The Developing Learner

This is Unit Three, part two, on the developing learner: Vygotsky beside Piaget, language, and the self and identity. Part one closed on a limit: formal thought is not reached by everyone. Part two turns to development that runs through other people. Carry one idea through this part: much of a child's development happens between people, in guided talk, in language and in how others see us. At the entry setting Piaget beside Vygotsky on one task, the part shows what each theory asks a teacher to do. By the end you will be able to place a child's reasoning in one of Piaget's stages. To contrast Piaget and Vygotsky on a single task. To put the language milestones in order. To name Erikson's crisis for a school-age child and for an adolescent. And to classify a student's identity status.

Five entries setting Vygotsky beside Piaget, ending with the payoff: one task, read through two theories.

Placing reasoning in a stage.

EDP 0231 Placing Reasoning in a Stage

To place a child's reasoning in one of Piaget's stages, look at what the reasoning depends on. Thinking tied to action and the senses is sensorimotor. Symbolic thought with centration and egocentrism is preoperational. Logic on concrete objects that falters on verbal abstractions is concrete operational. Reasoning about hypotheses, one variable at a time, is formal operational. A child who says the flattened clay has more because it is longer, and insists after a second look, is preoperational. Placing by age alone ignores how much ages vary, and a correct answer reached by rote is not an operation, so ask the child why.

The gap that guidance can close.

EDP 0232 The Zone of Proximal Development

Vygotsky's zone of proximal development is the gap between what a learner can do alone and what they can do with guidance or with more capable peers, as when a student stuck on long division finishes it once a classmate asks the right questions. Teaching aims inside the zone, at tasks reachable only with help.

Who stretches the learner.

EDP 0233 The More Knowledgeable Other

In Vygotsky's sociocultural theory, a more knowledgeable other, a teacher, parent or peer, stretches the learner, and culture's language and concepts shape the highest thinking. In a mixed group, a peer who grasps fractions coaches one who does not. The more knowledgeable other withdraws support gradually, as the learner takes over.

Children talking to themselves.

EDP 0234 Private Speech

Private speech is children talking aloud to themselves, as a child building with blocks murmurs, big one first, then the small one. Piaget read it as egocentric speech; Vygotsky saw thinking aloud that becomes silent inner speech. For Vygotsky, private speech is a tool for solving problems, not a sign of immaturity.

The payoff: Piaget and Vygotsky on one task.

EDP 0235 Piaget and Vygotsky on One Task

Here the part's idea meets its test. Both theorists saw learners constructing knowledge, but they placed the work differently. For Piaget, development comes from the child's own activity: disequilibrium, then assimilation and accommodation, through stages in a fixed order, and a child cannot be taught logic the stage does not yet support. For Vygotsky, development runs through other people: what a child does with guidance today, inside the zone, becomes what the child does alone tomorrow. Take a six-year-old who fails the juice conservation task. A Piagetian teacher provides concrete experience, pouring back and forth, and waits for concrete operations. A Vygotskian teacher asks questions that direct attention to the width of the glass, and if the child then reasons correctly, the task lay inside the zone. The theories differ on the teacher's role, not on whether the teacher matters, and both have a place in the classroom.

Eight entries on language: where it comes from, its building blocks, its milestones, and where it lives in the brain.

Learned, or innate?

EDP 0236 Learned or Innate?

Skinner held that language is learned through reinforcement; Chomsky argued that children are biologically prepared, with a language acquisition device and a universal grammar. Children say goed and swimmed, forms they never heard adults use, and such generativity is hard for reinforcement alone to explain. Interactionist views add the role of social partners.

A sensitive period for language.

EDP 0237 A Sensitive Period for Language

Language appears to have a sensitive period: acquisition comes most readily early, and cases of severe isolation in childhood, most famously Genie, are cited as evidence. Deaf children benefit from access to sign language early, which is why early identification of deafness matters. The window is sensitive, not critical, as part one defined the terms.

The smallest units of sound and meaning.

EDP 0238 Phonemes and Morphemes

A phoneme is the smallest sound unit that changes meaning; a morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning, free as a word or bound like a suffix, so cats holds the free word cat and the bound plural s. Infants distinguish every language's sound contrasts, but by about ten months mainly their own.

Order, and use.

EDP 0239 Syntax and Pragmatics

Syntax is the set of rules for ordering words into sentences, so dog bites man and man bites dog share words but differ in meaning. Pragmatics is the social use of language, taking turns, staying on topic and matching tone, and it depends on context, so one sentence can be a joke here and an insult there.

First sounds and first words.

EDP 0240 First Sounds and Words

Babbling begins around seven months, gestures predict later language, and children understand words before they can say them, recognizing their own name by about six months; a baby waves bye-bye long before saying it. Children exposed to sign language babble with their hands, so babbling is language practice, not only sound play.

Putting the milestones in order.

EDP 0241 Ordering Language Milestones

Language milestones follow a broadly universal order. Babbling comes first, around seven months. Around the first birthday come holophrases, single words carrying a whole idea, like juice meaning I want juice. Then comes telegraphic speech, with the small grammatical words left out, like daddy go car. As vocabulary grows, children fast-map new words after one exposure, and as grammar emerges they overregularize, saying I goed. Overregularization looks like a step backward, but it shows the child has learned the rule and is applying it. The sequence, not the exact age, is the dependable part.

