Psychology in ordinary lives
Sardar M. Anwaruddin dwells on the many facets of a man
9 December 2011, 18:00 PM
Vygotsky at Work and Play
Lois Holzman
Routledge
In her book Vygotsky at Work and Play, Lois Holzman brings the theories and insights of Lev Vygotsky, a Russian psychologist, into the lives of ordinary people and their everyday activities. Vygotsky's influence is enormous in the fields of psychology and education, but he seems to be too difficult for ordinary readers. Holzman does an excellent job in bringing him from academia into the field. In this book, her main purpose is to tell her own "story of bringing Vygotsky from the scientific laboratory to ordinary people and their communities." Vygotsky at Work and Play can, therefore, be a great resource for teachers, psychologists, child development practitioners, and social workers.
Problem with scientific methodology: Holzman begins the book by referring to Vygotsky, who rejected dualistic divides in psychological conceptualization, and advocated a method of dialectics. Raising questions about contemporary scientific inquiry, he treated science as a cultural phenomenon open to scrutiny and radical transformation. He preferred to view science as a social-cultural-historical activity. Holzman informs us that "Vygotsky proposes a qualitatively different conception of methodnot a tool to be applied, but an activity (a 'search') that generates both tool and result at the same time and as continuous process." Holzman calls this tool-and-result methodology to capture the dialectics of Vygotsky's conception. This new conception is neither subjective nor objective, but definitely outside the dualistic box. This is a process of creating environments for development.
Vygotsky in therapy: Bothered by the cognitive-emotive divide, Holzman aims at creating a zone of emotional development. Referring to several studies she and her colleagues conducted, she concludes that "cognition… is a social and cultural achievement that occurs through a process of people collectively constructing environments in which to act on the world. It is located not in an individual's head, but in the person-environment interface." She discusses her techniques of social therapy which take a developmental approach, rather than a problem-solving one. In the social therapy, she organizes groupings of people collectively working together and creating the 'emotional zone' that is their new emotionality (their learning-leading-development). Bringing the psychological theories to everyday life, Holzman's social therapy treats the group not its individual membersas the therapeutic unit.
In the classroom: Holzman's thesis is "that education could be advanced if we consider the teacher as therapist." Departing from the cognitive-emotive divide, she argues that most schools relate to emotion as a problem. Like Vygotsky, she criticizes the separation of intellect and effect, and argues that "schools function with an acquisitional learning model rather than a developmental one." If schools are not developmental, what should we do? Her answer is to bring development into schools. In order to do so, she emphasizes the roles of play, but laments that "the official position on play is that it is irrelevant to school learning." Holzman hopes for the unity of affect and cognition that is possible when children are learning to perform and performing to learn. In this regard, teachers should work as therapist and focus on "the entirety of a person's makeup and not just his or her cognitive faculties."
Outside of school: Holzman argues that schools hardly provide students with environments in which they can be creative on their own terms. Reporting on some outside-of-school programs, she emphasizes the importance of theatrical performance and play. Holzman elaborates "the Vygotskian claim that learning and development are fundamentally social activities." She relates this to life outside of school by giving children and adolescents opportunities to do what they rarely can do in school. Performance, in this regard, can give expression to the unity of intellect and effect.
At the workplace: Holzman uses a quote: "Relationships are more important than things," and this seems to summarize her ideas. She explains how businesses prioritize collaborative learning strategies and the value of play more than schools do. Through her experience of working in professional development projects, she illustrates how participants engaged in creative imitation in what Vygotsky called the imaginative sphere. Holzman's main argument is that "to the extent that business and organizations are structurally and functionally designed to relate to social units… and not to individuals, they are potentially developmental environments."
Changing relationships: With some background information about the institute where she works and the kind of work it does, Holzman raises some questions about the inside academia versus outside academia debate. Responding to the critique that "only certain kinds of data produced under certain conditions count as legitimate," she returns to her argument about the methodological problems. Holzman follows Vygotsky who, following Marx, recognized that "the object of psychology's study was not the intra-psychic state of individuals as they are, but the social activity of producing their becoming." She concludes the book with an optimistic view that we can change the world by working and playing together. Holzman is very successful in making Vygotsky accessible to the ordinary readers. And the book, written in easy-to-understand language, can be a great resource for those concerned with human development.
Sardar M. Anwaruddin is a Ph.D student at the University of Toronto in Canada. E-mail: s.anwaruddin@mail.utoronto.ca
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