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John Dewey and L. S. Vygotsky share similar ideas concerning the relationship of activity and learning/development, especially the roles
everyday activities and social environment play in the educational
process. However, the two theorists are far apart in their conception of the relationship between process and goals in education.
Dewey concentrates on means in education, believing that it is the
ability of the individual to question through experience that is most
important for the human community. Vygotsky, while recognizing
the importance of (especially cultural) process in education, sees social and cultural goals as being integrated into social pedagogy. This
paper compares Dewey and Vygotsky on three key points that relate directly to educational processes and goals. First, the two theorists are compared on the role of social history and the tools it produces. Dewey sees social history as creating a set of malleable tools
that are of use in present circumstances. Vygotsky believes that tools
developed through history have a far more lasting impact on the
social community. Second, the two theorists are compared in their
conceptualizations of experience/culture. Dewey sees experience as
helping to form thinking, whereas Vygotsky, in his cultural historical
theory, posits culture as the raw material of thinking. Third, the two
theorists are compared on their perspectives on human inquiry.
Dewey sees the child as a free agent who achieves goals through her
own interest in the activity. Vygotsky suggests there should be
greater control by a mentor who creates activity that will lead the
child towards mastery. These differences are then explored in terms
of how they might impact actual classroom strategies and curriculum.
There are historically based explanations for both the strong similarities and the strong differences between Dewey and Vygotsky.
Although it would probably be a mistake to claim that all, or even
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EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER
subsequent articles about his 1928 visit Dewey praised the Soviet system as being far superior to the American system in bringing the everyday world of the child into the classroom. However, he also offered a devastating critique that in many ways
defines the difference between his own educational philosophy
and Vygotskys educational perspective. Dewey felt the Soviet
educational system was being used for specific propaganda purposes, that is, the education system was being used to develop
good Soviet citizens that understood and fit into the communist
social order (Dewey, 1964). Vygotsky did not see education as
propaganda based, but he did see it as an important and definite
tool in the development of the new man (Kozulin, 1990).
Deweys critique may have started a rift that came to fruition in
1931 when the Central Committee of the Communist Party offered an official resolution condemning progressive educational
practices (e.g., the project method) advocated by Dewey and his
followers. What followed was the de-Deweyization of the official educational system within the Soviet Union (Brickman, 1964).
This short history offers some possible reasons for similarities
between Dewey and Vygotsky, such as the focus on activity, the
importance of the everyday activities of the child in the educational
process, and the importance of history. The young Vygotsky was
working within an educational structure that had been influenced
by Deweys ideas for a number of years. The important differences between the two theorists may be partially attributed to the
divergence between progressive education and Marxist ideology
on key issues, such as socially determined goals in activity (Novak,
1975; Popkewitz & Tabachnik, 1981).
Society and History
difference is captured in the way Deweys idea of cultural instrumentality (Eldridge, 1998) compares with Vygotskys theory
of cultural historical development (Kozulin, 1990).
For Dewey culture and history provide a malleable set of means
(e.g., tools) that can be used to achieve immediate or easily viewed
ends (see Eldridge, 1998, for an in-depth discussion of Deweys
instrumentality). These tools have worth only to the degree to
which they can be used to successfully navigate a given situation.
For Vygotsky (Vygotsky & Luria, 1993) cultural history provides
for a (relatively) more static set of tools and symbols that should
eventually enable members of a society to move beyond pure instrumentality, to a higher level of cognitive awareness. Tools are
means for specific, culturally approved consequences that act as
way stations on the path to a socially defined end. Deweys cultural instrumentality was criticized for its emphasis on means over
ends in social historical development (Eldridge, 1998; Novak,
1975). Dewey posits that education leads to free inquiry, and free
inquiry leads to a richer society, but he lacks a description of exactly what a richer society looks like. Vygotsky, on the other hand,
is susceptible to the criticism Dewey (1964) makes of the entire
Soviet educational systemthat social goals can easily be turned
into propaganda that services the society.
Dewey, Tools, and Long Term Projects
It is an individuals social history that provides what Dewey
termed intellectual tools (Eldridge, 1998). These are the socially developed tools such as morals, ideals, values, and customs
that serve as reference points for the individual as she attempts
to navigate life situations. But these are only reference points, in
that they inform immediate activity, but in an atmosphere of free
inquiry they do not limit it.
The meaning of tools, in a Deweyan framework, is directly related to their value in a given situation. When the tools no longer
have pragmatic value they are modified or rejected by the individuals using them. By making tools so dynamic Dewey is suggesting that there are no ends beyond the process of successful
activity within the context of the immediate situationwhat
Dewey termed the end-in-view (Eldridge, 1998). The easiest environments in which humans can use these intellectual tools
are those with the greatest degree of shared social history (enabling individuals to use shared social ends as a central aspect of
their activity). This allows members of the same group to share
likes and dislikes, to maintain the same attitudes towards objects,
to communicate without a disconnect. The historically defined
intellectual tools work more often than not because new situations and activities reflect the same situations and activities these
shared intellectual tools were based on. Those objects and ideas
that fall outside of the shared history are considered suspect
and/or of little worth (Dewey, 1916). But while environments
with a high level of agreement between subjects are relatively
comfortable, they are not beneficial. They do not engage free inquiry, which is the bedrock of Deweys democratic society.
Dewey (1916) believes that this is a dangerous situation that
leads to narrow-mindedness.
This is a major reason Dewey (1916) posits diversity as an
important aspect of a true educational experience. (He actually
counted diversity as a tool in education.) Dewey sees progress/
MAY 2001
development as occurring only through an equilibration/disequilibration process. For him, the state of disturbed equilibration represents need (Dewey, 1938, p.27). In his theory of inquiry Dewey suggests that it is this same type of disturbed
equilibration that drives exploration of new ideas. Many humans, however, find suspending judgment and reconstructing
the world disagreeable (Dewey, 1933). It is therefore incumbent
on the educational structure to create diverse environments that
demand social inquiry. There is a second, related reason that
Dewey champions diversity. Dewey echoes Mead in his argument that we see ourselves basically through a looking glass phenomenon (Dewey, 1930). Humans see themselves in the context of the way they are viewed by others. For Dewey the raison
dtre for human activity is to make life better and more worthwhile, both for themselves and, especially, for the general social
community. If humans do not see themselves in the context of
social views different from themselves, they are unable to reconstruct themselves in the face of a problematic society. Unable to
change themselves, and, therefore, unable to change the world,
humans can become slaves to their history and their habits.
Dewey clearly understands the problems that diversity will cause
(Dewey, 1916), and he does not believe that the problems, or
their solutions, will lead to a greater absolute good. He believes
that the process will lead to the process of free inquiry, and free
inquiry itself is good. For Dewey, then, it is not that the means
justify the ends, but that the means are the ends.
The emphasis on process over product in the cause of free inquiry is reflected in one of the most important educational approaches to emerge from Deweyan-based educational philosophies, long term projects (Katz & Chard, 1989). This educational
format stresses the importance of engaging children, as members
of communities, in projects based on subjects that interest them.
It is the students, rather than the teacher, who choose direction,
set goals, and determine effort. The goal of the project itself is
relatively unimportant and can be changed through the combined activity of the children. This is not to say that teachers
should not have an awareness of possible goals, but rather that
they should regard these goals as possibilities that may or may
not be fulfilled by those actually engaged in the project (i.e., the
students). This is why I refer to the teacher in Deweyan educational philosophy as a facilitator. The major function of the teacher
is to keep students on a stable course in the process of their own
discoveries. I will use two examples to highlight this application
of Deweys philosophical approach to education. Thefirstexample is a long-term project developed through toddlers interest and
activity in construction (Glassman & Whaley, 2000). The second
is a kindergarten project on shoes (Katz & Chard, 2000).
These two projects are similar in that their goals were not set
through teacher determination but developed over time through
childrens interests. The actual goals (construction for toddlers
and understanding the shoe business for kindergarten children)
had little social meaning outside of the immediate activity. In
many ways these goals were inconsequential to the long-term
learning of the children. This is one of the reasons the teachers
were able to focus on the process of education. In the construction project, a group of toddlers in a mixed-age classroom (infants and toddlers) developed an interest in a nearby construction site. The teachers and parents nurtured this interest through
6
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shoes) mentioned earlier. One example deals primarily with infants (417 months of age) and their abilities to engage in joint
social activity with adults using the cultural tool of a jack-inthe-box as a mediating device (Rogoff, Malkin, & Gilbride,
1984). In this study the same two babies interacted with a number of adults over the course of a year. The emphasis was on how
the adults used their interactions to guide the infant(s) towards
socially appropriate and rewarding social interaction.
