ABSTRACT
In the 1960s, Piaget read for the first time the work of a Russian psychologist Lev Semenovitch Vygotsky (1896-1934). Piaget said he was very sorry never to have been able to talk to him for Vygotsky’s theories were an interesting contrast to his own. Vygotsky died in tragic circumstances in 1934 at the age of 38. That early death helped make Vygotsky an immensely romantic figure. In this chapter we’re going to look at:
• Vygotsky’s ideas on thought and language
• Vygotsky’s theory that children develop first as social beings – and then as cognitive ones
• Vygotsky’s theory that egocentric speech isn’t really egocentric
• Vygotsky on how children flourish when helped and the zone of proximal development.
