Years of life: 1896 - 1934
Homeland: Orsha (Russian Empire)
Vygotsky Lev Semenovich was born in 1896. He was an outstanding Russian psychologist, the creator of the concept of the development of higher mental functions. Lev Semenovich was born in the Belarusian town of Orsha, but a year later the Vygodskys moved to Gomel and settled there for a long time. His father, Semyon Lvovich Vygodsky graduated from the Commercial Institute in Kharkov and was a bank clerk and insurance agent. Mother, Cecilia Moiseevna, devoted almost her entire life to raising her eight children (Leo was the second child). The family was considered a kind of cultural center of the city. For example, there is information that Father Vygodsky founded a public library in the city. They loved and knew literature in the house; it is no coincidence that so many famous philologists came from the Vygodsky family. In addition to Lev Semenovich, these are his sisters Zinaida and Klavdia; cousin David Isaakovich, one of the prominent representatives of "Russian formalism" (somewhere in the early 1920s it began to be published, and since both of them were engaged in poetics, it is natural to strive to "separate" so that they would not be confused, and therefore Lev Semenovich Vygodsky the letter "d" in his last name was replaced by "t"). Young Lev Semenovich was fond of literature and philosophy. Benedict Spinoza became his favorite philosopher and remained until the end of his life. Young Vygotsky studied mainly at home. Only the last two classes did he study at Ratner's private Gomel gymnasium. In all subjects, he showed outstanding abilities. At the gymnasium, he studied German, French, Latin, at home, in addition, English, Ancient Greek and Hebrew. After graduating from high school, Vygotsky entered Moscow University, where he studied at the Faculty of Law during the First World War (1914-1917). At the same time he became interested in literary criticism, and in several magazines his reviews of the books of the Symbolist writers - the rulers of the souls of the then intelligentsia: A. Bely, V. Ivanov, D. Merezhkovsky - appeared. During these student years, he wrote his first work - the treatise "The Tragedy of Hamlet Danish by W. Shakespeare." After the victory of the revolution, Vygotsky returned to Gomel and took an active part in the construction of a new school. This period marks the beginning of his scientific career as a psychologist, since in 1917 he began to engage in research work and organized a psychological study at the pedagogical college, where he conducted research. In 1922-1923. he conducted five studies, three of which he later reported at the II All-Russian Congress on Psychoneurology. These were: "Methods of reflexological research as applied to the study of the psyche", "How psychology should now be taught" and "Results of a questionnaire on the mood of students in the graduating classes of Gomel schools in 1923. ". In the Gomel period, Vygotsky imagined that the future of psychology lay in the application to the causal explanation of the phenomena of consciousness of reflexological methods, the merit of which is in their objectivity and natural scientific rigor. The content and style of Vygotsky's speeches, as well as his personality, literally shocked one of the participants of the congress - A. R. Luria. The new director of the Moscow Institute of Psychology NK Kornilov accepted Luria's proposal to invite Vygotsky to Moscow. Thus, the ten-year Moscow stage of Vygotsky's work began in 1924. This decade can be divided into three periods. The first period (1924-1927) Having just arrived in Moscow and passed the exams for the title of a scientific worker of the 2nd category, Vygotsky made three reports in six months. In terms of the further development of the new psychological concept conceived in Gomel, he is building a model of behavior based on the concept of speech reactions The term "reaction" was introduced in order to distinguish the psychological approach from the phi ziological. He introduces into it signs that allow correlating the behavior of the organism regulated by consciousness with the forms of culture - language and art. After moving to Moscow, he was attracted by a special area of \u200b\u200bpractice - working with children suffering from various mental and physical defects. In essence, his entire first Moscow year can be called "defectological". He combines studies at the Institute of Psychology with active work at the People's Commissariat of Education. Showing brilliant organizational skills, he laid the foundations of the defectological service, and later became the scientific director of the special scientific and practical institute that still exists today. The most important direction of Vygotsky's research in the early years of the Moscow period was the analysis of the situation in world psychology. He writes a preface to the Russian translations of the works of the leaders of psychoanalysis, behaviorism, gestaltism, seeking to determine the significance of each of the directions for the development of a new picture of mental regulation. Back in 1920, Vygotsky fell ill with tuberculosis, and since then outbreaks of the disease have repeatedly plunged him into a "borderline situation" between life and death. One of the most