The second example involves childrens development of logical (mathematical) operations through social interactions with
their mothers (Saxe, Gearhart, & Guberman, 1984). In this study
mothers taught their children (between 2.5 and 5 years of age) a
number reproduction game. The goal of the game had a direct
relationship to the type of mathematical skills that are considered
important in the larger society. The logical operations study and
the jack-in-the-box study have three things in common which
are indicative of current conceptualizations of the zone of proximal development: (1) There is an emphasis on joint attention
between the adult/mentor and the child/neophyte; (2) there is
some recognition on the part of the adult of a (socially determined)
goal to the activity and an attempt to set up sub-goals to reach that
goal; and (3) there is a focus on the social relationship between the
adult/mentor and the child/neophyte in reaching that goal. The
starting point for childrens learning in both of these examples is
the social tools that the children will eventually need to become
socialized participants in their culture (Rogoff et. al., 1984,
p. 31). The adults use their own experience/culture to guide the
childrens inquiry.
These two examples of the zone of proximal development, as
well as the two earlier mentioned examples of the project approach, will be used throughout the paper to illustrate, in concrete terms, conceptual differences between Dewey and Vygotsky.
These examples are especially important in examining the two
theorists diverging viewpoints concerning the mentor/neophyte
relationship and the adults role in problem solving.
The Interaction Between History and Tools
The role of tools in activity, and by extension the educational
process, is closely related to the interaction between history and
tool use. Dewey, as already mentioned, sees tools as historically
based, but only valid so long as they are of use to the individual
in the immediate situation. History is implicit in activity, but it
is not determinate. Vygotsky sees history as playing a more pivotal role in development and education (Vygotsky & Luria,
1993). It is not the activity that gives meaning to historical artifacts, but historical artifacts that give meaning to the activity. Social history is embodied in tools and symbols. These tools and
symbols have meanings and serve as mediational markers setting
frames of reference for individual thinking in context. It is the
objects history within the social group that helps create meaning in the mind of the child (Vygotsky, 1987).
The most omnipresent and important tool/symbol in the life
of the individual is of course language. Vygotsky and Dewey suggest that the child learns language in social interaction and then
thinks in terms of that language. Vygotsky, however, goes a step
further than Dewey, emphasizing the importance of both history
and context in the meaning each unit (word) of that language has
in the thinking of the individual. Language by itself creates a con-
text for activity and, especially, for reflective thinking about (the
consequences of) that activity. In Thinking and Speech (1987)
Vygotsky takes pains to examine both the historical development
of words over time, how this development is tied to specific circumstances of use in activity, and the degree to which specific
context can change the meaning of the word. The meaning of a
specific word (e.g., grasshopper) in a poem is determined by
the ways in which language emerged in a particular historical
context (Vygotsky, 1987). Change the historical context, change
the meaning of the exact same word, and change the meaning of
the poem. Vygotskys theory of social meaning, then, has a strong
connection to the past and an investment in the way in which
the past creates the present and acts as precursor for the future.
This means that the mind is essentially a living catalogue of historical incidence.
There is little discussion of free inquiry in Vygotskys work because the parameters of all inquiry are set by the culture as it is
manifested through its tools and symbols. Changing the focus of
inquiry requires a social organization as strong as the existing culture that is able to implement new tools and symbols (e.g., the
reasoning behind the expeditions to central Asia). The adult sees
the jack-in-the-box as a potential instrument of amusement where
Bugs Bunny pops out and is then forced back in. It is assumed
that, as a result of social interactions, the child will see the jackin-the-box the same way. There is only one way to engage in activity with the number reproduction game. The mother sees it as
her responsibility to bring the child closer to this specific understanding of socially sanctioned activity.
Dewey is more concerned with the process of history than the
specific goals a social community might achieve through history.
There are two reasons that the process of history is emphasized.
First, Deweys vision of the social is forward looking (Campbell,
1995): Dewey (1916, 1938) has tremendous faith in the process
of free inquiry to overcome immediate problems as they occur.
Second, Dewey sees the separation of process from goals as an
unnecessary dualism (Eldridge, 1998). What is most important
is actual activity in the moment and the way that activity leads
to specific judgments that may or may not use historically defined tools. In the learning process the judgments concerning relationship between activity and consequence become interconnected with earlier activities to form a body of knowledge. That
knowledge will then come into play in subsequent, interconnected activities (Dewey, 1916). However, the value of any historically developed knowledge is dependant upon the situation.
In Deweys view, stressing specific goals in education can actually be counter-productive because it may force students to focus
on tools that may be of little use for future problems, instead of
the process necessary to solve problem as they arise. There is little
to be gained in a product sense from having children develop
their own construction site, or build their own well run shoe store
(except for the few who might become construction workers or
shoe clerks). What is important in these activities is that children
experience the way one end-in-view builds upon another to create an ever more satisfying experience.
