Interpsychological Exists!

Is there a joint, cooperative action taking place every time pupils do something in fours in a lesson, for instance, discuss the content of a text according to the task given by a teacher? Using clinical research of simple child-adult interactions, we explain how the following essential features of interpsychological action can be found in children’s activities: (1) a child’s initiative in solving the task (2) intersection of children’s initiatives upon the object of their activities (3) orientation of children’s individual actions both towards the object of their activities (in this case, the meaning of the text) and the partner (his/her understanding of the sought-for meaning) (4) unfinished, in-progress character of the ability to understand text in every child participating in the interaction (5) nonadditive character of the interaction outcome which exceeds the individual abilities of the participants (6) stability of the achieved outcome, its persistence in individual actions even outside the interaction (7) specially arranged activities of the adult participant of the interaction. At the project stage, the adult creates the focus in which the children’s initiatives can meet. In our case, it was a question to the text which implied reflective understanding that was only beginning to emerge in second-year pupils. At the stage of direct interaction, the adult (1) supports productive initiatives of the children, yet restraining from full participation in solving the task (2) protects the child community from unproductive conflicts arising due to violations of communicative norms.

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