Vygotsky's View of Child Learning

Vygotsky saw that adults, and especially parents, were a kind of tool that children used to solve the problem of knowledge. in contrast to our—probably necessary—parental megalomania. Vygotsky noticed, for example, how adults, quite unconsciously, adjusted their behavior to give children just the information they needed to solve the problems that were most important to them. Children used adults to discover the particularities of their culture and society.

But Vygotsky also thought that the adult influence on children's minds was fundamentally biological, a part of our basic human nature. He emphasized the role of language. Language is a natural, biological, and unique feature of human beings, but it is also the medium by which we transmit our cultural inventions. Just as Piaget saw that learning was innate. Vygotsky saw that culture was natural.

Alison Gopnik, Patricia K. Kuhl, Andrew N. Meltzoff, The Scientist in the Crib: What Early Learning Tells Us About the Mind (2001-01-01)

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