Module 2 - Constructivism: Vygotsky & Old-Fashioned Play

Unstructured play is very similar in a lot of ways to the constructivist approach to education. When children are creating tools out of everyday objects and inserting themselves into imaginary circumstances, they are beginning to make sense of the world on their own terms.

Vygotsky (1935/1978) notes “can it be doubted that children learn speech from adults; or that, through asking questions and giving answers, children acquire a variety of information; or that, through imitating adults and through being instructed about how to act, children develop an entire repository of skills?” (p. 84). Imaginative play is a way for these children to engage in the activities that they have observed grown ups participating in, and to test out their observations in a way that they understand.

Imaginative play allows the child to access their zone of proximal development with the help of their peers; “using imitation, children are capable of doing much more in collective activity or under the guidance of adults” (Vygotsky, 1935/1978, p. 88). By playing pretend games, children get the chance to try out things such as money exchange (when children play “store” for example) as well as incorporate understanding of concepts such as sharing, fairness, competition, and argumentation through their interactions with their peers. This creates shared understanding of these concepts. The games that children make up and the rules that accompany them allow children to explore rule making and consequences of their actions in such a way that prepares them to interact with rules and regulations in the real world.

If children are only given toys and resources for specific actions, then the opportunity for problem solving and exploration is lost to a certain extent. In his chapter on memory, James (1899/1962) notes; “paths frequently and recently ploughed are those that lie most open, those which may be expected most easily to lead to results.” If children are given only one way to approach something, whether in play or a complex math problem, you could say that they are forced into a pre-ploughed path or set of actions. If children are left to explore all options on their own, then they can better select the avenues that work best for them and devise alternative routes that they can explore if their first approach does not work. This skill becomes important when they need to tackle problems that are just beyond their level of understanding.

Developmentally, the issue of free and imaginative play could have an impact on the student’s actual developmental level and their zone of proximal development. As noted in the NPR segment, children are using less private speech in their play, a skill that has implications for both self-regulation and problem-solving skills. The implication of these findings is that children will be able to solve fewer and fewer problems and obtain a lesser understanding (as defined by the constructivist theory) than they were able to just a few generations ago. This also has implications for attention and persistence. According to Vygotsky’s concept of the zone of proximal development, it is clear that the relative space between one’s actual developmental level and the level of problem solving that they can do with help is more narrow than it was when unstructured play was more prevalent in our culture.

References:

James, W. (1899/1962). Talks to teachers on psychology and to students on some of life's ideals. New York: Dover.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1935/1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.