It is a dangerous thing to become a Jedi padawan. The training and trials are extremely difficult; one might say almost impossible. Qui-Gon Jin tells Anakin Skywalker, “Anakin, training to be a Jedi is not an easy challenge, and even if you succeed, it’s a hard life” (from Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace). As difficult as the training might be, there is even greater danger in not fully completing one’s Jedi training. You are liable to lose a limb. Both Anakin Skywalker and Luke Skywalker lose their right hands when they face Sith Lords before being fully trained.
Clearly I have Star Wars on the mind. We are watching all the movies with my son, and they have so much to teach about education. I have to be careful, because once someone gets me started on Star Wars, I can go on and on. Watching through the series of movies, I have been struck by the stages of development young Jedi go through. The very young receive training in the basic Jedi arts in the Jedi temple. Later, a master Jedi will take on an apprentice, called a padawan. Most of the younglings in the temple will not make it to this stage. After being apprenticed for a number of years, the padawan must undergo a series of trials in order to become a Jedi knight. And only after many years of service as a Jedi knight, might one become a Jedi master. The aspect of Jedi training that stands out to me is the role of the powerful Jedi master training the apprenticed padawan. Here we have the more knowing mind enabling the younger Jedi to grow and learn.
In previous articles, I have written about the nature of the mind (is knowledge innate or written on the empty tablets of our minds?) and the stages of development as laid out by Piaget. The Jedi sequence of development strikes me as being more similar to the way Aristotle and Plato understand the stages of development. What I am interested in developing in this article is a more nuanced understanding of development. Even though we can perceive major stages of development, much of the development that occurs for learners happens within the major stages. What I mean is that new knowledge and understanding happens in moments of learning that build over time into true mastery of a topic, subject or skill. The concept we will be dealing with today concerns the level of difficulty the learner must encounter on the pathway towards mastery. Too much difficulty and the learning halts due to frustration. Too little difficulty and the learning halts because there is no challenge to encourage growth. The concept of the right level of difficulty goes by the name “the zone of proximal development.”
Previous article in the series, Human Development:
Part 1: What Do You Have in Mind?
Part 2: All the World’s a Stage
Lev Vygotsky and the Zone of Proximal Development
So far as we have thought about learning, the child has been viewed as an independent learner retrospectively. What this means is that the stages of childhood development have been viewed from the standpoint of the finished article (a child arriving at adulthood) and that children are dependent upon the internal mechanisms that will enable them to learn. Lev Vygotsky turned this viewpoint on its head. Let’s examine the person and work of Vygotsky and then see how his work connects to the learning environments we are trying to create today.
Born the same year as Jean Piaget in 1896, the Russian Lev Vygotsky produced most of his work on psychology in Soviet-era Moscow particularly during the 1920s and 1930s. One of the hallmarks of Vygotsky’s work is a connection of psychology to social or cultural ideas. He also was a pioneer of integrative science that looked at emerging knowledge of the brain alongside studies on behavior and cognitive function. A prominent group of psychologists gathered around Vygotsky, known as the Vygotsky circle. The most well-known psychologist of the twentieth century, Alexander Luria, was influenced by Vygotsky and carried on his work well after Vygotsky’s death in 1934 at the age of 37.
The prodigious mind of Vygotsky worked on many different problems confronting psychology at the turn of the last century. Of special interest in this series on childhood cognitive development are three main areas he addressed. First, Vygotsky was deeply interested in the development of language. He recognized that children learn language as a means of connecting to society. He writes:
“The specifically human capacity for language enables children to provide for auxiliary tools in the solution of difficult tasks, to overcome impulsive action, to plan a solution to a problem prior to its execution, and to
Lev Vygotsky, Mind in Society (Harvard University Press, 1978), p. 28
master their own behavior. Signs and words serve children first and foremost as a means of social contact with other people.”
