"We become ourselves through others."

Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934)

Developmental Psychology.

Where do our skills that we need to reason, remember and understand come from? According to the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky those skills come from child’s experiences with parents, teachers and peers. Vygotsky distinguished three levels on which the human development is taking place – cultural, interpersonal and individual. In his work he focused on cultural and interpersonal levels. One of the conclusions he arrived at was that our most formidable experiences are social, or that “We become ourselves through others”. Children, according to Lev Vygotsky, absorb wisdom, values, and technical knowledge accumulated by the previous generations. They absorb that knowledge through interactions with their parents and caregivers, and use it to navigate through life. However, these tools need to be experienced and fostered through social interactions. Even our ability to think and reason on an individual level is the result of our social interactions during the period of our development as children.

All higher psychological functions are internalized
relationships of the social kind.
Lev Vygotsky

Lev Vygotsky’s theories had a big impact on both learning and teaching. In his view, a teacher should be playing a role of an instructor, guide and someone who nurtures his/her pupils in order to improve their concentration, attention span and learning skills, which would ultimately result in students building their competence. This view contributed highly, particularly in the late 20th century, to the shift from child-centred to curriculum-centred teaching and thus to a greater use of collaborative learning.

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JM