Words too narrow, and too broad.

EDP 0242 Under- and Overextension

Underextension uses a word too narrowly, and overextension uses it too broadly, both normal errors as children map words onto categories: dog for only the family dog is underextension, dog for every animal overextension. Both are reasonable guesses about where a word's boundaries lie, and they fade with experience.

Where language lives in the brain.

EDP 0243 Where Language Lives in the Brain

Broca's area supports producing language and Wernicke's area supports understanding it, both usually in the left hemisphere for right-handed people: speaking a sentence draws on Broca's area, understanding one on Wernicke's. The pattern is typical rather than universal. It fits part one's point that the left hemisphere leads language production.

Ten entries on the self: Erikson's crises, self-concept and self-esteem, identity statuses, and what peers teach.

Erikson's eight crises.

EDP 0244 Erikson's Eight Crises

Erikson described psychosocial development as eight crises across the lifespan, each resolved toward a strength or a difficulty: trust versus mistrust in infancy; autonomy versus shame; initiative versus guilt in early childhood; industry versus inferiority in the school years; identity versus role confusion in adolescence; then intimacy, generativity and integrity in adulthood. A fourth grader who compares every project with classmates' and says he is bad at everything is struggling with industry versus inferiority. Realistic goals, support and tolerance of imperfect work support industry.

The adolescent crisis.

EDP 0245 Identity Versus Role Confusion

Erikson saw adolescence as the crisis of identity versus role confusion, in which young people try on roles and values to build a coherent sense of self, as a teenager tries drama, then debate, then coding, testing who they might become. Trying on roles is normal identity work, not indecision to be corrected.

How we describe ourselves.

EDP 0246 Self-Concept

Self-concept is a person's description of themselves, moving from concrete, physical terms in childhood to values and beliefs in adolescence, and differentiating by context: a seven-year-old says I have red hair, a fifteen-year-old says I care about fairness. Differentiation peaks in middle school, when apparent contradictions in the self can trouble teenagers.

Seeing ourselves through others.

EDP 0247 The Looking-Glass Self

Cooley's looking-glass self holds that we come to see ourselves as we imagine others see us, as a student praised as a strong reader begins to think of herself as one. Mead distinguished the I, the acting self, from the me, which forms first through significant others and then through the generalized other, society's view.

How we feel about ourselves.

EDP 0248 Self-Esteem

Self-esteem is how a person feels about their self-concept. Supportive but firm parenting, recognition and achievable aspirations tend to raise it, while entering middle school, peer rejection, academic failure and moving house can lower it. Because it is a feeling about the self, not the description, the two can move apart.

Marcia's four statuses.

EDP 0249 Marcia's Identity Statuses

Marcia built on Erikson with two dimensions, exploration and commitment, giving four statuses. Neither explored nor committed is diffusion; committed without exploring is foreclosure; exploring without committing yet is moratorium; and committing after exploring is achievement, which for many people happens in the college years. Each status names a position found by asking about both dimensions.

Classifying a student's identity status.

EDP 0250 Classifying Identity Status

To classify a student's identity status, ask two questions in order. Has the student explored alternatives, genuinely considering options? Has the student committed to one? No exploration and no commitment is diffusion. Commitment without exploration is foreclosure, often adopted from parents' expectations or out of anxiety. Exploration without commitment yet is moratorium; exploration followed by commitment is achievement. A student sure he will be a dentist like his father, who sees no reason to consider anything else, is foreclosed. Certainty is not achievement, and statuses are domain-specific: a student can be foreclosed on religion and in moratorium on career.

Statuses are not a ladder.

EDP 0251 Statuses Are Not a Ladder

Identity statuses do not always follow in sequence, and a person who has committed can re-enter exploration, a pattern researchers call a searching moratorium, as a graduate committed to teaching begins to question the choice after a hard first year. The statuses describe a current position in one domain, not a rung reached for life.

How teachers can support identity.

EDP 0252 Supporting Identity

Teachers can support identity development by treating uncertainty as normal, offering diverse role models, discussing values and supporting the commitments students choose, as when a teacher invites adults from very different careers to talk with a class. Support means widening students' options, not steering them toward the teacher's own preferred commitments.

What peers teach.

EDP 0253 What Peers Teach

Peers teach children to start and keep up interactions, manage conflict and cooperate, as two children argue over a game's rules and settle on a compromise themselves. Acceptance feeds self-esteem, while rejection foreshadows later problems, and in adolescence friendship shifts toward intimacy and loyalty, with peers a key source of social comparison.

Look at what you can now do. You can place a child's reasoning in one of Piaget's stages by how the child reasons, not by the answer or the age. You can contrast Piaget and Vygotsky on one task: wait for the child's own construction, or guide inside the zone of proximal development. You can put the language milestones in order, from babbling to holophrases, telegraphic speech and overregularization. You can name Erikson's crises for the school years, industry versus inferiority, and for adolescence, identity versus role confusion. And you can classify an identity status by asking whether a student has explored and whether the student has committed. Part three turns to peers, play and moral development.