Dear Gordon-
Thanks for the very interesting analysis. I agree with your characterization
of Vygotsky and Dewey.
I have a question for you. It is clear from your analysis that child- and
problem-centered Dewey is complementary to history- and culture-centered
Vygotsky. However, it is less clear (at least for me) that Vygotsky is
complementary to Dewey who had a lot of emphasis on culture and history in
his writing. Can you elaborate on this point, please?
Thanks,
Eugene
-----Original Message-----
From: Gordon Wells [mailto:gwells@cats.ucsc.edu]
Sent: Monday, October 20, 2003 1:29 AM
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: Re: Vygotsky and Dewey
Going back to an earlier point in this conversation on Dewey, Mead and
Vygotsky: Glassman was quoted as as casting Vygotsky as
"top-down/determinate". I think that, in comparison with Dewey's "inquiry"
approach,there are some grounds for this characterization. Whereas Dewey
emphasized inquiry, with teaching starting from students' questions arising
from their experiences, Vygotsky does seem to be more concerned with
students' appropriation of the culturally sanctioned definitions of
concepts. The following quote comes from the chapter on "scientific
concepts" in Thinking and Speech, and the teacher's role in helping students
to master scientific concepts. The passage comments on the processes through
which a student becomes able to correctly answer a question with respect to
a question in the area of social science.
What is it that [the child] does when he answers this question taken from
the social sciences? We think that the operation that the school child
carries out in solving this problem can be explained in the following way.
First, the operation has a history. It was not constructed during the
experiment. The experiment can be seen as a final stage in a long process
that can only be understood in connection with those that precede it. The
teacher, working with the school child on a given question, explains,
informs,inquires, corrects, and forces the child himself to explain. All
this work on concepts, the entire process of their formation is worked out
by the child in collaboration with the adult in instruction. Now, when the
child solves a problem, what does it requires of him? It requires the
ability to imitate and solve the problem with the help of teacher even
though we do not have an actual situation of collaboration at this moment.
The situation lies in the past. Here, the child must make independent use of
the results of that earlier collaboration. The fundamental difference
between the problem which involves everyday concepts and that which involves
scientific concepts is that the child solves the latter with the teacher's
help. (1987, pp.215-216).
"Collaboration" here seems to be a rather one-sided affair, with little
opportunity for the student to engage in and draw from relevant first-hand
experience of practical activities in negotiating the meaning of new
concepts. Nevertheless, I had always assumed that the transmissionary tone
of this quote was due to Vygotsky's lack of personal experience in teaching
children in the early school years (6-10 years) rather than to a strong
commitment to a "top-down" pedagogy.
Whatever Vygotsky may have envisaged, a variety of contemporary
Vygotsky-inspired approaches to the learning and teaching of scientific
concepts (e.g. Brown & Campione, Palincsar et al., Rogoff et al.,
Scardamalia & Bereiter) combine "hands-on" investigation with encounters
with discipline-based definitions in a fruitful dialogue. It seems,
therefore, that the Dewey's and Vygotsky's approaches are complementary
rather than mutually exclusive alternatives.
Gordon
--Gordon Wells Dept of Education, http://education.ucsc.edu/faculty/gwells UC Santa Cruz.
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