What Does Vgotsky Gotsky do with the REAL world?

Today you are going to participate in a project connecting an educational theorist to a

school visit we made. This is an independent and group project where we think about
educational theory in real life.

Name: Robin Glicksberg

Theorist
Jean Piaget

Refreshers

Real-life connections from school

visits and/or past experiences

Piaget = Play

My sophomore through senior years in

high school, I worked in the childcare
center my school offered for teachers
children. They kids ranged from ages 2-5.
One of Piagets key ideas was
egocentrism: the belief that you are the
center of the universe. This idea was
prominent in all of the children. Sharing
was always an issue and when somebody
had something to say no one else would
be allowed to talk. These kids werent
selfish; they just were in an early stage
of psychological development. They
didnt understand that attention was to
be distributed to all of the kids.
Dewey stressed the importance of kids
experimenting with their interests. I think
this strongly relates to Pike. At Pike, the
students are allowed to expand upon
their interests by choosing to study it
more in depth due to the multiple
schools. This type of learning allows
children to pave their own paths, the
path they want to follow and learn more
about.

*Sensorimotor stage (birth to 2)

using senses to discover the world
*go to the Playscape on level 3
*Preoperational stage (around 27) use of symbols or things that
represent something else (a dish
becomes a cookie or a dog treat).
Creative play is a signature of this
stage

John
Dewey
my
favorite
guy

Jerome
Bruner

Experiential education
Progressivism
Integration of content
Learning by doing
Education is not just preparation for
life, education is life itself

Constructivist ideas
Children as active problem-solvers
who are ready to explore 'difficult'
subjects

Zone of Proximal

Lev Vgotsky

Development
social interaction plays a
fundamental role in the development
of cognition
language development and
interaction

Bruners view of learning reminded me a

lot of Sycamore School. This is because
at Sycamore I saw the teacher as guides
who pushed their students to discover on
their own. Through exploration and
experimentation, the students were able
to draw their own conclusions. Plus, they
werent afraid to explore the study the
difficult subjects. Honestly, I think the
difficulty motivated them to work harder.
The students had the drive to learn at
Sycamore.
Vgotsky places emphasis on the role of
the teacher in a childs life. The teacher
is the one who models correct behaviors
and gives verbal instructions, and this
allows the child to grow and learn. This
relates to the childcare center at my high
school. When we, the students, went to
teach our lessons, we had to give stepby-step instructions showing the kids
exactly what to do. We were their models
showing them correct behavior. As
models, we helped the children improve
upon their performance.

Imagination, art, and creativity

are at the heart of educational
development and awareness

Maxine Greene

Greene reminds me of my time at

Montessori. I worked at a Montessori
school a summer ago and they stressed
the importance of imagination, art, and
creativity. Everyday they kids would get
time for art and as teachers we were
encouraged to let the childrens
imaginations run wild. Imagination was
key to their learning. This was the same
at the childcare center in my high school.
We had story writing time and we were
encouraged the let the kids take the
story wherever they wanted it to go.

One person who matches my emerging educational philosophy:

Maxine Greene
The full range of human experience is not available to most individuals,
but it can be explored, according to Maxine, through literature and the
arts.
Maxines brilliant vision of art as a means to awaken each of us to how we
respond to the world will endure as her greatest legacy.