severe outbreaks struck him at the end of 1926. Then, after being hospitalized, he began one of his main studies, which he gave the name "The meaning of a psychological crisis." The epigraph to the treatise was the biblical words: "The stone, which the builders despised, has become the cornerstone." He called this stone practice and philosophy. The second period of Vygotsky's work (1927-1931) in his Moscow decade was instrumental psychology. He introduces the concept of a sign, which is a special psychological tool, the use of which, without changing anything in the substance of nature, serves as a powerful means of transforming the psyche from natural (biological) into cultural (historical). Thus, the didactic "stimulus-response" scheme accepted by both subjective and objective psychology was rejected. It was replaced by a triadic - "stimulus - stimulus - reaction", where a special stimulus - a sign acts as an intermediary between an external object (stimulus) and the response of the organism (mental reaction). This sign is a kind of instrument, when operated by an individual, from his primary natural mental processes (memory, attention, associated thinking) a special system of functions of the second sociocultural order is inherent only in man. Vygotsky called them the highest mental functions. The most significant of what Vygotsky and his group achieved during this period were compiled into a lengthy manuscript "History of the Development of Higher Mental Functions". Among the publications that preceded this generalizing manuscript, we note "The Instrumental Method in Pedology" (1928), "The Problem of the Cultural Development of the Child" (1928), "The Instrumental Method in Psychology" (1930), "The Tool and the Sign in the Development of the Child" ( 1931). In all cases, the center was the problem of the development of the child's psyche, interpreted from the same point of view: the creation of new cultural forms from its biopsychic natural "material". Vygotsky becomes one of the country's main pedologists. "Pedology of school age" (1928), "Pedology of adolescence" (1929), "Pedology of a teenager" (1930-1931) were published. Vygotsky strives to recreate the general picture of the development of the mental world. He moved from the study of signs as the determinants of instrumental acts to the study of the evolution of the meanings of these signs, primarily speech, in the mental life of a child. The new research program became the main one in his third and last Moscow period (1931-1934). The results of its development were captured in the monograph "Thinking and Speech". Having dealt with global issues of the relationship between education and upbringing, Vygotsky gave it an innovative interpretation in the concept of the "zone of proximal development" he introduced, according to which only that teaching is effective, which "runs ahead" of development. In the last period of his creative work, the leitmotif of Vygotsky's searches, linking into a common knot various branches of his work (the history of the doctrine of affects, the study of the age dynamics of consciousness, the semantic subtext of a word), was the problem of the relationship between motivation and cognitive processes. Vygotsky worked at the limit of human capabilities. From dawn until late, his days were oversaturated with countless lectures, clinical work, and laboratory work. He made many reports at various meetings and conferences, wrote abstracts, articles, introductions to the materials collected by his employees. When Vygotsky was taken to the hospital, he took his beloved Hamlet with him. In one of the entries about Shakespeare's tragedy, it was noted that the main state of Hamlet is readiness. "I am ready" - such, according to the nurse, were the last words of Vygotsky. Although early death did not allow Vygotsky to implement many promising programs, his ideas, which revealed the mechanisms and laws of the cultural development of the personality, the development of its mental functions (attention, speech, thinking, affects), outlined a fundamentally new approach to the fundamental issues of personality formation. Bibliography of the works of L.S. Vygotsky has 191 works. Vygotsky's ideas received a wide resonance in all sciences that study man, including linguistics, psychiatry, ethnography, and sociology. They defined a whole stage in the development of humanitarian knowledge in Russia and still retain their heuristic potential.
_________________________
http://www.nsk.vspu.ac.ru/person/vygot.html
http://www.psiheya-rsvpu.ru/index.php?razdel\u003d3&podrazdels\u003d20&id_p\u003d67
VYGOTSKY (real name Vygodsky) Lev Semenovich (Simkhovich) (5.11.1896, Orsha, Mogilev province - 11.6.1934, Moscow) - an outstanding psychologist, founder of the cultural-historical school in psychology; Professor; member of the Russian Psychoanalytic Society (1925–30).
Vygotsky's only permanent place of work over the past 10 years (1924-1934) was the Moscow State Pedagogical University (then the Second Moscow State University and the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute named after A.S.Bubnov), in which the scientist continuously worked in various positions, headed the department of difficult childhood at the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute.
