Socio-cultural perspective

 

One aspect of Vygotsky's theory is the idea that full development of the ZPD depends upon full social interaction. Vygotsky suggests that the development takes place from social context to individual, outer change for inner development. Also, Vygotsky emphasizes that socio-culture is the main element in cognitive development, and the culture is the long-accumulated experience and knowledge of the whole society.


Nevertheless, different from Vygotsky, Piaget advocates the active role of the learner who must discover knowledge rather than passively receive "knowledge transmissions" from authorities. In other words, if dynamic of learning is not from children themselves, then children may not be able to learn knowledge; and their learning interest will be impaired.


For example, the present day, more and more parents desire their children to start learning at age six or even earlier, so that these children will become more competitive in the class. On one hand, there is not doubt that these children will be benefited from learning earlier. On the other hand, taking up children’s playing time will cause depression in children; also, the emotional weariness may result to the poor performance in school and lack of interest in learning. More importantly, these children lost their carefree childhood time. Thus, in some way, social environment hinders cognitive development of children.


In the classroom teaching, we should avoid any action that hinders children's development, respect children's natural, set them free and allow them to develop by themselves. Over teaching them knowledge will only makes them feel painful and uncomfortable; not teaching them any knowledge is not right either. Therefore, finding a balance between them will be a big question left for us to answer.