The language that they learn, which includes not only words but also facial expression and gestures, is a tool to access social connection with other members of the family and then eventually to wider circles of society.
Second, Vygotsky saw how the individual develops holistically within a socio-cultural environment. As noted with language above, child development occurs in connection with the people surrounding the child. Vygotsky’s insights are remarkable in that it placed childhood development within a larger context. One of the liabilities of the scientific method is that it tends to isolate phenomena and processes in order to examine the parts of a greater whole. When it comes to childhood cognitive development, observing a child in isolation can reveal many interesting facets of growth. However, Vygotsky recognized that something was missing when examining childhood cognitive development in isolation from the larger socio-cultural environment. He writes:
“Every function in the child’s cultural development appears twice: first on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first, between people (interpsychological), and then inside the child (intrapsychological).”
Mind in Society, pg. 57
One of the reasons why a child develops is to enhance his or her ability to relate within that socio-cultural environment.
Third, Vygotsky flipped the prevailing understanding of the relationship between development and learning. In the prevailing model of cognitive development, it was assumed that particular kinds of learning can only occur after reaching a certain level of development. What this means, in terms of the prevailing model, is that the brain matures to such an extent that it can now carry out new kinds of learning functions. We could think of the brain as reaching a new size and can now hold a greater volume of learning. Once you have a bigger glass, then you can pour water into it. These analogies break down somewhat, but hopefully this gives a simple picture of the prevailing model. Well, Vygotsky considered an alternative approach. In his own words:
“Our analysis alters the traditional view that at the moment a child assimilates the meaning of a word, or masters an operation such as addition or written language, her developmental processes are basically completed. In fact, they have only just begun at that moment. The major consequence of analyzing the educational process in this manner is to show that the initial mastery of, for example, the four arithmetic operations provides the basis for the subsequent development of a variety of highly complex internal processes in children’s thinking.”
Mind in Society, pg. 90
What if learning actually precedes cognitive development. What if pouring more water forces the brain to get a bigger glass, so to speak? This shifts our thinking of the child no longer as a person who has reached a particular level of development, but as a person with a level of potential development.
These three main ideas come together in what Vygotsky formulates as the zone of proximal development (ZPD). Like language, learning functions as a tool that the mind uses to gain access to a wider socio-cultural network. The mind of the child is interacting with the minds present in the socio-cultural environment such that learning is predicated on more knowledgeable others who provide learning to the child. This contextual picture of learning, then, precedes cognitive development as the mind builds itself based on the learning it acquires. What the zone of proximal development describes is the place of potential development where learning is occurring at the optimal level of challenge to encourage cognitive growth. Let’s take a deeper look at what this means.
The Educational Value of the Zone of Proximal Development
The brilliance of Vygotsky’s insight is that childhood cognitive development rarely occurs in a state of isolation. Children are most often in contact with other people who are more knowledgeable. This contributes to our understanding of the mechanism of cognitive development in new ways. It also points to insights we can glean in practical terms for our classrooms. Vygotsky spells out what the ZPD is:
“[The zone of proximal development] is the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers.”
Mind in Society, pg. 86
What this means is that a child has a certain level or capacity on their own. For instance, a student might be able to accomplish basic addition and subtraction problems independently. This independent level or capacity is the base of the zone. If you continue to provide training at this level, you will not provide enough challenge for the child to grow and develop cognitively. She would be operating below the zone of proximal development.
To take this a little further, that same child has a level of potential development that is just beyond her current capacity. Maybe she is on the verge of understanding multiplication problems. She cannot work these problems on her own. But she can work the problems with the assistance of a teacher or maybe an older sibling. What she cannot do on her own, but can do with assistance from a more knowledgeable other (MKO) places her in the zone of proximal development. At the higher end of this zone is knowledge that is too far beyond the current capacity of the child. Even with the assistance of an adult, the concepts of, say, trigonometry are too far beyond her capacity and have exceeded the zone of proximal development.
