7 By Lev Semenovich Vygotsky’s Best Quote
In this article, we will address some of Vygotsky’s best quotes. Vygotsky is a veritable “Mozart” in developmental and educational psychology. Lev Semenovich Vygotsky (1896-1934) was a prominent Belarusian psychologist and physician. He was also a pioneer in Soviet neuropsychology and developmental psychology.
The things that Vygotsky said were ignored for a very long time, but he never stopped defending an important idea: culture plays a very important role in the development of mental processes.
In fact, we can say in retrospect that his contribution was a real revolution, especially in the fertile field shared by psychology and education. Much of Vygotsky’s research and words focused on:
- The role of language in human behavior
- The role of language in children’s mental development
- The origin and development of mental functions
- Philosophy of science
- Methodologies for psychological research
- The psychology of art
- Play as a psychological phenomenon
- The study of learning problems and abnormal human development
The importance of social interaction
The direction in which the thought processes develop does not come from the individual to the social. It comes instead from the social to the individual.
He says that learning could be a way of acquiring the available cultural heritage. It is not just a process of individual assimilation.
Vygotsky explains that human learning presupposes a certain social nature. In other words, it is a process in which children gain access to what is going on in other people’s brains.
With language, we have a way of confirming or denying things. This implies that an individual has an awareness of what he is and can act according to his own free will.
Language and thought have different origins, but thought is verbalized and language becomes rational.
Especially children’s language is social and external, but it is slowly internalized. The cognitive development of children arises through informal and formal conversations with adults. Children begin to discover the world through their eyes, but also through their speech.
A child feeds on this environment like a fungus. As we get older, we continue to imitate and react to the environment, but more in terms of our schedules and values.
A thought can be compared to a cloud that rains words. Language is the vehicle of interaction and it is a crucial factor in the development of the mind. Language is fundamental to thought.
All the superior psychological processes (communication, language, reasoning, etc.) are first obtained in a social context. They are internalized later on an individual level. There is really no better learning than the one that comes with the experience and your own critical evaluation.
A student goes his own way and the teacher accompanies him. What a child can do with help today, he will be able to do himself tomorrow.
According to Vygotsky, learning is like a tower. You have to build it a little at a time. It is very closely related to proximal development and social constructionism.
From Vygotsky’s best quotes, we learn that only social adaptation can satisfy a need. Let us remember that culture determines a large part of our needs. A mind cannot be independent in relation to the culture in which it finds itself. We are social beings, not isolated individuals.
Vygotsky talks about complex social functions, such as dialogue. He sees them as very valuable for problem solving. Vygotsky’s best quote, his philosophy, with its positive nature, is really an attempt to emphasize the importance of our surrounding environment, and the power it exerts on our development.
We are constantly changing and culture and experience are our two main compasses in life.
