievements are possible in play, achievements that tomorrow will become her basic level of real action."

Lev Vygotsky has contributed a wealth of ideas to early childhood education. Most important, he has shown us how children's efforts to understand the world around them, working in concert with teachers' sensitive, responsive interactions, rouses their young minds to life.

Deborah J. Leong, Ph.D., professor of psychology at Metropolitan State College in Denver, is a member of Scholastic's National Early Childhood Advisory Board.

Elena Bodrova, Ph.D., works at Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning in Colorado.

How to Promote Creative Thinking
Children show imaginative use of color, themes and flights of fancy in their language. Preschool and early childhood teachers play an important role in supporting children's ability in art, dramatic expression and creative responses to problems. For more information, see the related sub-articles, Creativity in the Classroom, and the downloadable PDF, Children's Creative Development, linked to the main article page.

Group Time: Using Bags and Boxes for Group-Time Surprises
Church presents several children's group-time activities. These include the creative-idea bag that uses a feely bag for brainstorming ideas.

Learning Centers: Shape It! Sculpt It!
Miller describes tech equipment and materials to involve children in their own working sculpture studio.