The Teaching/Learning Relationship in the First Years of School: Some Revolutionary Implications of Vygotskya's Theory

During the last twenty years, Vygotsky's theory has increasingly been cited when considering aspects of early education. Most commonly, however, a single concept (the zone of proximal development) has been used to represent the theory, and treated as synonymous with the view that a teacher's job is to scaffold the children's learning. By contrast, in this paper we stress the fact that Vygotsky's theory is one that requires attending to what individuals bring to interactions, what goes on during those interactions, and the cultural contexts (as they have developed over historical time) of the individuals involved. Equally important, we stress that Vygotsky's view of interactions between teachers and children involves the concept of obuchenie, a Russian term meaning both teaching and learning, rather than scaffolded instruction. To take this position seriously involves making dramatic changes in the process of education as typically practiced. For this reason Vygotsky's theory has revolutionary implications, examples of which we discuss in the final section.