Re: Life as a ZPD

nate (schmolze who-is-at students.wisc.edu)
Mon, 22 Mar 1999 16:07:02 -0600

Actually in Perspectives on Activity Theory, especially the theoretical
section addresses a more macro view of a ZPD. Engestrom addresses
exteriolization/interioriization within the various Activities one engages
in. Along these same lines there is attention to the interaction of
multiple activities.

Yaroshensky was actually referring to how Vygotsky saw development as a
stage. His argument was in Vygotsky's view personality was not a priori,
but came out of the dialectical interaction between the individual and
society. In this sense life was a stage which consisted of two planes; the
interpsychical and intrapsychical. Below are some comments from Versov that
might be useful.

Comments from Nikolai Veresov

Why Vygotsky used the word "stage" this is not a metaphor as many people
think. The task of Vygotsky in 1930-1931 was to create the psychology in
terms of drama. The stage is the place the dramatic development takes
place. The stage (theatre) has two planes - social plane (dimension) and
individual plane. The planes only make sense relative to the stage and they
are connected as two projections of the stage where the child is not a
spectator, but participant.

Category is the philosophical concept. How can one imagine that the
function exists as a category? Sounds strange, but according to
Stanislavsky (famous theatre director Vygotsky used to know) and Sergey
Eisenshtein (filmmaker and a friend of Vygotsky) "category" in the drama
means "collision", "event", dramatic unit, and the unit of analysis of
drama: it might be a dialogue (mostly) or emotional explosion and so on.
Vygotsky is speaking about development as a process of events, collisions
and their reflections in both planes.

Nate

Nate Schmolze
http://www.geocities.com/~nschmolze/
schmolze who-is-at students.wisc.edu

People with great passions, people who accomplish great deeds,
People who possess strong feelings even people with great minds
and a strong personality, rarely come out of good little boys and girls
L.S. Vygotsky

----- Original Message -----
From: <MDLedoux who-is-at aol.com>
To: <xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Monday, March 22, 1999 12:56 PM
Subject: Re: Life as a ZPD

> XMCA collegues:
>
> I have been rather timid in posting my question, since I am newly
entering
> this world and my Vygotskian background is limited. In my reading the ZPD
> tends to be limited to a particular time frame (variously defined). In
> February (23) Nate Schmolze referred to Yaroshensky as believing that
> devlopmental stages were continually restructuring.
>
> Has anyone spoken of life itself as one large ZPD with other ZPD within
or am
> I carrying this too far?
>
> Michael
>
> IDPEL
> School of Education
> Duquesne University
>