Experience/Culture
experience is synonymous with education. As mentioned earlier, Deweys notion of experience is, in many ways, parallel to
Vygotskys notion of culture.
Deweys Experience as Culture
Dewey (1916) sees experience as physical action and the consequences of that action, combined with the judgment of the consequences of that action (motivations). He abhors the dualism
that often emerges between the actions a person takes and the
way this person thinks about these actions. In his view they cannot be separated, in that where there is no mind, there is no way
of thinking about things outside of the actual action in which an
individual is engaged. To put it in a more academic tone, there
is no such thing as method separate from content, or content separate from method. A simple example might be eating a slice of
pizza. A person from New York has a method of eating pizza that
involves folding the pizza in half and lifting it up to his mouth.
Take that person and put him in Chicago with deep dish style
pizza and the method necessarily moves to knife and fork. The
content and the method are part of a single activity. The person
from New York might try to lift and fold the deep dish slice, but
judgments resulting from consequences of the action would force
him to adjust his action in subsequent situations. This has important implications for Deweys ideas concerning the goals of
education. If it is impossible to separate physical activity from its
consequences, then it is useless, and possibly detrimental, to plan
the physical activity of others in order to achieve a specific set of
goals. The only viable goal for any activity is the end-in-view,
which is ostensibly a part of the immediate activity rather than
any plan. Dewey emphasizes process not only because he believes
process is the essential quality in a democratic society, but also
because from a non-dualistic perspective experience and process
are one and the same thing.
Dewey (1916) emphasizes the role of vital experience in education. He initially posits vital experience as an essential component of the educational process. This vital experience moves beyond simple rote habit or capricious activity in that it involves
consequences for both the individual and the environment. A
person automatically reciting a times table (rote habit) or avoiding cracks in the sidewalk (capricious activity, if you dismiss the
possibility that it will break your mothers back) are activities
without educational worth.
Worthwhile, or vital, experience in education is activity in
which the link between action and consequence is interconnected with previous and future (related) activities. The consequence or end-in-view is still tied to the immediate situation. But
the process of inquiry used to reach this end-in-view not only has
a connection with, but has been enriched by, previous inquiry in
some way. An important aspect of vital experience is a difficulty
or a problem that must be solved in a way that can lead to both
a satisfactory conclusion and an enriched future inquiry.
Dewey (1925) later developed an alternative conceptualization based on primary and secondary experiences, which has important implications for educators as well as his own ideas concerning education. Primary experiences are the gross, everyday
activities in life that have consequences. These experiences are
broad and crude and involve a minimum of reflective activity.
8
Primary experience helps to create an aggregate of related activities that necessarily leads to systematic, regulated thinking about
that activity. Dewey terms this more reflective activity secondary
experience. Secondary experience clarifies the meaning of primary experience, organizing it so that there is a useful accumulation of knowledge (Dewey, 1925). Secondary experience can
run the gamut from judgments of the relationship between action and consequence(s) in early activity, to the development of
hypotheses and theories to explain and examine later activities.
There is a bi-directional relationship between primary experience and secondary experience, in that primary experience serves
as the basis for secondary experience, but it also serves as tests for
secondary experience. Hypothesis as intellectual tool serves as
an exemplar for both vital experience and secondary experience.
Individuals engage in interconnected primary experience until
they slowly organize it into a hypothesis about how things work
in the world. The development of the hypothesis (deductive reasoning) becomes an end-in-view for activity. Once the hypothesis is developed it becomes a natural part of inquiry into other
problems. Atfirstit serves as a tool for organizing thinking about
future experiences (inductive reasoning), and maintains its identity as secondary experience. Eventually the boundary between
organizing the experience and the experience itself will blur and
the hypothesis will become completely integrated into the activity itself.
According to Dewey (1916) one of the most important roles
of education is to teach children how to maintain these relationships between experiences so that they are constantly both amassing and testing new knowledge. The teacher must use interest to
help students recognize and achieve aims, and then use aims to
develop continued motivation for engaging in activity. Particular types of thinking are not especially important because that
thinking will eventually need to be reconstructed to meet the
needs of the situation (Dewey, 1916). What is important is that
secondary experience is derived from knowledge and knowledge
is the reconstruction of secondary experience through primary
experience. The knowledge storehouse is dynamic because secondary experience (should be) dynamic (primary experience continuously forcing reconstruction in order to deal with the immediate situation).
