Lev Vygotsky and Children's Behavior



Lev Vygotsky and Children's Behavior

Biography of Lev Vygotsky

Lev Semenovich Vygotsky was born on November 17, 1896 in Orsah, small town near Minsk, the capital of Belarus, the region was dominated by Russia, His parents were from a Jewish family and educated with good economic conditions, which allowed the Lev Semenovich Vygotsky solid training since childhood. Up to 15 years was educated at home by private tutors. At 18, he enrolled in medical school in Moscow, but eventually attending law school. Formed, returned to Gomel in Belarus, in 1917, the year of the Bolshevik Revolution, which he supported. Taught literature, aesthetics and art history and founded a psychological laboratory - the area in which rapidly gained prominence thanks to his encyclopedic culture, his innovative thinking and his intense activity, having produced more than 200 scientific papers.

In 1924, he married Roza Smekhova. They had two daughters. Since 1920 lived with tuberculosis. Despite his background in law, stood out at the time for his literary criticism and analysis of historical and psychological significance of works of art, works that were later incorporated in the book "Psychology of Art", written between 1924 and 1926, including of course doctoral thesis on Psychology of Art, who defended in 1925. His interest in psychology led him to a critical reading of the entire theoretical production of his time, including the theories of "Gestalt", Psychoanalysis and "behaviorism", beyond the ideas of Swiss educator Jean Piaget. Throughout his writings Lev Semenovich Vygotsky refers often to situations drawn from literary works, he wrote about 200 scientific papers on topics ranging from literary criticism to neuropsychology, through disability, language, psicolgia, education and theoretical and methodological issues relating to humanities. Among their fieldwork include visits to peasant populations isolated from their country, doing neuropsychological tests between nomadic villages of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan (Central Asia), before and after realignment cultural and socio-economic development of the socialist revolution, which included literacy, short courses of new technologies, organization of brigades, and other collective farms, as Alexander Luria describes in his essay on cultural differences and thought (Vigotskii et al., 1988).

Throughout his writings Lev Semenovich Vygotsky refers often to situations drawn from literary works, he wrote about 200 scientific papers on topics ranging from literary criticism to neuropsychology, through disability, language, psicolgia, education and theoretical and methodological issues relating to humanities.

Vygotsky's Theory

Vygotsky was the chief psychologist of the former Soviet Union. Its short existence and quality of his work allowed him to be compared to the composer Mozart. Despite the strong influence of his pedagogical ideals, their texts were only known in the West thanks to the interest of the American psychologist Bruner and the disclosure of his disciple Alexander Luria in international conferences, from 1962. Was the first to draw attention to the importance of environmental involvement in child development and the process of training the mind. Its methodology would not give up the theory - practice relationship. For cognitive psychology, his work is important to go beyond the ...