Re: Constructivism and Vygotsky

nate (schmolze who-is-at students.wisc.edu)
Wed, 24 Feb 1999 06:43:07 -0600

-----Original Message-----
From: Ricardo Ottoni <rjapias who-is-at ibm.net>
To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Wednesday, February 24, 1999 12:15 AM
Subject: Re: Constructivism and Vygotsky

>> 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?

At one level constructivism would always need to be a
co-constructivism. I am very leary of a constructivism that is
viewed solely as something related to oneself. I personally
like the term dialectical constructivism which for me implies a
continual restructuring and tranformation of both the individual
and the social. Valsiner in my opinion puts Vygotsky in the
"traditional camp" to a much larger degree that he actually was.

>> 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.

It is an chapter in an upcoming book in which a version is on my
website

http://www.geocities.com/~nschmolze/elkonin.2.html

The reference was to Piaget and the universal way in which he
described the child developing.

Nate

>>
>> 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?"
>> >
>