In 1917 he graduated from the Faculty of Law of Moscow State University and at the same time - the Faculty of History and Philosophy of the Moscow City People's University. A.L. Shanyavsky. After the 1917 revolution in Gomel he taught literature at school. Worked at the Moscow State Institute of Experimental Psychology (1924–28); in LGPI them. A.I. Herzen; at the State Institute of Scientific Pedagogy at the Leningrad State Pedagogical Institute. A.I. Herzen (1927–34); at the 2nd Moscow State University (1924–30); at the Academy of Communist Education. N.K. Krupskaya (1929–31); at the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute. A.S. Bubnov (1930–34); at the Experimental Defectological Institute of the People's Commissariat for Education (EDI) founded by Vygotsky himself (1929–34). He also read lecture courses at universities in Tashkent and Kharkov. Carried away by literary criticism, Vygotsky wrote reviews of the books of the Symbolist writers: A. Bely, V. Ivanov, D. Merezhkovsky (1914–17), as well as the treatise The Tragedy of Danish Hamlet by W. Shakespeare (1915–16). In 1917 he began to engage in research work and organized a psychological study at the pedagogical college in Gomel. At the II All-Russian Congress on Psychoneurology in Leningrad (1924), he delivered an innovative report "Methods of reflexological and psychological research." Sent to London for a defectological conference (1925), visited Berlin, Amsterdam and Paris. In 1925, his doctorate was accepted for defense. diss. "Psychology of Art". Published a textbook on psychology for secondary school teachers "Educational Psychology" (1926). Member of the International Congress of Psychology at Yale University (1929). At the VI International Conference on Psychotechnics in Barcelona, \u200b\u200bVygotsky's report on the study of higher psychological functions in psychotechnical research (1930) was read. He entered the medical faculty at the Ukrainian Psychoneurological Academy in Kharkov (1931). Together with A.R. Luria organized a scientific expedition to Central Asia (1931–32), during which one of the first cross-cultural studies of cognitive processes was carried out. In 1924, the Moscow stage of Vygotsky's activity began. The most important area of \u200b\u200bresearch in the early years (1924–27) was the analysis of the situation in world psychology. Scientists wrote prefaces to the Russian transl. the works of the leaders of psychoanalysis, behaviorism, gestaltism, in which the importance of each of the directions for the development of a new picture of mental regulation was determined. Until 1928, Vygotsky's psychology was a humanistic reactology - a kind of learning theory that attempted to recognize the social nature of human thinking and action. In search of methods for objectively studying complex forms of mental activity and personality behavior, Vygotsky created his fundamental work The Historical Meaning of the Psychological Crisis (1926–27). He tried to give human psychology the status of a science based on the laws of cause-and-effect relationships. The second period of creativity (1927–31) is instrumental psychology. Vygotsky wrote the book "The history of the development of higher mental functions" (1930–31, published in 1960), in which he outlined a cultural-historical theory of the development of the psyche, which singled out two plans of behavior merged in evolution: "natural" (a product of biological development of the animal world) and " cultural ”(the result of historical development). He formulated the concept of a sign as a tool, when operating in an individual, from his primary natural mental processes (memory, attention, associated thinking), a special system of functions of the second sociocultural order inherent only to a person arises. Vygotsky called them the highest mental functions. The new research program was the main one in the last years of the scientist's life (1931–34). The monograph "Thinking and Speech" (1934), devoted to the study of the relationship between thought and word in the structure of consciousness, became fundamental for Russian psycholinguistics. Vygotsky revealed the role of speech in transforming a child's thinking, in the formation of concepts and in solving problems. The triad “consciousness-culture-behavior” became the focus of Vygotsky's quest. Studying the development and decay of higher mental functions on the material of child psychology, defectology and psychiatry, I came to the conclusion that the structure of consciousness is a dynamic semantic system of affective volitional and intellectual processes that are in unity. Of great importance in the creative heritage of Vygotsky was the idea of \u200b\u200bthe relationship between education and mental development of the child. The main source of this development is the changing social environment, to describe which Vygotsky coined the term “social situation of development”. A serious contribution to pedagogical psychology was the concept he created about the "zone of proximal development," according to which only that teaching is effective, which "runs ahead" of development. Many of Vygotsky's works are devoted to the study of mental development and the patterns of personality formation in childhood, the problems of teaching children at school. Vygotsky played an outstanding role in the development of defectology and pedology. He created a laboratory for the psychology of abnormal childhood in Moscow, which later became an integral part of the EDI. He was one of the first among Russian psychologists not only to substantiate theoretically, but also to confirm in practice that any deficiency in both psychological and physical development lends itself to correction. Vygotsky proposed a new periodization of the human life cycle, based on the alternation of stable periods of development and crises, accompanied by the appearance of certain new formations. He was the first in psychology to approach the consideration of a psychological crisis as a necessary stage in the development of the human psyche, revealing its positive meaning. In the last period of creativity, the leitmotif of the scientist's searches, linking into a common knot various branches of his work (the history of the doctrine of affects, the study of the age dynamics of consciousness, the semantic subtext of a word), was the problem of the relationship between motivation and cognitive processes. Vygotsky's ideas, which revealed the mechanisms and laws of the cultural development of the personality, the development of its mental functions (attention, speech, thinking, affects), outlined a fundamentally new approach to the fundamental issues of personality formation. Vygotsky had a great influence on the development of domestic and world psychology, psychopathology, pathopsychology, neuropsychology, psychiatry, sociology, defectology, pedology, pedagogy, linguistics, art history, ethnography. The emergence of social constructivism is associated with the name of Vygotsky. The scientist's ideas determined a whole stage in the development of humanitarian knowledge in Russia and still retain their heuristic potential. In the 1980s, all of Vygotsky's major works were translated and formed the basis of modern educational psychology in the United States.
