Vygotsky Diary 3

Some general comments about the last couple of days and some links to Vygotsky and Piaget...

Friday – Drayton Manor

I’m not sure that sitting on a bench with a load of lunch bags whilst the class of children run around a theme park counts. I certainly don’t know how to compare what I’ve done today with what I know of Vygotsky and Piaget.

Go on. I suppose there is one thing I was thinking of. The children have gone round the park today in unsupervised groups of 2-6, checking back in with the teachers at hourly intervals. When I first proposed this system, my colleagues were horrified that I was suggesting letting the children go off unsupervised – but it has worked really well for the last four years. The children have not only to demonstrate independence and teamwork, but also the ability to tell the time… There is something Piagetian in this. The children are ready for this level of independence, whereas a couple of years ago they wouldn’t have been. There are some children who struggle, but they’re helped by their peers. There are also some children who, either by familiarity with the park (i.e. they have been there many times before) or by their own internal confidence, seem to demonstrate too much independence – they didn’t check back in when we were expecting them, but were still fine.

Monday – SRE (Sex and Relationships Education) Theatre.

Every year we have a marvellous theatre company coming in to help us with our SRE for Year 6. They’re called Loudmouth and what’s brilliant about them is that they use actors to teach all the tricky bits of SRE. They develop empathy for the opposite gender, so that boys see what girls have to go through and girls see what boys have to go through, and they encourage children to think about what emotions they are causing in others by their words and their actions. Also it means that in any further discussions in class I can refer to Daniel or Claire (the characters in the play) rather than either talking generically or inappropriately talking from personal experience.

In terms of ‘readiness’ the children are in exactly the right place to receive this – they’re all curious about the changes they are about to go through in puberty (or for some ‘are already going through’) and they will have heard much rubbish either from friends or from the media that has confused them.

It’s interesting watching the play as they use a lot of humour to teach the tricky bits and also to say some of the tricky words to do with SRE. I reckon humour increases the size of the ZPL. The children (and staff) were put at ease by the humour and learned loads more as a consequence. Ah, constructivism – you’re winning out today…