Lev Vygotsky facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Lev Vygotsky
Born	Lev Simkhovich Výgodsky (1896-11-17)November 17, 1896 Orsha, Russian Empire, now in Belarus
Died	June 11, 1934(1934-06-11) (aged 37) Moscow, Soviet Union
Alma mater	Imperial Moscow University (1917) (unfinished); Shaniavskii Moscow City People's University
Known for	Cultural-historical psychology, zone of proximal development, inner speech
Spouse(s)	Roza Noevna Vygodskaia (née Smekhova)
Scientific career
Fields	Psychology
Institutions	Moscow State University
Thesis	The Psychology of Art (1925)
Notable students	Alexander Luria
Influences	Baruch Spinoza, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Alexander Potebnia, Alfred Adler, Kurt Koffka, Kurt Lewin, Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler, Kurt Goldstein, Karl Marx, Jean Piaget
Influenced	Vygotsky Circle, Evald Ilyenkov, Urie Bronfenbrenner, Patricia McKinsey Crittenden

Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky (November 5, 1896 – June 11, 1934) was a Soviet psychologist. He is famous for his ideas about how children learn and develop. His main idea is called cultural-historical activity theory.

Vygotsky believed that our minds are shaped by the world around us. He thought that learning is not just about what's inside our heads. It's also about how we use language and tools to interact with others.

Here are some of his most important ideas:

• The Social Origin of Mind: Vygotsky thought that our thinking abilities are not just born with us. Instead, they grow and change as we use language and tools. This happens when we interact with our culture and the people around us.
• The Importance of Mediation: He believed that "mediation" is key to how humans develop. Mediation means using cultural tools, like language or symbols. These tools help us think and learn.
• The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD): This is a famous idea! The ZPD is the difference between what a child can do alone and what they can do with help. For example, a child might not be able to solve a math problem alone. But with a teacher's help, they can solve it. That gap is the ZPD.
• The Significance of Play: Vygotsky saw play as super important for kids. He thought it was the best way for children to practice using tools and developing their minds.

Biography

Lev Vygotsky was born in 1896 in a town called Orsha, which is now in Belarus. At that time, it was part of the Russian Empire. He came from a middle-class Jewish family. His father was a banker.

Vygotsky grew up in the city of Gomel. He was homeschooled until 1911. Then, he went to a private Jewish school and graduated with honors. This allowed him to go to university. In 1913, he got into Moscow University. Back then, there was a special "Jewish Lottery" system. Only a small number of Jewish students were allowed into universities.

Vygotsky was interested in arts and social sciences. But his parents wanted him to study medicine. So, he started in medical school at Moscow University. After one semester, he switched to law school. He also took classes at another university called Shaniavskii University.

In 1924, Vygotsky met a famous psychologist named Alexander Luria. Luria helped him get a job at the Psychological Institute in Moscow. Vygotsky moved to Moscow with his wife, Roza Smekhova. He started as a "staff scientist" and also taught. He was very interested in how people learn and how language helps us learn.

By the end of 1925, Vygotsky finished his main paper called "The Psychology of Art." It wasn't published until the 1960s. He also wrote a book called "Pedagogical Psychology." In the summer of 1925, he traveled to London for a conference about educating deaf people. When he returned, he got sick with tuberculosis. He was sick for a long time and couldn't work until late 1926.

After he got better, Vygotsky worked on new ideas about psychology. He wanted to combine different ways of studying the mind. He believed that to truly understand psychology, one needed to look at how society and culture affect people.

From 1926 to 1930, Vygotsky studied how "higher psychological functions" develop. These are things like paying attention, remembering, and making decisions. He worked with a group of friends and students, including Alexander Luria. They studied how people use objects as tools for thinking. They also looked at how children learn these functions as they grow. And they explored how culture and society shape how we think and develop.

Lev Vygotsky died from tuberculosis on June 11, 1934. He was only 37 years old.

Major Themes of Research

Vygotsky was a very creative psychologist. He studied many different topics. These included the psychology of art, how our minds develop, and how we learn. He also looked at how language and thought are connected. He was interested in play, learning difficulties, and how people develop differently.

His most important idea is his theory of "higher psychological functions." These functions develop when people interact with others and their culture. This includes language, society, and using tools. He believed that play is the most important activity for young children. He saw play as a way for kids to develop their emotions, willpower, and thinking.

Vygotsky never met Jean Piaget, another famous psychologist. But he read Piaget's work. Vygotsky disagreed with Piaget on some points, especially about "inner speech." Piaget thought that children's "egocentric speech" (talking to themselves) just disappeared as they grew up. Vygotsky showed that this egocentric speech actually turns into "inner speech," which is how we think to ourselves. Piaget later praised Vygotsky for this discovery.

