WORLD OF LEARNING: MY REVIEW OF "TOOLS OF THE MIND"

TOOLS OF THE MIND: The Vygotskian Approach to Early Childhood Education, Second Edition. By Elena Bodrova and Deborah J. Leong. Pearson, 2007. 235 pages.

Elena Bodrova and Deborah Leong's well-organized and well-written book is an important reference for those interested in child psychology and development. As well, it is a useful primer for the theories of Lev Vygotsky and followers such as Luria, Leont'ev and Elkonin, presenting those theories in a manner far more accessible and practical than Vygotsky's dense and challenging prose.

I certainly came away an even firmer 'Vygotskian' than I had been before, with a deeper understanding and appreciation of his thinking.

And perhaps a firmer 'Piagetian,' too. Despite the concept of an essential dichotomy instilled during my matriculation through the credential program at SF State, the more encounters I have with Vygotsky and Piaget, the more I am convinced that there are more points of intersection than exclusion in the ways they approached children and learning.

The critical commonality is that learning is constructed in an actively participatory manner. While an argument can be made (and often is—Bodrova and Leong employ it), that Vygotsky is more about personal interaction and Piaget more about physical interaction, neither man would have advocated subtracting culture or object manipulation from any theory of learning.

It makes sense to view any difference as one of emphasis, rather than of fundamental understanding. Both Piaget and Vygotsky make a strong case for learning and teaching that is dynamic, hands-on, and geared to the individual's level of development. Piaget was more interested in universals, looking at the similarities in how all human beings develop. Vygotsky, on the other hand, was more concerned with specifics, examining the differences in environment that affect individual progress.

Piaget's stages—sensory motor to pre-operation to concrete operation to formal operation—are congruent with the developmental accomplishments and leading activities outlined by Bodrova and Leong. What's exciting about Vygotsky, an excitement conveyed by the authors that keeps their work from becoming a dry textbook, is the importance he found in language and play, and his belief that play enables the child to move to more sophisticated levels.

'Play,' he wrote, 'is the source of development and creates the zone of proximal development.'

Bodrova and Leong point out that Vygotsky meant something very specific by 'play.' It is activity that necessarily leads to symbolic representation and thus language, self-regulation, and 'enquiry motivation.' 'When a child squeezes, drops, and bangs a soft plastic cup on the table,' they tell us, 'this is object manipulation, not play. When the child uses the cup as a duck and makes it swim on the table and peck bread crumbs, the actions become play.'

The message that really got to me while reading 'Tools of the Mind,' is that I must worry less about teaching my students what to learn than how they can learn. What is the priority? Bodrova and Leong frame it beautifully: 'It is not enough for the child to create the same product as the teacher or the correct answer. The answer must be the result of the right mental process.'

That means being aware of what is developmentally appropriate, and using the zone of proximal development to help transition to 'higher mental functions.' It means listening to what children say and working hard to figure out what they mean, and listening to what I say and figuring out if children understand why I am saying it. It means making learning engaging and playful, and viewing mistakes that get at purpose and concepts as more valuable than right answers that have no context.

It's a shame when teachers and schools emphasize standards and benchmarks and de-emphasize imagination, creativity and reflective thought. Our culture and educational system too often reward going through the motions at the expense of honoring the motivation of their curious, active young students.

In one of their many wonderful, practical illustrations, Bodrova and Leong note that: 'If every morning before school, Jessica’s parents tell her, "Be sure you do what the teacher tells you to do. Don’t get into trouble," she is much less likely to develop enquiry motivation than if they tell her, "Be sure to learn something today."'