I read your comments about Vygotsky's ZPD and I apreciate it
specialy because you show a "reading road" (?) that does not
reduce it to a technical tool of mesurement of development.
I understand it, at least util now, as a social zone of potential
development that is present in every interaction between people. In
school education, as a "space" in which teachers and professsors can be
"helped" by students-childreen to grow in cultural development too.
My english is pretty bad and I feel a lot of limitations on
comming out my thoughts. I hope you can understand me.
tephanie spina wrote:
>
> I would like to explore some of the relationships between Vygotskiian
> theory and critical pedagogy in general, and specifically as they relate
> to the issues of conservatism, multiculturalism, and the host of other
> issues raised in the stories recently posted.
> My interpretation of Vygotsky may not be "mainstream" on this list - but
> I'd like to engage in a dialogue (not a polarizing debate) around some of
> these ideas (on or off list) with anyone interested. Perhaps conflict
> may be an appropriate starting point.
> Conflict, to Vygotsky, was critical to growth. For example,I do not see
> the ZPD as just a technique to systematically lead children from one level
> of skill to another. The ZPD is not a "place" or a "thing." It is not a
> technique for learning/teaching. It is a reorganization through conflict
> to create new meaning. The ZPD works by creating a tension between
> present and future capabilities; the intersection of external needs and
> internal possibilities. The dialectical character of the process has been
> frequently neutralized in the West where its conflictual aspects, so
> critical to Vygotsky's conceptualization, are glossed over, leaving no
> room for concepts like agency and resistance, which are central to
> critical pedagogy. Western views seem to have shifted Vygotsky's notion by
> an emphasis on the interaction between a child and adult through the
> process of negotiating meaning, assuming reciprocity and positive,
> cooperative interaction.
> Vygotsky's strength is his unique integration of (historical) psychology,
> Marxist philosophy, and social semiotic analysis to create a theory based
> on, in, and of culture. Critical pedagogy shares these roots and exploring
> this may provide insights relevant to both.
> Your thoughts?
>
> Stephanie
>
> Stephanie Urso Spina
> City University of New York
> sspina who-is-at email.gc.cuny.edu