Social history can, to a certain extent, limit the types of experiences possible. But a major purpose of the educational process
is to show that it is possible for experience to move beyond social history (Dewey, 1916). In the shoe project there was little, if
anything, in the social history of the classroom or the children to
suggest that a large part of their curriculum would involve creating a shoe store. One experience gave momentum to the next experience. The questioning of friends and relatives about shoes led
to the development of a shoe store. The development of a shoe
store led to questions concerning specific issues of how exactly a
shoe store operates. Specific questions about how a shoe store operates led to afieldvisit to a shoe store in the community. The
children had to reflect on their initial questions about how a shoe
store operates in order to set up their own shoe store in the classroom. They merged their prior experiences of their shoe store with
theirfieldtrip to a community shoe store. Just as importantly, the
knowledge gained from each primary experience became part of
EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER
secondary experience as the children followed the natural momentum of their project.
This ability of the teacher to step back and simply facilitate,
rather than guide or mentor the children, can be an extraordinarily difficult task, especially as children grow older and adults
become more concerned with what students must know. Long
term projects, in a reflection of Dewey, focus on how students
can know.
Vygotskys Culture as Experience
Vygotsky takes a very similar approach to experience/culture. If
Dewey could have renamed his conception of experience as culture, Vygotsky might have renamed his conception of culture
as (Deweys) experience. Vygotsky recognizes two levels of culture, much the same way that Dewey sees two levels of experience. There is the culture that emerges through everyday concepts, and there is the culture that emerges through scientific
concepts (Vygotsky, 1987). Everyday concepts, the result of everyday activity, have much in common with primary experience. It
has the same double barreled nature in that it involves both action and the motivation for action. Vygotsky (1987) carefully defines activity as both the actions that humans take and the subtext of those actions, which are driven by desired consequences.
(Vygotsky took the idea of sub-text to action at least partially
from Stanislavskys works on training actors [Glassman 1996].)
Each true activity involves action and sub-text. Vygotsky does not
explicitly deny that rote habit and capricious actions have little or
no impact on the cultural development of the child, but his emphasis on subtext and motivation certainly imply this. (The relationship between action and motivation would become one of
the central themes of A.N. Leontievs [1981] work on Activity
Theory.)
The relationship between action and consequence moves to the
internal plane of thinking over time. The individual builds this
relationship up through life experience. Such relationships are
based on specific historical circumstances. Thus a child in one culture (i.e., involved in one set of experiences) may see the action of
demanding attention from a social interlocutor as related to the
consequence of getting what she wants. A child from another culture may see the same action as leading to the consequences of ostracism or punishment. There are also subtle, within-culture variations in these relationships. It is this accumulated historical
experience that mediates all future activity. The thinking of individuals becomes reconstructed on the basis of new situations,
but this reconstruction is still based in the everyday history of the
individual.
Vygotskys Scientific Concepts as Secondary Experience
Scientific concepts (Vygotsky, 1987) is in many ways parallel to
Deweys (1925) conceptualization of secondary experiences.
Moreover, secondary experience is a complex, multi-level phenomenon for Vygtosky. Part of the reason for this may be that it
plays a much more distinct, and possibly more important, role
in (vital) experience for Vygotsky than it does for Dewey. At the
center of Vygotskys secondary experience is his tool par excellance, language. Vygotsky does not explicitly posit an individual
organizing principle for everyday experience. One is not really
necessary for a couple of reasons. First, while Dewey sees experi-
mastery (1987). While Dewey sees the difference between primary experience and secondary experience as relative (Campbell,
1995), Vygotsky seems to see the difference in more absolute
terms (at least over the course of an individuals history). There is
a relationship between everyday concepts and scientific concepts,
but there are also qualitative differences and strict boundaries between complexive thinking and conceptual thinking. Complexive thinking is based on categorizing objects solely on the basis of
the immediate situation, and conceptual thinking is based on a
more abstract understanding.
According to Vygotsky, the qualitative jump that humans
make in adolescence to conceptual thinking is based on the ability to use words and signs as internal mediators. The functional
use of words and signs helps the adolescent by allowing him to
take charge of his own psychological processes and master the
flow of his own psychological processes so that their activity can
be directed for the purpose of solving the problems he is faced
with (Vygotsky, 1994, p. 212). Adolescence is thefirstpoint at
which humans are able to use thinking to make true individual
judgments concerning their own activities. The development of
this conceptual thinking does not occur naturally through experience, but is dependent on specific types of social interactions
(Vygotsky, 1994). Vygotsky (1987) suggests the best style of social
interaction for the development of conceptual thinking is direct
pedagogy; the teaching of abstract ideas and problems connected
with the process of growing into the cultural, professional, and social life of adults(Vygotsky, 1994, p. 213). Thus, development of
the ability to analyze, hypothesize about,and test primary or everyday experience is actually separated from everyday experience.
