Theories of Childhood, Second Edition (Carol Garhart Mooney) / quote 66 of 70
Vygotsky versus Piaget on stretching children
Curriculum planning is perhaps the area most affected by Vygotsky’s theory. Unlike Piaget, who thought children’s cognitive learning was more internal than interactive, Vygotsky believed that interaction had a huge impact on cognitive development. Until Vygotsky’s work became better known in the United States, educators here who understood Piaget’s theory hesitated to “push” children. Piaget believed that stages of cognitive development are tied to physical development. He thought that children at a particular stage of development are incapable of the reasoning that they will grow into at the next stage. This led teachers to plan curriculum that supported children at their current level of expected development without stretching their developmental limits. Vygotsky, on the other hand, showed that children’s cognitive development is affected not only by their physical development but also by their social surroundings and interactions. His idea of developmental readiness is more flexible than Piaget’s because it encompasses the skills or ideas that children have not yet come to on their own but which they can acquire from the example of peers or adults. This theory encourages teachers to plan curriculum that extends children’s knowledge and to scaffold their learning by putting them in situations where their competence is stretched.