Re: Constructivism and Vygotsky
Ricardo Ottoni (rjapias who-is-at ibm.net)
Wed, 24 Feb 1999 02:38:01 -0300
Ricardo Ottoni wrote:
>
> I'd say that "constructivism" can assume different sense according to the
> context in witch it is used in. For example: sometimes it has been used,
> ironically, in Brazil, to refer to educational policy of some government's
> manegery that spend money on big school building and equipments and that are
> not pay attention to what really makes difference like teacher's best
> payment, few students in classroom (up to 30 in almost every public classroom
> - even in kindergarten?!), democratization of school education manegement etc
> etc... and that prescribes "constructivism" in all its methodological
> instruction documents to teachers.
>
> I think also that the notion of "active child" does not mean,
> necessarilly,that someone does not have a cultural-historical understanding
> of the social basis of knowledge construction... Vygotsky uses that
> expression and advocates the importance of children activity in classroom in
> his Educational Psychology but also points the cultural constrains action
> over subjects. It's interesting that Vygotsky's translation to Portuguese
> uses the word SUBJECT (that implies some activity/change over the enviroment
> and the other and the world) and not INDIVIDUAL or ONESELF (that does not
> explicit someone's active role - at least in Portuguese). He says
> teachers may act as enviroment managers in classroom and try to promote
> students development.
>
> Valsiner's notion proposal of "co-constructivism" (the building of
> knowledge with the others, with someone's else perspective help)
> sounds very different from "constructivism" (something related to one
> oneself) to me and other fellows here, as we understand it.
> Am I wrong or equivocated,as to say, mistaken?
>
> About Vygotsky's ZPD, I prefer understand it beyond a more precise
> mesurement of QI as was said by Nate. Phd Elvira Lima in her article
> 'Vygotsky's ideas in Brazil' explains that the european and latin-american
> translations of Vygotsky's texts rises to undestand it as that "SOCIAL AREA
> OF POTENTIAL DEVELOPMENT" rather than as a "ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT"
> in the sense of mesurement of QI or something that can be maneged like
> numbers.
>
> In which book D.B.Elkonin use the expression "eternal child"? I only
> read his 'Psychology of Play' and do not remeber to have read that
> expression there.
>
> Vygotsky makes a distiction between words meanings and
> words sense. Is it possible to put in jail a word meaning or sense?
> > What do you think?"
> >