Piaget the Socialist, and Vygotsky the Individualist

[kellogg]

This section is mostly about whether children think more "egocentrically" than adults. Do they? Does the child really have an "ego"?

 피아제는 “성인은 혼자 있을 때에도 사회적으로 생각하고 7세 미만의 어린이는 공동체에 있을 때에도 자기중심적 방식으로 생각하고 말한다고 진술할 수 있다.” 고 확언했다.

Right! Ha-ha Smile chooses JUST the right quotation to prove what PIAGET thinks. But even if we assume that what Piaget says is true, there are different possible EXPLANATIONS:

a)   Maybe kids really are NOT INTERESTED in other people.

b)   Maybe kids are NOT AWARE of other people.

c)   Maybe kids do not DIFFERENTIATE between being alone and being with other people.

d)   Etc.

Is Piaget right? If so, which explanation seems correct to you?

 그러나 비고츠키는 6세 또는 7세까지의 어린이가 어른보다 더욱 자기중심으로 행동한다는 주장을 지지하지 않는다. 자기중심적 말의 지적 기능은 어린이 생각의 자기중심성의 직접적 반영이 아니며, 어린이의 현실적 생각의 수단이 될 수 있다고 여겼다.

 Yes, perfect! Vygotsky has “cut the link” between “egocentric speech” and “egocentric thinking”. So…should we really call it “egocentric speech”?

2. Vygotsky calls the view that inner speech comes BEFORE EGOCENTRIC speech a "monstrosity". What is monstrous about it?

 피아제는 어린이 내적 말은 자기중심적인 외적 말이 수행하는 것과 유사한 내적 기능을 수행하는 말로 이해될 수 있으며 이는 즉, 외적 말 또는 사회화된 말에 선행한다는 생각으로 보인다.

 비고츠키의 입장에서는 이러한 생각이 괴기스러워 보인다.

이러한 주장은 말이 태어날 때부터 정신에 미리 형성되어 존재한다고 주장하는 것과 같기 때문이다.

Yes. This is, of course, Chomsky’s position: language exists in the mind as soon as the child is born, and it does not really develop; it simply unfolds.

When Piaget met Chomsky, however, Piaget took the position that mental structures, including language, can be BUILT by the child. There is no need to assume that they are innate.

For example, children are not born with the idea of space. They CONSTRUCT the idea of space. They BUILD it. They do this by realizing that the universe is not made up of different spaces (e.g. “things I can touch”, “things I can put in my mouth”, “things I can see”, “things I can hear”) but that there is only ONE space.

This is a REVOLUTION the size of Copernicus’ revelation. Copernicus found that the sun, not the inhabited earth, was the centre of the solar system. The child discovers that his or her own body is not the source of space. Instead, space is a kind of container, and the child’s body is an object in this space.

Now, Piaget became famous for proving that very young children do not understand the permanence of objects. That is, they do not understand that objects go on existing even when you don’t look at them.

For example, if a toy car goes behind a screen, so that the child cannot see it, the child will not try to look at the other end of the screen and wait for the car to re-emerge. Instead, the child will simply keep staring at where the car disappeared.

Vygotsky takes this example and turns it into a method. Of course, thinking processes cannot actually be observed the way that speech processes can.

But Vygotsky says that if we observe the DIRECTION of development over a small, VISIBLE extent of change, we can EXTRAPOLATE that development over the invisible extend of change, like the child who sees an object disappear behind  a screen.

So if we see that social speech turns into egocentric speech, for example, we can extrapolate the unseen development. We can assume that egocentric speech then develops into inner speech and then verbal thinking.

Vygotsky argues that the way speech develops is not towards social speech, but rather away from it, towards egocentric speech. That suggests, to him, that inner speech lies further away, on an inner plane, and thinking lies further still.

In contrast, if we accept Piaget’s idea that what comes after egocentric speech is social speech, we must place inner speech BEFORE egocentric speech.

The child has inner speech BEFORE the child has egocentric speech. And then the child has social speech. It’s monstrous the way that a child with an old man’s mind, an old man’s face, is monstrous.

Of course, Piaget himself doesn’t think his way of thinking is monstrous. Piaget himself doesn’t think this way at all! For one thing, Piaget doesn’t talk about “inner speech” in children; instead he speaks of the logic of ACTION. For another, Piaget is interested in how one kind of THINKING is related to another kind of THINKING; he doesn’t look at how speech is related to speech.

But Vygotsky MAKES him talk this way using the method of “immanent critique”. Vygotsky follows the LOGIC of Piaget’s assumptions by asking what they would mean if there were “inner speech” in children, and what they would mean if speech were related to speech.

3. Why does Vygotsky think is really the other way around?

 피아제는 자기중심적 말은 실행적 지능을 위해 어떤 기능도 하지 못하며, 실제에 적용되지 않기 때문에 발달 경로에서 사라질 운명이라고 하였다.

Right. Piaget thinks that egocentric speech can fulfill no INTELLECTUAL function; it does not serve as an adaptation to reality. So it must disappear

또한, 피아제에 따르면 내적 말이 자기중심적 외적 말로, 그리고 사회화된 말로 전환된다고 볼 수 있다.

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Wait a minute, Ha-ha! Didn’t you just say that it disappears? If egocentric thinking disappears, how can it become “socialized”? Isn’t there a contradiction here?

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 반면, 비고츠키는 활동에 대한 의식적 파악은 이전에 펼쳐지니 않았던 과정에서의 어려움들과 동반되어야만 한다고 말하고 있고, 말은 이런 의식적 파악을 동반하고 의식적 파악의 증거가 된다고 하였다. 즉, 과제 내의 어려움을 직면했을 때 자기중심적 말을 내적 말로 대체하는 것처럼 보인다고 하였다. 피아제와는 반대로 자기 지시적 ‘자기중심적 말’ 은 시들어 사라지는 것이 아니라 안으로 소용돌이쳐 들어가고 내적 말로 변형된다고 보았다.

Yes. For Vygotsky, egocentric speech is an important step towards GRASPING CONSCIOUS AWARENESS of actions. Notice that this conscious awareness is individual and psychological. It belongs to the child.

Earlier, we saw that the “traditional story” of Vygotsky and Piaget is that Vygotsky is a SOCIALIST and believes that the child is a SOCIAL being, while Piaget is an INDIVIDUALIST and believes the child is a LONELY EXPLORER.

There was a good reason for this “traditional story”. Vygotsky is interested in TEACHING and LEARNING, while Piaget is interested in GROWTH and DEVELOPMENT. Vygotsky is interested in ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CHILDREN, while Piaget’s work is done with PRESCHOOLERS and TODDLERS (that is, three to seven year olds). Vygosky is trained as a LAWYER and a LITERARY CRITIC, while Piaget was a BIOLOGIST. All of these things made Vygotsky sensitive to the child’s SOCIAL environment, while Piaget was interested in the child as an INDIVIDUAL.

But there is also a good reason for saying this “traditional story” is wrong. Vygotsky sees the child as being SOCIAL from birth. For Piaget, the child has no real social life until the child is seven years old. But what this means is that for Vygotsky, the child’s development is towards INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENTIATION, towards INDIVIDUAL VOLITION, towards INDIVIDUAL FREE CHOICE, while for Piaget the child’s development is towards SOCIAL CONSTRAINT, SOCIAL COMPULSION, and SOCIAL CONFORMITY.

So the “traditional story” really only describes the starting point; it doesn’t describe the endpoint of development at all.