A Social, Cultural, And Historical Perspective

By Author: Kevin Chao
Total Articles: 24
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I again found Vygotsky to be helpful in sorting out this vexing problem. Vygotsky (Mind, "Thinking") is best known for his formulation of the zone of proximal development (ZPD). The ZPD, however, is but the tip of the iceberg of his effort to develop a comprehensive psychology of the human mind as it develops in relation to its social, cultural, and historical contexts (see Smagorinsky, "Culture of Vygotsky," "Vygotsky"). This deeper, more complex project became central to my efforts to solve the riddle that had puzzled me about why an empirically and, for me, experientially demonstrated "best practice" was taken up with such little passion by the Tag Heuer Replica majority of teachers in the field, even as it got good results in my teaching, in the teaching of others who had learned to teach from Hillocks, and in Hillocks's research (Research).

Vygotsky was concerned with the ways in which people learn to think based on their interactions with people who surround them. Because the people with whom they interact have also learned to think in this way, it's ...
... important to understand the human mind and its processes in terms of the social, cultural, and historical contexts in which it develops (Wertsch). What I found so compelling about this focus was the way in which it expanded the context of learning well beyond the walls of the classroom and the school. As an educator I could no longer conceive of teaching and learning as taking place between teachers and students. Instead, I had to consider the walls as permeable, allowing in not only the students' prior experiences in homes and communities but also the school's administrative emphasis, my colleagues' experiences as students and as teachers, the local community's values and influences, the district's and state's curriculum and assessment practices, and the national policy context including its assessment apparatus and regard for teachers and teacher educators.

These influences on teaching and learning are not merely present, however. As Faulkner famously said, "The past isn't dead; it isn't even past." If I may introduce a further convolution, the past is thus present in the present and the present is an extension and distillation of the past; both provide the basis from which the future emerges and so are present in it. This emphasis on cultural and historical factors in learning to think requires a much more careful look at how the people in a setting have come to be who they are and to think as they do. This consideration must take into account both their life experiences and their cultural backgrounds, and thus the historical means through which they have learned to see the world as they do and act accordingly within it.

This connection of individual learning to the social and cultural history of learning makes the claim of a "best practice" problematic. A Vygotskian perspective suggests that the quality of instruction is dependent on the particular people who come together to teach and learn and the qualities of whatever Tag Heuer Replica Watches precedes and surrounds them in the setting of the classroom. It further suggests that learners might have developed different kinds of worldviews and ways of thinking to motivate their schoolwork and different teachers may be more skillful with one approach than with another due to their training, their dispositions, their experiences, and other factors. As a result, what works best for me in my classroom at my school might not work so well for you in yours.