Lev Vygotsky's zone of proximal development suggests that development is a process rather than a product, as suggested by Piaget's stages(Riddle).This view is more compatible with the idea of life-long learning. However, Vygotsky's model suggests that knowledge and learning are outside the student, and that the teacher leads the student into a world beyond themselves. But Socratic method suggests that knowledge and understanding are innate, that the student must give birth to the ideas and the teacher is only the midwife.
(http://www.thomasaquinas.edu/curriculum/socratic.htm).
One of my most precious possessions as a teacher is a scruffy scrap of paper on which a student wrote, 'Thank you for seeing something in me that I couldn't see myself.' As a student, I learned French by reading it; my teacher taught me mainly by being excited by my capacity and lending me books. At university, a few lectures on interpreting art ignited a latent passion that I have pursued independently for the rest of my life.
Vygotsky's stress on the social aspects of cognitive development is important, but it suggests a hierarchy of knowledge. This can be a dangerous view. Particularly with creative writing, I can often see the potential of an idea before the student, and it's a struggle not to overdirect and impose my ideas. I believe learning is best when the teacher is learning from, surprised by, the student - when the learning process is as equal as possible.
It is a question of trying to blow on the coals and ignite the student's latent passion into flame.
(http://www.thomasaquinas.edu/curriculum/socratic.htm).
One of my most precious possessions as a teacher is a scruffy scrap of paper on which a student wrote, 'Thank you for seeing something in me that I couldn't see myself.' As a student, I learned French by reading it; my teacher taught me mainly by being excited by my capacity and lending me books. At university, a few lectures on interpreting art ignited a latent passion that I have pursued independently for the rest of my life.
Vygotsky's stress on the social aspects of cognitive development is important, but it suggests a hierarchy of knowledge. This can be a dangerous view. Particularly with creative writing, I can often see the potential of an idea before the student, and it's a struggle not to overdirect and impose my ideas. I believe learning is best when the teacher is learning from, surprised by, the student - when the learning process is as equal as possible.
It is a question of trying to blow on the coals and ignite the student's latent passion into flame.
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