Development in Early Childhood and ECCE: Vygotsky’s Perspective

This article summarizes work of the Special Event "Development in Early Childhood and ECCE: Vygotsky’s Perspective" at the UNESCO I World Conference on Early Childhood Care and Education. It provides the information on reports and discussion, including debates on early learning and education standards (ELDS) in the context of cultural-historical approach.

This article summarizes wok of the Special Event "Development in Early Childhood and ECCE: Vygotsky’s Perspective" at the UNESCO I World Conference on Early Childhood Care and Education.

Basic theoretical and practical issues of ECCE within the contemporary education from the perspective of cultural-historical theory and practice of early childhood education, puts forward a range of issues for the EFA Goal 1 on ECCE. The basic provisions by L.S. Vygotsky and his collaborators are addressed with regard to contemporary issues in ECCE, such as main approaches to ECCE all over the world, quality of ECCE, etc. Today, there are, broadly speaking, two different approaches to understanding the prospects of ECCE development: First, the one oriented to the child development; and second, the one oriented to the needs of the authorities.

From Aleksandr G. Asmolov’s point of view, modern children may be called informational accelerates and the culture they live in – the “network” one. We must, first of all, respond to this challenge, admit that we live in a prefigurative culture (according to M. Mead) and in some aspects we learn even from the 4-5 years-old children. Secondly, we must grasp the essence of this new social situation of development and understand what new forms of adult-child collaborative activity will be like.

John Bennet figured out the significance of cultural-historical psychology for decision-making in the sphere of early childhood care and education. To approach the comparison of ECCE systems in different countries, as it is done at the conference, it is necessary to clearly understand cultural, social, historical determination of its development. Also cultural-historical paradigm implies careful and attentive attitude towards traditional upbringing practices that present in different cultures.

Vitaly V. Rubtsov and Elena G. Yudina described two opposite models of preschool education: the model that is oriented for preparation for school, i.e. literacy, numeracy and the other traditionally “school” skills, and the model that is oriented for support of development of psychological new formations, helpful for the prospective learning activity.

Education in the frames of the first models tends to weaken first-graders’ learning motivation – often they have to revise and review the material that they have learnt during school preparation. The second model, ideally, implies work in a child’s zone of proximal development, promoting his capacities in collaboration and communication. Knowledge is not the final goal in itself but culturally-appropriate means of reaching wider personal goals.

Elena O. Smirnova told about the unique experience of psychological and pedagogical assessment of toys based on cultural-historical approach to understanding of children’s play activity.

Discussion was devoted to the interrelations between cultural-historical paradigm of child development and the idea of implementation of early learning and development standards (ELDS). Are they actually consistent?

V.V. Rubtsov: It is important what we are going to assess. If we assess not formal knowledge but development, e.g. development of imagination or decision-making capacities, it does not contradict the ideas by Lev Vygotsky.

A.G. Asmolov: I foresee a range of certain risks here. The first risk is implementation of some indicators, not based on actual diagnostics. The second one is discrete assessment, randomly highlighting separate aspects of development without making up a holistic picture. Indicators are not a cure-all. After all, the world financial crisis broke out in the economic system using indicators-based management.  

J. Bennet: It is necessary to regard separately two different notions: “standards as indicators of the system of preschool care and education” and “standards as tools for assessing a child’s development”. System indicators describe, for example, accessibility of education, percentage of GDP invested into education, economical impact per a child etc.

Assessment of child development is a completely different sphere. Here the diagnostics must be as flexible as it can be. Testing children entering school is not acceptable from my point of view. I know some situations when immigrant children were tested on the language of the host country and then – expectedly showing poor results – were sent to special schools. Children’s development should be assessed by the teachers who routinely communicate to them in class.

Comment from the audience: Anyway, we should use indicators with great precautions. Even if we “just” range countries according to the amount of their investments into education, we must be aware, if we are comparing absolute figures or percentage of GDP. The results may turn out very different.