I would suspect it was along the lines of creativity or problem solving
tasks. When I read the book it was a very academic read in the sense I was
looking at the historical roots of Vygotsky's ideas. Alex's studies caught
my interest and planted a seed in my memory, but at the time I did not give
it serious attention. As his intro to *Thought and Language* point to
much Vygotskian research in the Russian tradition gave primacy to
"scientific-schooled" concepts at the expense of everyday.
Personally, I have mixed feelings of saying this concept or that concept
can only be acquired in a school context, while at the same time
acknowledging that the activity which occurs in school may be more likely
to facilitate certain types of concepts. Even our more active oriented
preschools are rather explicit, systematic environments that are designed
to foster particular types of thinking or even concepts. We fill our
preschools with particular cultural objects/concepts such as blocks of
different shapes, sizes, and colors which in a functional sense is not that
much different from teaching the concept in a systematic instructional way.
Are these environments more along the lines of everyday or systematic
concept development? Many playgroups, parents etc. organize the child's
interactions in similar ways especially sense the constructivist
revolution. Educational toys are in and most are not being bought by
schools, frankly they don't have the budget.
Nate