There are two points to be made here. Thefirstis that Dewey
would certainly agree that human organization of primary experience is mediated through words and signs and that there is an
important relationship between the use of language and thinking
that emerges through experience (Dewey, 1925). But for Dewey
language is more an integral part of experience than a tool that
acts as a central organizing theme for experience. The second
point is that Vygotsky certainly sees a necessary relationship between experience that results from everyday activity and individual organization of that activity, especially the cumulative impact
of that experience on all subsequent thinking. But the developmental aspect of his work suggests a qualitative break between
thinking and thinking about thinking that could not help but
seep into his conceptualization of education.
Human Inquiry
EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER
11
performances children not only made errors, but actually conceptualize[d] the task quite differently than adults d[id] (p. 22).
Nowhere was it even suggested that the children might gain more
by following through on their own conceptualizations of the task.
There are, I believe, important philosophical, political, and educational reasons for the differences in how involved society should
be in a students inquiry in the educational process. Vygotsky
(1987; Luria, 1971) believed in grand social goals for the educational process that Dewey (1916, 1964), in many ways, disdained.
For Vygotsky The new structures of social lifeincluding the
industrialization of work activity, compulsory school and collective forms of everyday lifebecame seen as determinants of the
nascent forms of behavior and cognition of a new man (Kozulin,
1990, p. 277). If more powerful tools can come into existence
through activity, then it is almost a moral obligation for the teacher
to act as mentor and establish the types of activities that will engender these new tools. The mentor devises cooperative activities
that will allow the child to acquire the plane of consciousness of
the natal society (Tharp & Gallimore, 1988, p. 30).
Conclusion
a darker political side to Deweys emphasis on process. He believed that, ultimately, social and cultural groups establish goals
and end points for their own benefit. If you accept the social organization as thefinalarbiter for education goals, individuals are
forever trapped within that organization.
Vygotsky (1978) uses the zone of proximal development as an
alternative for his described three interactions between learning
and development. He sees learning as a tool in the developmental process. The process of learning allows the child to fulfill her
developmental potential. It is therefore important for teachers/
mentors to be a proactive force and take greater control in the educational process, just as they would be a proactive force in the
use of any other tool (e.g., the teacher wields pedagogy just as the
builder wields a hammer). For Dewey the teacher is one of a
number of possible sieves that the social environment can pour
through in the general development of activity. That is why it is
important for teachers to take the less dominant, facilitator roles
exhibited in the best long term projects. For Vygotsky the teacher/
mentor uses the social environment to build activities that will
lead to mastery. Vygotsky might have joined some of Deweys
critics in seeing faith in process and free expression as naive in a
complex social environment. The society and the individual are
both more successful if education leads to individual and society
working together towards a greater good.
This general difference between Vygotsky and Dewey in the
relationship between the roles of process and goals in learning
and development highlights three important educational issues:
the role of social history as opposed to individual history in the
classroom; whether or not the teacher should take the general attitude of facilitator or mentor; and whether the source of change
is the individual or the social community.
Individual history and social history are both important in the
educational process, and it is sometimes difficult to separate the
two, but there are differences with important implications. The
difference between the two types of histories speaks directly to
the issue of diversity in the classroom. If the role of social history
is seen as preeminent then it is difficult to escape the importance
of shared historical artifacts in the classroom. This includes not
only language, but also childhood tools and symbols such as toys
and games. The greater the shared history the higher the level of
communication between teacher and students and between peers.
This is especially important for a model such as the zone of proximal development where the mentor plays such an important
role in establishing indeterminate situations that will both be of
interest to the student and beneficial to the students role in the
larger society.
If individual history is emphasized, a diverse student population (and even differences between teacher and students) is something to be consciously pursued, even at the expense of initial
communicative abilities. Rather than bringing in artifacts from
the outside world, teachers might be more inclined to concentrate
on the development of peer projects that lead to self-generated indeterminate situations.
If clear communication is pursued and realized then the burden for development of specific activities falls squarely on the
shoulders of the mentor(s). The mentor mustfindthe right questions, the proper situations that will allow the students to achieve
EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER
MAY 2001 13
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AUTHOR
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Accepted March 7, 2001
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EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER