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Ideas & Research |
| Natalia Gajdamaschko |
Who
is more imaginative, children or adults? |
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| Lev Vygotsky
was an educational theorist and psychologist of
extraordinarily wide knowledge whose major writings
deal with entire learning-teaching-development
enterprise. But there is a gap in that list of
“Vygotskiana” topics in North America:
Vygotsky’s writings the imagination and
its development only recently became the topic
of the discussion. Despite wide-ranging interests
towards Vygotskia theory, the issue of imagination
remains outside of the main line of the general
inquiries. My presentation attempted to fill the
gap.
In particular, I tried to explore a popular view
that Vygotsky and Piaget have a lot in common.
This view underscores the differences between
Vygotskian and Piagetian ideas of the nature of
development in general and development of imagination
in particular. As a result this view reinforces
presupposition of an imaginative abilities and
realistic thinking as opposite and even antagonistic
characteristics of consciousness.
However, role of language and
unsconcious thought was the main point of Vygotsky’s
criticizm of Piaget. Vygotsky disagreed with interpreting
imaginative thinking as opposite to realistic
thinking (the point of agreement between Piaget
and Freud) and disagreed with Piagetian characteristics
as an undirected, childish, egocentric thought
that gradually is supposed to be replaced by adult
logical, realistic thought.
Vygotsky considered imagination to be an active,
conscious process of meaning-making, imagination
that forms a special unity with thinking and language
that helps the child to make sense about the world:
". In the process of their development ---
imagination and thinking are opposites whose unity
is inherent in the very first generalization,
in the very first concept the people form."
(Vygotsky, Vol.1, p.78).
In my presentation I discussed the theoretical
differences between Vygotsky and Piaget regarding
a nature of imagination and its relation to the
child development in general. I suggested that
these theoretical differences are not merely trivial
technicalities. These differences go directly
to the core of our philosophical beliefs about
education and do have implications not only for
the understanding of the nature of imagination,
but also for our pedagogical practices.
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I invited the audience to discuss
the following questions after my presentation:
1) Who is more imaginative, children or adults?
2) As I study child imagination, for example, I
have to decide for myself -- do I believe, as Piaget
and Freud did, in the unconscious, or semi-conscious,
autistic, spontaneous characteristics of imagination
that plays out childhood conflicts. Do I agree with
Piaget, for example, who considered imaginative
thinking as opposite to realistic thinking (here
he agrees with Freud) and with his characteristics
of an undirected, childish, egocentric thought that
gradually is supposed to be replaced by adult logical,
realistic thought.
"Autistic thought that
is subconscious, which means that the aims it pursues
and the problems it tries to solve are not present
in consciousness; it is not adopted to reality,
but creates for itself a dream world of imagination;
it tends, not to establish truth, but to satisfy
desires, and it remains strictly individual and
incommunicable as such by means of language. (Vol.1,
p. 43)
OR
do I consider imagination to be an active, conscious
process of meaning-making, imagination that forms
a special unity with thinking and speech that helps
the child to make sense about the world: "In
the process of their development --- imagination
and thinking are opposites whose unity is inherent
in the very first generalization, in the very first
concept the people form." (Vygotsky, Vol.1,
p.78).
3) Do I agree with the perspectives of Freud and
Piaget on that "an essential characteristic
of primal child fantasy is the fact that this is
nonverbal and consequently noncommunicable form
of thought." (Vygotsky, p.345, V.1).
OR
I agree with Vygotsky’s line of argument on
the nature of development of imagination: "development
of imagination, like development of other higher
mental functions, is linked to the development of
speech. The development of imagination is linked
to the development of speech, to the development
of child’s social interaction with those around
him, to the basic forms of the collective social
activity of the child’s consciousness. (Vygotsky,
V1. p.346.)
3) Do I agree that "the egocentric character
of thought is so closely linked to the child’s
psychological nature that it is manifested lawfully,
inevitably, and consistently irrespective of the
child’s experience" (Vol1.p.61)
OR ?
What do you, dear ALL, think about some ideas of
Piaget-Vygotsky controversy about the nature of
imagination and its development?
Cheers,
Natalia. |
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