Vygotsky goes on to explore the utility of this theory (what he calls a method) for educators:
“By using this method we can take account of not only the cycles and maturation processes that have already been completed but also those processes that are currently in a state of formation, that are just beginning to mature and develop. Thus, the zone of proximal development permits us to delineate the child’s immediate future and his dynamic developmental state, allowing not only for what already has been achieved developmentally but also for what is in the course of maturing.”
Mind in Society, pg. 87
The immediate and distant future for children is independence. What they cannot do now, ultimately they will be able to do on their own. Between these two places stands the teacher who provides just enough assistance to take them from what they don’t know to what they need help knowing, and ultimately to what they then know on their own. And upon achieving a level of independence the next level comes on the horizon for which they require assistance leading to yet another level of independence.
Scaffolding and Retrieval Practice
The concept of scaffolding came many years after Vygotsky developed his theory. It depends upon the presence of the more knowledgeable other, usually a grown up. This adult knows what the child does not yet know. The organic relationship between the child as learner and the grown up as the more knowledgeable other is such that the child can’t help but learn through interaction. We see this through language acquisition. The mother talks with the child. Soon the child imitates the mother’s speech patterns and eventually communicates relatively well, even if there are mistakes. The mother provides scaffolding with little hints and corrections the enable the child to practice language at higher and higher levels of competence.
As teachers, this concept of scaffolding is simply a way to guide a student in learning what we already know. It is like leaving a breadcrumb trail for them to follow along the path of learning. One aspect of being a more knowledgeable other (I prefer this language to being a subject expert) is that the teacher not only knows the subject matter, but also areas of challenge and potential pitfalls a student can fall into. This is important to the concept of scaffolding. We want to provide for the student some amount of challenge in order for them to grow, but not so much that we frustrate the child. The essential characteristic of scaffolding is to be systematic in the building of a child’s experiences and knowledge.
Now we can picture the cascade of increasing complexity in all kinds of subjects: mathematics, science, literature, grammar, spelling, etc. There is a natural progression as a child grows older and older. This is one aspect of scaffolding evident at a macro level. But on the day-to-day basis, we can implement the concept of scaffolding to enable the student to do the primary work of learning. This is the fifth law in John Milton Gregory’s The Seven Laws of Teaching:
“Excite and direct the self-activities of the learner, and tell him nothing that he can learn himself.”
John Milton Gregory, The Seven Laws of Teaching (Veritas Press, 2004), pg. 100
How we go about exciting and directing the learner comes by way of resources, tasks, guidance, modeling, coaching or advice.
One key practice that has recently been associated with scaffolding is retrieval practice. The authors of Make It Stick talk about conventional approaches to learning that emphasize “massed practice” in an effort to “burn into memory” a concept or skill (pg. 47). Instead, spacing out practice and interleaving subjects provides enough time to elapse for the brain to start to forget the concept or skill. Then after a span of time, the mind is called upon to retrieve something from memory. This spaced and interleaved method more deeply engrains the new knowledge in memory.
“When you space out practice at a task and get a little rusty between sessions, or you interleave the practice of two or more subjects, retrieval is harder and feels less productive, but the effort produces longer lasting learning and enables more versatile application of it in later settings.
Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, and Mark A. McDaniel, Make it Stick (Harvard University Press, 2014), pg. 4
Notice that for the learner it feels harder or less productive than cramming one moment of massed practice. The learner would not choose this strategy, so it is incumbent on the more knowledgeable other to establish this strategy as the scaffold of learning. Recollect that optimal growth occurs through challenge at an appropriate level. And it is the nature of the challenge that counts. It is challenging to mass practice or cram information for a test. But research has shown how ineffective that kind of challenge is. A better form of challenge is spaced and interleaved practice, enabling the mind to create better neural pathways for learning.
