Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development | Hacker News Reader

Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development

simplypsychology.org

15 pointsAnon8410 comments

Teacher here. The problem with the continental philosophical approach of teacher theory is that often teachers can even agree on what things like the ZPD is.

Some teachers will use the ZPD to defend giving students work that is challenging.

Some teachers will use the ZPD to defend giving students work that is not challenging.

(Yes, obviously it's about finding some optimal point, but aside from the existence of some kind of optimal point of challenge there's not going to be any agreement).

Vyvotsky had some opinions, but virtually no-one reads his work, just summaries from the text book or picks up the term from papers that cite him (did the author of the paper even read his work? does it matter?).

It's just, like, words, and words don't mean anything in continental philosophical fields. They're just noises you make to gather the sound of a consensus among people who actually disagree. No surprise that any decent articles on teacher concepts come from scientists (e.g. psychologists) more often than teaching theorists.

Vygotsky’s Ph.D. was in psychology, from a psychology institute, and he worked professionally as a PI in experimental developmental psychology. Indeed, one of the themes of his work was to try to find a scientific basis for the study of cognition. But nobody is interested enough in studies of Russian children from the 1920s to track down the tech reports. People today read his essays summarizing his theories (like the ones in Mind and Society) so they can understand the connection to later work. The theories were also influenced by philosophy because his undergraduate training was in the humanities, but that doesn’t make his work “just, like, words”.

I think you're being charitable here, I suspect a lot of people with PhDs in education who cited Mind and Society in their thesis haven't even read it, let alone technical reports.

And if you read what I said, I wasn't having a go at Vygotsky. I was having a go at most of the people who cite him (which implies they read his work, but I often suspect they didn't).

If you want to disagree with me, fine, but I'm saying that teaching is largely taught in academia in a kind of continental philosophy approach in the anglosphere, which means that Vygotsky is largely treated in academia as fodder for that.

They said the compressed derivatives of his work are words not the works.

No, they bucket Vygotsky into “continental philosophy teaching methods” (see first paragraph), and dismiss “continental philosophy” as meaningless word play (see last paragraph). The first point is false even if you accept the second point.

The compressed textbook derivatives are obviously not an exercise in “continental philosophy,” an undergrad text for teachers is just going to give surface-level descriptions of concepts rather than any kind of actual philosophical discussion.

> continental philosophical approach of teacher theory

what is that even? How is Vygotsky related to "continental philosophy"?

> No surprise that any decent articles on teacher concepts come from scientists (e.g. psychologists) more often than teaching theorists.

Vygotsky was a psychologist...

Teaching theory uses a continental philosophical approach. It commonly cites Vygotsky.

Did I originally say it in a way that is hard to follow? Though you cut the first quotation short which makes me think you're trying to disagree with something I didn't actually say.

I don't see how you could justify using not challenging work with ZPD?

To be just out of the comfort zone, it should be just more challenging than the current student abilities.

Can you explain their view?

Since pacifying some kids is easier than challenging them, the logic is they they're in the ZPD since it takes less effort to get them engaged.

A decade on from my teacher certification, and not currently teaching classes (only parenting), and Vygotsky's ZPD is still a touchstone for me.

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