Blog Response #2

    

Processing: Thought, Language, and Learning via Piaget and Vygotsky 

Piaget believes how children conceptualize and process the world is different from adults. Additionally, “development is NOT just the continuous accumulation of things learned step by step” (Wood, 2004, pg. 52) but also includes intellectual revolutions that are distinctive to that stage of life. Piaget theorizes that “each stage yields a different way of thinking and understanding the world from that which it grows out of and replaces” (Wood, 2004, pg. 52) One implication of Piaget's theory is that the impact of lessons taught by adults varies as a function of the child’s development. Teaching effectiveness depends on the child’s intelligence, which is dependent on their stage of development. If an adult assumes that a child’s ability to understand numbers for example contributes to their action of them teaching the child how to recite numbers; then the adult has committed in Piaget’s view magical thinking. Hence, this response contradicts Piaget’s idea that children’s understanding arises not from the adult but from their own self-initiated actions from the world. In other words, children learn from their own interactions with the world and not from the social interactions of others (contrary to Vygotsky). In the realm of a child’s self-directed work, there are two processes involved: assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation occurs when a child changes new information to fit into their preexisting schema. Accommodation is when a new experience is present, and it doesn’t fit into what we already know therefore we change our preexisting schema to help understand the experience better. As for language development, Piaget claims that as children progress from the sensorimotor stage to the operational stage, the language they learn depends on their current stage. In the sensorimotor period, a child's language is egocentric and is an expression of their egocentric thought. Gradually, as the child develops operational thinking their egocentric language transforms into a socialized language. 

    Vygotsky’s approach to thinking and learning is quite different. Vygotsky’s view of cognitive functioning is depicted through higher and lower psychological processes. Lower psychological processes including nonverbal thinking and eidetic memory are characterized as biological elements. These “elementary reactions are similar in primitive and civilized people.” (Van der Veer & van IJzendoorn, 1985, pg. 3). What differentiates the responses of civilized and primitive people is the higher psychological process. The higher psychological process involves the influence of culture and social interactions. These influences impact the mental development of a child. In essence, we see differences in what drives cognitive processing. Piaget argues that a child’s individual action impacts thought, whereas Vygotsky argues that cultural and social interactions are the primal driver for thought. As for language, Vygotsky believes that language and thought are mutually exclusive at birth but eventually merge over time. Vygotsky views language as a cultural tool “similar to physical tools used by children in joint activity with others as they advance their development” (Vasileva & Balyasnikova, 2019, pg.9). As for egocentric speech, Vygotsky believes that egocentric speech stems from the social environment and later internalizes it into thought. Piaget believed that self-centered speech stems from insufficient social interactions at birth, however as children grow, their mental processes shift to operational thinking, and their language transcends social language. 

    As I process the differences between these two theorists, I connected their understandings to my own experience working with children. As to Piaget, I get his point of assimilation and accommodation, as I’ve seen similar instances in my work as an ECE educator. I remember years ago I had a toddler in my classroom who always called me mom. Every time I tried to correct him by saying “I’m Miss Kenya”, he would repeat “Ms. Kenya” but then moments later go right back to calling me mom lol. At the time, I never understood why he referred to me as his mom (I mean, I didn’t look like her or anything). As I reflect more on the reading maybe his reason for calling me mom was because he assimilated my actions (changing his diaper, rocking him to sleep) to his current schema of what a mother does. Before attending my center, he had never had a caregiver other than his mom. Fortunately, weeks later he eventually started calling me by my name. He was now able to adapt to my experience as his teacher and thus changed his pre-existing patterns to better understand my role in his life. 

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