Pupils and followers: L.I. Bozovic, P. Ya. Galperin, L.V. Zankov, A.V. Zaporozhets, P.I. Zinchenko, R.E. Levin, A.N. Leontiev, A.R. Luria, N.G. Morozova, L.S. Slavin, D.B. Elkonin. A number of foreign researchers and practitioners (J. Bruner, J. Walsiner, J. Wertsch, M. Cole, B. Rogoff, R. Hare, J. Shotter) consider Vygotsky as their teacher.
Soch.: Educational psychology // Worker of education. M., 1926; Pedology of a teenager. M., 1930; Thinking and speaking. M.; L., 1934; Mental development of children in the learning process: a collection of articles. M., 1935; Development of higher mental functions. M., 1960; Psychology of art. M., 1965; Structural Psychology. M., 1972; Collected works: in 6 volumes / ch. ed. A.V. Zaporozhets. M., 1982–84; Defectology problems. M., 1995.
“Works of Vygotsky LS: on the 120th anniversary of his birth”.
Questions of theory and history of psychology.
The first volume includes a number of works by the outstanding Soviet psychologist L. S. Vygotsky, devoted to the methodological foundations of scientific psychology and analyzing the history of the development of psychological thought in our country and abroad. This includes the first published work The Historical Meaning of the Psychological Crisis, which is a kind of synthesis of Vygotsky's ideas concerning the special methodology of Psychological Cognition.
Collected Works in 6 volumes. Volume 2. Problems of General Psychology
In the second volume of the Collected Works of L.S. Vygotsky included works containing the author's basic psychological ideas. This includes the well-known monograph "Thinking and Speech", which represents the result of Vygotsky's work. The volume also includes lectures on psychology.
This volume directly continues and develops the range of ideas presented in the first volume of the Collected Works.
Collected Works in 6 volumes. Volume 3. Problems of mental development
The third volume includes the main theoretical research of L.S. Vygotsky on the problems of the development of higher mental functions. The volume was composed of both previously published and new materials. The author considers the development of higher psychological functions (attention, memory, thinking, speech, arithmetic operations, higher forms of volitional behavior; personality and worldview of a child) as a transition of "natural" functions into "cultural" ones, which occurs during communication between a child and an adult on the basis of mediation these functions by speech and other sign structures.
Collected Works in 6 volumes. Volume 4. Child psychology
In addition to the well-known monograph "Pedology of a Adolescent" from the previous publication, the volume includes chapters published for the first time from the works "Age Problems", "Infant Age", as well as a number of special articles.
Collected Works in 6 volumes. Volume 4. Part 2. The problem of age
The volume is devoted to the main problems of child psychology: general issues of the periodization of childhood, the transition from one age period to another, the characteristic features of development in certain periods of childhood, etc.
In addition to the well-known monograph "Pedology of a Adolescent" from the previous publication, the volume includes chapters published for the first time from the works "Age Problems", "Infancy".
Collected Works in 6 volumes. Volume 6. Scientific legacy
This volume includes previously unpublished works: "The doctrine of emotions (the teachings of Descartes and Spinoza about passions)", which is a theoretical and historical study of a number of philosophical, psychological and physiological concepts about the laws and neuromechanisms of human emotional life; "Tool and Sign in Child Development", covering the problems of the formation of practical intelligence, the role of speech in tool actions, the function of sign operations in the organization of mental processes.
A detailed bibliography of L. S. Vygotsky's works is presented, as well as literature about him.
Imagination and creativity in childhood
The psychological and pedagogical foundations of the development of children's creative imagination are considered. First published in 1930 and republished by Enlightenment in 1967, this work has not lost its relevance and practical value.
The book is supplied with a special afterword, which assesses the works of L. S. Vygotsky V. the field of children's creativity.
Thinking and speaking
The classic work of Lev Semenovich Vygotsky occupies a special place in the series on psycholinguistics. This is the work that actually founded the psycholinguistic science itself, although even its name was not yet known. This edition of Thinking and Speech offers the most authentic version of the text, untouched by later editorial revisions.
The main currents of modern psychology
The authors of the collection present and develop their views on the psychology of the victorious clan of anti-mechanists in Soviet philosophy and openly support the positions of the group of A.M. Deborin, who monopolized philosophy in the country for almost the entire 1930.
However, already at the end of 1930, Deborin and his group were criticized for "Menshevik idealism" and were removed from the leadership of philosophy in the country. As a result of this criticism and a two-front campaign against mechanism (left-wing inflection) and “Menshevik idealism” (right-wing inflection), this publication has become inaccessible and rare.
Fundamentals of defectology
The book includes published in the 20-30s. works on theoretical and practical issues of defectology: the monograph "General Issues of Defectology", a number of articles, reports and speeches. Children with visual impairments, hearing impairments, etc. can and should be brought up so that they feel like full and active members of society, - this is the leading idea of \u200b\u200bthe works of L. S. Vygotsky.
Pedagogical psychology
The book contains the main scientific provisions of the largest Russian psychologist Lev Semenovich Vygotsky (1896-1934), concerning the connection between psychology and pedagogy, education of attention, thinking and emotions in children.
It examines the psychological and pedagogical problems of labor and aesthetic education of schoolchildren, taking into account their giftedness and individual characteristics in the process of education and upbringing. Particular attention is paid to the study of the personality of schoolchildren and the role of psychological knowledge in teaching.
The problem of the cultural development of the child
In the process of his development, the child assimilates not only the content of cultural experience, but the techniques and forms of cultural behavior, cultural ways of thinking. Thus, in the development of the child's behavior, two main lines should be distinguished. One is the line of natural development of behavior, which is closely related to the processes of general organic growth and maturation of the child. The other is the line of cultural improvement of psychological functions, the development of new ways of thinking, the mastery of cultural means of behavior.
For example, an older child may memorize better and more than a younger child for two completely different reasons. The processes of memorization have undergone a certain development during this period, they have risen to a higher level, but along which of the two lines this development of memory proceeded - this can only be revealed with the help of psychological analysis.
Psychology
The book contains all the main works of the outstanding Russian scientist, one of the most authoritative and well-known psychologists, Lev Semenovich Vygotsky.
The structure of the book is made taking into account the program requirements for the courses "General Psychology" and "Developmental Psychology" of psychological faculties of universities. For students, teachers and anyone interested in psychology.
Psychology of art
The book of the outstanding Soviet scientist L. S. Vygotsky "The Psychology of Art" was published in the first edition in 1965, the second - in 1968 and won universal recognition. In it, the author summarizes his works of 1915-1922 and at the same time prepares those new psychological ideas that constituted Vygotsky's main contribution to science. "Psychology of Art" is one of the fundamental works characterizing the development of Soviet theory and art
Psychologist, professor (1928). Graduated from the Faculty of Law of Moscow University (1917) and at the same time the Faculty of History and Philology of the People's University of A. L. Shanyavsky. In 1918-1924. worked in Gomel. Since 1924 in psychological scientific and educational institutions of Moscow (Institute of Psychology of Moscow State University, Academy of Communist Education named after N.K.Krupskaya, Pedagogical Faculty of the 2nd Moscow State University, Experimental Defectological Institute, etc.); he also worked at the Leningrad State Pedagogical Institute and the Ukrainian Psychoneurological Institute in Kharkov.
He began his scientific career with the study of the psychology of art - he explored the psychological patterns of perception of literary works (The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, 1916; The Psychology of Art, 1925, published in 1965). He studied the theory of reflexological and psychological research (articles 1925-1926), as well as the problems of the psychology of education ("Pedagogical psychology. Short course", 1926). He gave a deep critical analysis of world psychology in the 1920s and 1930s, which played an important role in the development of Soviet psychological science (The Historical Meaning of a Psychological Crisis, 1927, published 1982; see also Vygotsky's prefaces to the Russian translation of V. Kohler, K. Koffka, K. Buhler, J. Piaget, E. Thorndike, A. Gesell, and others).
He created a cultural-historical theory of the development of human behavior and psyche, in which, relying on the Marxist understanding of the socio-historical nature of human activity and consciousness, he considered the process of ontogenetic development of the psyche. According to this theory, the sources and determinants of human mental development lie in a historically developed culture. "Culture is a product of social life and social activity of a person, and therefore the very formulation of the problem of cultural development of behavior already introduces us directly into the social plan of development" (Collected Works, vol. 3, Moscow, 1983, pp. 145-146). The main provisions of this theory: 1) the basis of human mental development is a qualitative change in the social situation of his life; 2) training and upbringing serve as universal moments of human mental development; 3) the original form of life activity - its expanded implementation by a person in the external (social) plan; 4) psychological neoplasms that have arisen in a person are derived from the interiorization of the original form of his life; 5) a significant role in the process of interiorization belongs to various sign systems; 6) his intellect and emotions, which are in inner unity, are of great importance in the life and consciousness of a person.
In relation to the mental development of a person, Vygotsky formulated a general genetic law: "Every function in the cultural development of a child appears on the scene twice, in two planes, first socially, then psychological, first between people, as an interpsychic category, then inside a child, as an intrapsychic category. ... The transition from outside to inside transforms the process itself, changes its structure and functions. Behind all higher functions, their relationships are genetically social relations, real relationships between people "(ibid., P. 145).
Thus, according to Vygotsky, the determinants of mental development are not within the child's organism and personality, but outside it - in the situation of the child's social interaction with other people (primarily with adults). In the course of communication and joint activity, not only are samples of social behavior learned, but also the basic psychological structures are formed, which subsequently determine the entire course of mental processes. When such structures are formed, we can talk about the presence in a person of the corresponding conscious and voluntary mental functions, consciousness itself.
The content of a person's consciousness that arises in the process of interiorization of his social (external) activity always has a symbolic form. To realize something means to attribute a meaning to an object, to designate it with a sign (for example, a word). Thanks to consciousness, the world appears before a person in a symbolic form, which Vygotsky called a kind of "psychological tool". "A sign that is outside the body, like a tool, is separated from the personality and serves, in essence, as a social organ or social means" (ibid., P. 146). In addition, a sign is a means of communication between people: "Any sign, if we take its real origin, is a means of communication, and we could say more broadly - a means of communication of known mental functions of a social nature. Transferred to itself, it is the same means of connection functions in itself "(ibid., vol. 1, p. 116).
Vygotsky's views were of great importance for the psychology and pedagogy of education and training. Vygotsky substantiated the ideas of the activity of the educational process, in which the student is active, the teacher is active, the social environment is active. At the same time, Vygotsky constantly emphasized the dynamic social environment that connects the teacher and the student. "Education should be based on the student's personal activity, and the entire art of the educator should be reduced only to directing and regulating this activity ... The teacher is, from a psychological point of view, the organizer of the educational environment, the regulator and controller of its interaction with the pupil. .. The social environment is the true lever of the educational process, and the whole role of the teacher is reduced to managing this lever "(Pedagogical Psychology. A short course, Moscow, 1926, pp. 57-58). The main psychological goal of upbringing and education is the purposeful and deliberate development of new forms of their behavior and activities in children, i.e. the planned organization of their development (see ibid., pp. 9, 55, 57). Vygotsky developed the concept of the zone of proximal development. In Vygotsky's view, “properly organized child education leads to child's mental development, brings to life a whole series of developmental processes that would otherwise become impossible outside of learning. Learning is ... an internally necessary and universal moment in the child’s development process that is not natural , but the historical characteristics of man "(Selected psychological studies, M., 1956, p. 450).
Analyzing the stages of mental development, Vygotsky formulated the problem of age in psychology, proposed a variant of the periodization of the child's development based on the alternation of "stable" and "critical" ages, taking into account the mental neoplasms characteristic of each age. He studied the stages of development of children's thinking - from syncretic through complex, through thinking with pseudo-concepts to the formation of true concepts. Vygotsky highly appreciated the role of play in the mental development of children and especially in the development of their creative imagination. In a polemic with J. Piaget about the nature and function of speech, methodologically, theoretically and experimentally, he showed that speech is social both in origin and in function.
Vygotsky made a major contribution to many branches of psychological science. He created a new direction in defectology, showing the possibility of compensating for mental and sensory defect not by training elementary, directly affected functions, but by developing higher mental functions ("The main problems of modern defectology", 1929). He developed a new doctrine on the localization of mental functions in the cerebral cortex, which laid the foundation for modern neuropsychology ("Psychology and the doctrine of the localization of mental functions", 1934). He studied the problems of the connection between affect and intellect ("The Teaching about Emotions", 1934, partially published in 1968, completely in 1984), problems of the historical development of behavior and consciousness ("Studies on the History of Behavior", 1930, jointly with A.R. Luria).
Some of Vygotsky's studies, psychological in nature, were carried out using pedological terminology in the spirit of the times (for example, "Pedology of a Adolescent", 1929-1931). This led to the mid-30s. sharp criticism of Vygotsky's ideas, dictated mainly by non-scientific reasons, since there were no real grounds for such criticism. For many years, Vygotsky's theory was excluded from the arsenal of Soviet psychological thought. Since the mid-50s. assessment of Vygotsky's scientific work is freed from opportunistic bias.
Vygotsky created a large scientific school. Among his students L. I. Bozhovich, P. Ya. Galperin, A. V. Zaporozhets, A. N. Leontiev, A. R. Luria, D. B. Elkonin and others. Vygotsky's theory causes a wide resonance in the world of psychological science, including in the works of J. Bruner, Koffka, Piaget, S. Toulmin and others.
Literature: Scientific creativity of LS Vygotsky and modern psychology, M., 1981; Bubbles AA, Cultural-historical theory of LS Vygotsky and modern psychology, M., 1986; Davydov V. V., Zinchenko V. P., Contribution of L. S. Vygotsky to the development of psychological science, Soviet Pedagogy, 1986, no. 11; Yaroshevsky MG, LS Vygotsky: search for principles of construction of general psychology, Questions of psychology, 1986, no. 6; Leont'ev A.A., L. S. Vygotsky. Book for students, M., 1990; Wertsch J. V., Vygotsky and the social Formation of mind, Camb. (Mass.) - L., 1985; Culture, communication and cognition: Vygotskian perspectives, ed. by J. V. Wertsch, Camb. -, 1985.
Everybody knows Freud, Jurga - the majority, Carnegie and Maslow - many. Vygotsky Lev Semenovich is a name rather for professionals. The rest have only heard the surname and, at best, can associate it with defectology. And that's all. But it was one of the brightest stars of Russian psychology. It was Vygotsky who created a unique trend that has nothing to do with the interpretation of the formation of the human personality by any of the gurus of science. In the 30s in the world of psychology and psychiatry, everyone knew this name - Vygotsky Lev Semenovich. The work of this man made a splash.
Scientist, psychologist, teacher, philosopher
Time does not stand still. New discoveries are being made, science is moving forward, in some way restoring, in some way rediscovering what was lost. And if you arrange a street poll, it is unlikely that many respondents will be able to answer who Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky is. Photos - old, black and white, blurry - will show us a young handsome man with a thoroughbred elongated face. However, Vygotsky never became old. Perhaps fortunately. His life flashed like a bright comet on the dome of national science, flashed and went out. The name was consigned to oblivion, the theory was declared erroneous and harmful. And yet, even if we discard the originality and subtlety of Vygotsky's general theory, the fact that his contribution to defectology, especially in children, is invaluable, cannot be doubted. He created a theory of working with children suffering from damage to the organs of perception and mental disabilities.
Childhood
November 5, 1986. It was on this day that Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky was born in Orsha, Mogilev province. The biography of this man did not contain bright and surprising events. Wealthy Jews: father is a merchant and banker, mother is a teacher. The family moved to Gomel, and there a private teacher, Solomon Markovich Ashpiz, was engaged in teaching children, a figure in those parts is quite remarkable. He did not practice traditional teaching methods, but Socratic dialogues that were almost never used in educational institutions. Perhaps it was this experience that determined Vygotsky's own unusual approach to teaching. His cousin, David Isaakovich Vygodsky, a translator and well-known literary critic, also influenced the formation of the worldview of the future scientist.
Student years
Vygotsky knew several languages: Hebrew, Ancient Greek, Latin, English and Esperanto. He studied at Moscow University, first at the medical faculty, then transferred to the law department. For some time, he studied science in parallel at two faculties - law and history and philosophy, at the University. Shanyavsky. Later, Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky decided that he was not interested in jurisprudence and concentrated entirely on his passion for history and philosophy. In 1916, he wrote a two-hundred-page work devoted to the analysis of Shakespeare's drama Hamlet. Later he used this work as his thesis. This work was highly appreciated by specialists, since Vygotsky applied a new, unexpected method of analysis, which allows looking at a literary work from a different angle. Lev Semenovich at that time was only 19 years old.
When he was a student, Vygotsky did a lot of literary analysis, he published works on the works of Lermontov and Bely.
The first steps into science
After the revolution, after graduating from the university, Vygotsky first left for Samara, then with his family he looked for work in Kiev and, in the end, returned to his native Gomel, where he lived until 1924. Not a psychotherapist, not a psychologist, but a teacher - this is precisely the profession that Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky chose. A brief biography of those years can fit into several lines. He worked as a teacher in schools, technical schools, courses. He was first in charge of the theatrical education department, and then the art department, wrote and published (critical articles, reviews). For a while, Vygotsky even worked as an editor for a local publication.
In 1923 he was the leader of a group of students at the Moscow Pedological Institute. The experimental work of this group provided material for study and analysis, which Lev Semenovich Vygotsky could use in his works. His activity as a serious scientist began in those years. At the All-Russian Congress of Psychoneurologists in Petrograd, Vygotsky made a report based on the data obtained as a result of these experimental studies. The work of the young scientist made a splash, for the first time the words about the emergence of a new direction in psychology were heard.
Carier start
It was from this speech that the career of the young scientist began. Vygotsky was invited to the Moscow Institute of Experimental Psychology. Outstanding psychologists of that time - Leontyev and Luria - were already working there. Vygotsky not only organically fit into this research team, but also became an ideological leader and initiator of research.
Soon practically every practicing psychotherapist and defectologist knew who Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky was. The main works of this outstanding scientist will be written later, at the same time he was a genius practitioner for everyone, personally involved in pedagogical and therapeutic activities. Parents of sick children made incredible efforts to get an appointment with Vygotsky. And if it was possible to become a "test specimen" in the laboratory of abnormal childhood - it was considered incredible luck.
How did the teacher become a psychologist?
What is so unusual about the theory that Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky proposed to the world? Psychology, after all, was not his core subject, he was rather a linguist, literary critic, cultural expert, and a practicing teacher. Why exactly psychology? Where from?
The answer lies in the theory itself. Vygotsky was the first who tried to move away from reflexology, he was interested in the conscious formation of the personality. Figuratively speaking, if a person is a house, then before Vygotsky, psychologists and psychiatrists were interested exclusively in the foundation. Of course it is necessary. Without this, there will be no home. The foundation largely determines the building - shape, height, and some design features. It can be improved, improved, strengthened and isolated. But this does not change the fact. The foundation is just the foundation. But what will be built on it is the result of the interaction of many factors.