The Zone of Proximal Development for Classical Classrooms
In our educational renewal movement, it is important to reclaim the lost tools of learning. As we train our students in the classical liberal arts, we do ourselves a disservice if we make the assumption that lecture-based learning is equally classical in nature. There is so much compelling evidence that lecture is of limited utility. Understanding the zone of proximal development actually helps us make the most of our tools of learning. Let’s look at a few ideas for the classical classroom.
First, learning should be organized around the “energy” of the student. What I mean by energy is that the student should be putting for considerable effort in the learning process. Picking on lecture one again, the energy of lecture-based learning is provided by the teacher as students sit passively listening. Instead, seeking methods to shift the energy away from the teacher and onto the students is essential to optimize learning. Here’s where narration can be so effective. The energy of attention must be provided by the student to listen, see and observe. Then the energy of assimilation of knowledge is borne by the student as he or she tells back. It is not that the teacher isn’t active in this environment. But the kind of energy the teacher provides is maintaining focus, providing feedback, keeping things moving, asking effective questions, etc.
Discussion is another high-energy activity conducive to optimal learning. Students verbally grapple with ideas and listen to differing perspective from other students. The role of the teacher here is to moderate the discussion to get everyone involved. Careful guidance is required to help move the discussion in productive directions. However, the best way to kill good discussion is for the teacher to be the answer man, resolving the debate too soon or giving a definitive perspective at the end. Allowing tension and conflict to remain even for days causes students to continue to chew on an idea over time. A great teacher technique is to come back to a point of discussion after time to see if new ideas have emerged.
Second, there are numerous techniques in Teach Like a Champion 2.0 (TLaC) that create an appropriate amount of challenge and provide ample support. For example, the technique called “Stretch It” (technique 13) builds extension of learning into a rather simple exercise. When a student get a right answer, the reward is to then receive harder questions. Another technique is “Without Apology” (technique 15). This helps build a culture of academic challenge where everyone embraces challenge, understanding the hard work that goes into scholarship.
Teachers can use lesson planning to create scaffolding for their students. TLaC technique 21, “Name the Steps” breaks down concepts into simple steps allowing students to follow a clear pathway toward mastery. In a subject like mathematics, we are used to steps in problems solving. But students can also learn steps for how to memorize foreign language vocabulary or steps to write a good sentence or steps to discuss events in history. There are lots of ways the plan the pacing or tempo of the class to maximize not just the amount of time you have, but also the feel of the time. Check out techniques 27-31 in TLaC.
Third, a significant aspect of growth occurs when students buy into their own development as something they contribute to. So many students think about education as something that happens to them. They become educated. However, when we truly understand what Vygotsky is saying about cognitive development, it is the mind of the child that craves deeper connections with the people and the world around them. Students gain the buy in when they are given greater awareness of their own learning process. Our role as teachers is ultimately for them to have independence. We help them along for a short time as the more knowledgeable other, providing sufficient challenge until they gain enough mastery to work independently. That goal for independence and autonomy actually feeds into further and further loops of challenge. They crave more knowledge and greater mastery, so they turn to you for more. Helping them to self-check the accuracy of their answers can be a powerful tool. “You tell me if that’s the right answer. How would you figure that out?” This is an approach I take frequently with my high school students. Along with this is the concept of self-advocacy. Are they able to seek help when needed from the more knowledgeable other, whether that’s a teacher, parent or peer?
So as you work with your young ones, your padawans, do not be afraid of providing appropriate levels of challenge. “Training to be a Jedi is not an easy challenge, and even if you succeed, it’s a hard life” is equally true of the Christian life. Training to follow Christ means taking up your cross daily. (Yes, I’m spiritualizing Star Wars!) I think of Paul’s admonition to Timothy to “train yourself for godliness” (1 Tim 4:7) and to “practice these things,” meaning reading and teaching the scriptures (1 Tim 4:15). Growth requires challenge, but it results in fruit. May we as teachers devote ourselves all the more to finding ways for our students to experience the growth God has designed for them.