Vygotsky's ideas were not well known until the late 1980s. That's when his idea of the "zone of proximal development" became very popular in education.

Cultural-Historical Theory

Vygotsky's idea was a big change in psychology. He was the first to suggest that all our mental abilities are not fixed. Instead, they change and grow through cultural development. This happens as we learn to use cultural tools, like language. So, studying how we learn to use these tools became a main focus of his research.

Vygotsky said there are "lower" and "higher" mental functions. Higher functions come from social interactions. They are complex and use cultural tools. We control them ourselves. Vygotsky believed that we can be aware of our thoughts because of these "mediated" higher functions. A "sign" or a "tool" helps connect what we sense to how we react. For example, a word can help us pay attention, create meaning, or form an idea.

Cultural Mediation and Internalization

Vygotsky studied how children develop. He focused on the important roles of cultural mediation and talking with others. He saw how higher mental functions grew through these interactions. This process is called internalization.

Internalization means learning how to do something. For example, riding a bicycle or pouring milk. At first, a child can't do these things. But by practicing and interacting with others, they learn. Another part of internalization is appropriation. This is when children take tools and make them their own. They might even use them in new and unique ways.

Zone of Proximal Development

The "Zone of Proximal Development" (ZPD) is a term Vygotsky used to describe how a person's mind develops. He said the ZPD is "the distance between what a child can do alone and what they can do with help from an adult or more skilled friends."

He gave an example of two children who could solve problems like an eight-year-old. After getting help from an adult, one child could solve problems like a nine-year-old. The other could solve them like a twelve-year-old. Vygotsky said, "This difference... is what we call the zone of proximal development." He also said the ZPD shows what skills are still growing and will be fully developed soon.

With help from someone more knowledgeable, a child can learn skills beyond their current level. The ZPD's lower limit is what the child can do by themselves. The upper limit is what they can do with help. This means the ZPD looks at what a child can become, not just what they are now. The person helping (the "more knowledgeable other" or MKO) is usually an older teacher or parent. But it can also be a friend, a book, or even a computer.

Thinking and Speech

In his last years, Vygotsky focused on how thought and words are connected in our minds. He wrote a book about this called Thinking and Speech. It was published after he died in 1934. The book showed a strong link between speaking and how we develop ideas and awareness.

Vygotsky said that silent "inner speech" is different from talking out loud. But both are important. He believed inner speech grows from external speech. This happens through a process called "internalization." Younger children often "think out loud." But as they get older, this becomes silent inner speech. He thought that in its full form, inner speech is very short and doesn't sound like spoken language. So, thinking itself develops through social interaction.

According to Vygotsky, inner speech changes and grows over time. It separates from a child's external speech as social talk and talking-to-oneself become different. Eventually, the way a child uses speech becomes the main way they think.

In this book, Vygotsky explained how thinking and speech develop. He showed that their relationship is always changing.

Legacy

Soviet Union

After Vygotsky died young, his books and research were not allowed to be published for a while. This lasted until after Stalin's death. The first collection of his main writings was published in 1956. A small group of his friends and students continued his ideas in their own research.

These people helped build on Vygotsky's psychology. They studied many different areas. These included memory, how we see and feel things, personality, and willpower. They also looked at the psychology of play and learning. Their work led to important ideas like the "activity theory."

United States

Only a few of Vygotsky's writings were published in English before 1962. That's when his book Thinking and Speech was translated. Since then, most of his writings have been translated. His ideas have become very important in modern ways of teaching and learning.

Some of the first people to promote Vygotsky's ideas in the USA were Michael Cole and James Wertsch. Today, the ideas based on Vygotsky's work are often called "Cultural-historical Activity theory" (CHAT) or "Activity theory".

Works

• Consciousness as a problem in the Psychology of Behavior, 1925
• Educational Psychology, 1926
• Historical meaning of the crisis in Psychology, unfinished and stopped in 1927
• The Problem of the Cultural Development of the Child, 1929
• The Fundamental Problems of Defectology, 1929
• The Socialist alteration of Man, 1930
• Ape, Primitive Man, and Child: Essays in the History of Behaviour, A. R. Luria and L. S. Vygotsky, 1930
• Tool and symbol in child development, c.1930
• Paedology of the Adolescent, 1929-1931
• Play and its role in the Mental development of the Child, oral presentation 1933
• Thinking and Speech, 1934
• The Psychology of Art, 1971 (English translation by MIT Press)
• Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes, 1978 (Harvard University Press)
• The Collected Works of L. S. Vygotsky, 1987

See also

In Spanish: Lev Vygotsky para niños