Culture defines the psyche
If we continue the analogy, it was these factors that determine the final appearance of the house that Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky was interested in. The main works of the researcher: "Psychology of Art", "Thinking and Speech", "Psychology of Child Development", "Educational Psychology". The scientist's circle of interests clearly shaped his approach to psychological research. A person who is keen on art and linguistics, a gifted teacher who loves and understands children is Lev Nikolayevich Vygotsky. He clearly saw that one cannot separate the psyche and the products it produces. Art and language are products of human consciousness. But they also determine the forming consciousness. Children do not grow up in a vacuum, but in the context of a certain culture, in a linguistic environment that has a great impact on the psyche.
Educator and psychologist
Vygotsky understood children well. He was a wonderful teacher and sensitive loving father. His daughters said that they had a warm, trusting relationship not so much with their mother, a strict and restrained woman, as with their father. And they noted that the main feature of Vygotsky's attitude towards children was a feeling of deep, sincere respect. The family lived in a small apartment, and Lev Semenovich did not have a separate place to work. But he never cursed the children, did not forbid them to play or invite friends over. After all, this was a violation of the accepted equality in the family. If guests come to visit their parents, the children also have the same right to invite friends. Asking not to make noise for some time as an equal is the maximum that Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky allowed himself. Quotes from the memoirs of the scientist's daughter, Gita Lvovna, will allow you to look “behind the scenes” of the life of an outstanding Russian psychologist.
Vygotsky's daughter about her father
The scientist's daughter says that there was not much time devoted to her. But her father took her with him to work, to the institute, and there the girl could freely examine any exhibits and preparations, and her father's colleagues always explained to her what, why and why it was needed. So, for example, she saw a unique exhibit - Lenin's brain, kept in a bank.
Her father did not read children's poems to her - he simply did not like them, he considered it tasteless primitive. But Vygotsky had an excellent memory, and he could recite many classical works by heart. As a result, the girl developed well in art and literature, not at all feeling her age discrepancy.
People around Vygotsky
The daughter also notes that Vygotsky Lev Semyonovich was extremely attentive to people. When he listened to the interlocutor, he concentrated on the conversation completely. During the dialogue with the student, it was impossible to immediately make out who is the student and who is the teacher. The same moment is noted by other people who knew the scientist: janitors, servants, cleaners. They all said that Vygotsky beat him with an extremely sincere and benevolent person. Moreover, this quality was not demonstrative, elaborate. No, it was just a character trait. Vygotsky was very easily embarrassed, he was extremely critical of himself, while treating people with tolerance and understanding.
Work with children
Perhaps, it was sincere kindness, the ability to deeply feel other people and treat with condescension to their shortcomings that led Vygotsky to defectology. He always argued that limited abilities in one thing are not a sentence for a child. A flexible child's psyche is actively looking for opportunities for successful socialization. Dumbness, deafness, blindness are just physical limitations. And the child's consciousness instinctively tries to overcome them. The main responsibility of doctors and educators is to help, nudge and support the child, as well as provide alternative opportunities for communication and information.
Vygotsky paid special attention to the problems of mentally retarded and deaf-blind children as the most problematic socialized, and achieved great success in organizing their education.
Psychology and culture
Vygotsky was keenly interested in the psychology of art. He believed that it was this industry that was capable of exerting a critical influence on the personality, releasing affective emotions that could not be realized in ordinary life. The scientist considered art to be the most important tool for socialization. Personal experiences form personal experience, but emotions caused by the impact of a work of art form external, public, social experience.
Vygotsky was also convinced that thinking and speech are interconnected. If developed thinking allows you to speak in a rich, complex language, then there is an inverse relationship. The development of speech will lead to a qualitative leap in intelligence.
He introduced a third element - culture - into the consciousness-behavior link familiar to psychologists.
Death of a scientist
Alas, Lev Semenovich was not a very healthy person. At the age of 19, he contracted tuberculosis. For many years the disease was dozing. Vygotsky, although he was not healthy, still coped with his illness. But the disease progressed slowly. Perhaps the situation was aggravated by the persecution of a scientist that unfolded in the 30s. Later, his family sadly joked that Lev Semenovich died on time. This saved him from arrest, interrogation and imprisonment, and his relatives from reprisals.
In May 1934, the scientist's condition became so difficult that he was prescribed bed rest, and after a month the body's resources were completely exhausted. On June 11, 1934, an outstanding scientist and talented teacher Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky died. 1896-1934 - only 38 years old. Over the years, he has done an incredible amount. His works were not immediately appreciated. But now many practices of working with abnormal children are based precisely on the methods developed by Vygotsky.
