Elina asked me to forward her message to xmca. Thanks, Elina, for your
message. What do you think Vygotsky added to Dewey?
Eugene
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From: Elina Lampert-Shepel [mailto:ellampert@yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, October 27, 2003 10:00 PM
To: ematusov@UDel.Edu
Subject: RE: Vygotsky and Dewey
Dear Gordon and Eugene -
Your discussion is of great interest to me. I was always fascinated about
Dewey and Vygotsky and their influence on educational practices. I believe
that the comparison of their ideas might be quite different from the
comparison of the existing educational practices in Dewey and Vygotskian
schools. In fact, In Russia, as you know, the educational practice inspired
by Vygotskian ideas is mostly often associated with Elkonin-Davydov
curriculum, theory of Learning Activity, and Dialog of Cultures school based
on the ideas of Vygotsky, Bakhtin, Bibler, and Kurganov. Dewey ideas
influenced the development of progressive education, but I am much more in
favor of Tanner's term Dewey schools. Such schools as City and Country and
manhattan country school in NYC, for example.
I believe that Vygotsky and Dewey are co-completing each other in the ideas
of teaching and learning. Gordon wrote:
I think that, in comparison with Dewey's "inquiry" approach,there are some
grounds for this characterization. Whereas Dewey emphasized inquiry, with
teaching starting from students' questions arising from their experiences,
Vygotsky does seem to be more concerned with students' appropriation of the
culturally sanctioned definitions of concepts.
I believe that both Dewey and Vygotsky emphasized inquiry stemming from the
child's experience. But in case of Dewey schools, the child's question is
articulated in the course of social learning practice of the human
association, community of learners, vertical curriculum. In case of
Elkonin-Davydov's curriculum, inquiry is understood as quasi-research
activity provoked by the teacher created slearning situation; in the course
of which children's inquiry is on the system of developing theoretical
concepts. Vygotskian teacher is not supposed to give definitions, because in
Davydov's words, definition is a result of empirical generalization . And
therefore, learning concepts as definitions would not allow children to
analyze, reflect, model and plan ( four higher mental functions Davydov
identified as theoretical thinking). By becoming agents of learning
activity, children appropriate those functions and learn how to learn. This
is in my understanding the meaning of inquiry in Vygotskian schools.
Sorry, for stream of consciousness...there was no time to edit...
Two references connected to the discussion:
Lampert -Shepel, E. (1999) Reflective thinking in educational praxis:
analysis of multiple perspectives. Educational Foundations, 13(3), 69-88
( I tried to bring together the ideas of dewey and Vygotsky on reflection in
this article)
The September -October Issue of the Journal of East European Psychology was
devoted to Learning activity. There are some new acticles for the English
readers. I believe it can be helpful for those who struggle to bring the
ideas of Vygotsky to the classrooms.
What do you think?
Elina
If to compare practices, it seems to me in some cases reflection on
meaningful experience in Dewey school , where reflection developes as higher
mental function
Eugene Matusov <ematusov@udel.edu> wrote:
Dear Gordon
Thanks for the very interesting analysis. I agree with your characterization
of Vygotsky and Dewey.
I have a question for you. It is clear from your analysis that child- and
problem-centered Dewey is complementary to history- and culture-centered
Vygotsky. However, it is less clear (at least for me) that Vygotsky is
complementary to Dewey who had a lot of emphasis on culture and history in
his writing. Can you elaborate on this point, please?
Thanks,
Eugene
-----Original Message-----
From: Gordon Wells [mailto:gwells@cats.ucsc.edu]
Sent: Monday, October 20, 2003 1:29 AM
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: Re: Vygotsky and Dewey
Going back to an earlier point in this conversation on Dewey, Mead and
Vygotsky: Glassman was quoted as as casting Vygotsky as
"top-down/determinate". I think that, in comparison with Dewey's "inquiry"
approach,there are some grounds for this characterization. Whereas Dewey
emphasized inquiry, with teaching starting from students' questions arising
from their experiences, Vygotsky does seem to be more concerned with
students' appropriation of the culturally sanctioned definitions of
concepts. The following quote comes from the chapter on "scientific
concepts" in Thinking and Speech, and the teacher's role in helping students
to master scientific concepts. The passage comments on the processes through
which a student becomes able to correctly answer a question with respect to
a question in the area of social science.
What is it that [the child] does when he answers this question taken from
the social sciences? We think that the operation that the school child
carries out in solving this problem can be explained in the following way.
First, the operation has a history. It was not constructed during the
experiment. The experiment can be seen as a final stage in a long process
that can only be understood in connection with those that precede it. The
teacher, working with the school child on a given question, explains,
informs,inquires, corrects, and forces the child himself to explain. All
this work on concepts, the entire process of their formation is worked out
by the child in collaboration with the adult in instruction. Now, when the
child solves a problem, what does it requires of him? It requires the
ability to imitate and solve the problem with the help of teacher even
though we do not have an actual situation of collaboration at this moment.
The situation lies in the past. Here, the child must make independent use of
the results of that earlier collaboration. The fundamental difference
between the problem which involves everyday concepts and that which involves
scientific concepts is that the child solves the latter with the teacher's
help. (1987, pp.215-216).
"Collaboration" here seems to be a rather one-sided affair, with little
opportunity for the student to engage in and draw from relevant first-hand
experience of practical activities in negotiating the meaning of new
concepts. Nevertheless, I had always assumed that the transmissionary tone
of this quote was due to Vygotsky's lack of personal experience in teaching
children in the early school years (6-10 years) rather than to a strong
commitment to a "top-down" pedagogy.
Whatever Vygotsky may have envisaged, a variety of contemporary
Vygotsky-inspired approaches to the learning and teaching of scientific
concepts (e.g. Brown & Campione, Palincsar et al., Rogoff et al.,
Scardamalia & Bereiter) combine "hands-on" investigation with encounters
with discipline-based definitions in a fruitful dialogue. It seems,
therefore, that the Dewey's and Vygotsky's approaches are complementary
rather than mutually exclusive alternatives.
Gordon
--Gordon Wells Dept of Education, http://education.ucsc.edu/faculty/gwells UC Santa Cruz.
I have on my table a violin string. It is free. I twist one end of it and it responds. It is free. But it is not free to do what a violin string is supposed to do - to produce music. So I take it, fix it in my violin and tighten it until it is taut. Only then it is free to be a violin string. Sir Rabindranath Tagore.
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