[Xmca-l] Re: zone of next development

[Peter Smagorinsky]

Thanks David. In US educational circles in which people only read selected chapters from Mind in Society, it's always "tomorrow" and not "next year" that is invoked. Do you know if that's a translation problem, or was he being metaphorical?

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of David Kellogg
Sent: Tuesday, November 22, 2016 8:29 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: zone of next development

Peter:

The French translation is "zone prochaine de developpement", i.e. the next zone of development. Francoise Seve explains why--it is because the "next zone of development" does not refer to any particular skill or knowledge or even metalinguistic reflection that the child is going to have in the course of development; it refers very precisely to the functions which will be the most rapidly developing functions in the next age level, according to the schema that Vygotsky was working out in "The Problem of Age" (Vol. 5 in English, p. 196). This is completely confirmed by a remark that Vygotsky makes at the beginning of the lecture on the Crisis at Three (p. 283 in the English Collected Works):

""...(W)e must assume that all changes and all events that happen during the period of this crisis are grouped around some neoformation of a transitional type. Consequently, when we analyse the symptoms of the crisis, we msut answer, albeit conditionally, the question as to what it is that is new that appears during the indicated time and what is the fate of the neoformation that disappears after it. Then we must consider what change is occurring in the central and peripheral lines of development.
Finally, we must evaluate the critical age from the point of view of the zone of its proximal development, that is, the relation to subsequent growth".

This is why the ZPD is ALWAYS measured in years, something that very few Western people who invoke the concept have ever noted, even though it is quite explicit in every place that the ZPD is invoked. Even when the ZPD is spoken of somewhat loosely, (e.g. "What the child can do with assistance today he will be able to do without assistance tomorrow", or "in play the child is a head taller than himself") it is very clear that years are meant. Tomorrow does not and cannot mean 24 hours later, and the child will not be a head taller than himself in a week or two.

David Kellogg
Macquarie University

On Wed, Nov 23, 2016 at 10:22 AM, Peter Smagorinsky <smago@uga.edu> wrote:

> I'm watching the version of The Butterflies of Zagorsk that Mike 
> generously shared from the UCSD archives. I give it 4 stars. It would 
> be 5, but the copy is pretty bad.
>
> The narrator consistently refers to the "zone of next development"
> illustrated by periodic diagnostic sessions that also involved 
> assistance with deaf and blind kids learning how to speak with their 
> hands on another's hands.
>
> Zone of Next Development seems such a better term than ZPD. Proximal 
> is too ambiguous, and so allows for just about any learning of 
> anything anyhow to be illustrative of the ZPD. "Next" instead really 
> emphasizes the more long-term growth that Vygotsky had in mind, as I understand his writing.
>
> But it's proximal in all the translations. Any help in understanding why?
> Thx,p
>