“VINSON FISHES WITH VYGOTSKY”

Lev Vygotsky is known for two concepts: scaffolding and zone of proximal development. In construction, scaffolds allow workers to reach heights that they would not be able to otherwise. As they complete their construction, they require fewer and fewer supports. This is the same case with Vygotsky’s concept of instructional scaffolding. Teachers and more capable peers provide students with scaffolds that allow them to attain educational goals. Scaffolds can be words that a tutor uses to explain concepts that are unclear in a passage that the child is reading. Scaffolds can also be drawings that a tutor uses to show relationships between things that are being studied. A scaffold is anything that a teacher or more capable peer provides that enables the student to perform a skill or master a concept.

The zone of proximal development is that area of cognitive development in which students can learn with instructional scaffolding. In a pictorial sense, Vygotsky’s theory of the zone of proximal development can be shown as this continuum:

Most undergraduate teacher education students can correctly match this researcher’s name with his concepts in a couple of multiple choice questions. But I prefer to think of Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development as very closely related to a favorite fishing story of mine. Translating it into a story enables me to make sense of the theory and provides my undergraduate students with a metaphor that enables them to do more than simply identify the researcher with the two concepts for which he is known. In effect, the story serves my students as a scaffold.

My husband took me on a fishing trip to the city lake one day. This was a break from my graduate studies, and the upcoming test on Vygotsky was more on my mind than the possibility of a fish fry. In the little boat, I watched as my husband carefully selected, from a rainbow of fishing bait, an orange and yellow plastic worm with glittery specks all inside it. He then picked up a bottle of liquid fish smells and pumped the mist all over the bait. Curious, I asked the reason for all the fuss. “You want to catch a fish don’t you? Well, fish are picky and you have to put something on your hook that will catch their attention. They have to see something flashy and smell something good.” I thought about the similarities between fishing and teaching. Once teachers are teaching within their students’ zones of proximal development, then they must catch their attention to move students forward in their development.

Before this trip, fishing to me was a relentless series of casting and reeling. So I began by thrusting the bait into the water and reeling very quickly. “Hey, hey, hey, slow down,” my husband cautioned. “You want to catch a fish don’t you? Well, you have to cast it out and then let the weight take your bait down to where the fish are. Then you have to reel at just the right pace. If you reel too slowly, the fish aren’t attracted enough to go over to the bait. If you reel too quickly, they won’t even go for it. The best way is to reel and stop, reel and stop, reel and stop.” I thought about how effective teachers mimic this same pattern by instructing, modeling, and demonstrating, and then pausing to check for understanding and to provide time for independent practice before beginning instruction again.

“Now, I want you to cast it all the way out to that dead tree that fell over into the water,” he said. I ask him, “Why? I’ll just get all tangled up in the branches.” He reminded me, “You want to catch a fish don’t you? Well, that’s where the fish are. You can cast out into the middle of the lake all day long, but the fish are over there by that tree.” Relating this to children, we can complain all day long that our third-graders function more like second-graders and can continue to teach third-grade material. But if we want to teach them, we have to be in their zone of proximal development or else we are wasting our time. If our students are just now ready for Chapter 3 concepts and we are on Chapter 7, then we are there without them, just casting into an area where they are not going to be. Can we call it fishing if we are casting into an area where we know that there are no fish? Can we call it teaching when we are teaching far above the level of our students? Probably not.

After I finally got the process all worked out, I too was catching fish. It seemed that it took forever for us to catch the first fish, but after that first one, several others followed. I asked about this and was told that it just seems to always turn out that way. Although the fish probably don’t count being caught on a hook as successful, they do follow pattern with what the other fish do. As a matter of fact, people who fish, do the same. Once fish are being hauled one after the other onto a boat, other boats arrive to the same location. In teaching, we generally tend to discover why another teacher is effective. With children, some are more easily tutored by a slightly more capable peer than they are if the teacher were to attempt the same tutoring task. This tutor may be a child whose zone of proximal development is just ahead of the child that he or she is tutoring. Some of the best teachers in our classrooms are our students. The reason is similar to climbing a rocky cliff. The person who can help us the most is not the leader at the top of the cliff, but the person who is in arms’ reach and has just passed over a difficult spot.

Is there ever a time when we want to function below our zone of proximal development? Yes. Once we have mastered something, it is somewhat revealing and gratifying to go back and do that easy task again. For example, elementary students who have mastered long division would need an easy addition assignment here and there so that they can examine how far they have progressed. They need to be reminded that this was once a difficult task for them and that current or future tasks can also seem insurmountable at the onset. There are probably some adults who could enjoy playing in a sandbox or coloring in a coloring book. Is that within the average adult’s zone of proximal development? No. However, it is now easy and does not require a lot of cognitive effort, therefore, it could seem relaxing. On the other hand, overindulgence in the sandbox or coloring book would result in boredom for the adult.

With the right bait, the right reeling pace, and casting into the right area, my chances of catching a fish were increased. Similarly, in education we have to use the right bait (which is determined by our students being engaged in our activities); and, we must use the right technique and progress at the right pace (which is determined by our students’ success levels). Through the use of electronic fish-finders we can know where the fish are at various times of the day or the season. Through various informal and formal testing we can know the cognitive levels of our students. What we choose to do when we find their zones of proximal development and how (or whether or not) we scaffold their instruction, is the difference between effective and ineffective education.

Bibliography

Good, T.L., and Brophy, J.E. (1991). Looking in classrooms, (5th ed.), New York: