Dialectics and Education in Post-Vygotskian Period: Soft Transformation vs Reboot

Nikolay Veraksa,doctor in psychology, professor, the Institute of Psychology named after

L.S.Vygotsky, Russian State University for the Humanities;

Anastasia Belolutskaya,PhD in psychology, leading researcher, Moscow City University, Russia

Modern social life style requires significant changes in our approach to children

education

It is necessary to make such educational situation where a child will get a voice of his own. He or she must learn how to take his own position regarding the world around and learn how to transform the reality basing on his/her own ideas.

What is exceptionally important is the way of transformation of problem situations implemented

by the subject when he/she is already an adult.

Possible ways of transformations:

1) “reboot” – when old structures and content are replaced by the new one;

2) “soft transformation” - when a person projects such a meta construction which can mediate but not destroy previous original structures.

The adult thinking is finally one of the main integrative educational results.

The choice of an educational model is determined by the modern ideas of how the cognitive development works and especially by the concept of adult thinking.

Fundamental theoretical paradigms

Klaus F.Riegel:

“It has never been shown convincingly that the highest level of operation, i.e., formal operational intelligence, characterizes the thinking of mature adults. Only under the most exceptional conditions of logical argumentations and scholastic disputes is it conceivable that a person would engage in such form of thinking... Creative scientific activities are dominated by playful manipulations of contradictions and by conceiving issues integratively which have been torn apart by formal operational thinking” [Riegel, 1972]

The approach by Lev Vygotsky is built on principally distinct ground.

The author underlines that understanding of mental development of a child as a “gradual atrophy of specific features of child’s thinking while reaching the final point of development is not correct” [Vygotski, 1999]

An educational process based on cultural historical concept of Lev Vygotsky could be defined as “Soft transformation”.

Dialectical nature of such an education is demonstrated in a special way of construction of the child-culture interaction.

Educational process designed in such a fashion results in the following:

1) a person obtains an experience of “trying on” own author’s position;

2) acquires such a method of transformation where development becomes possible due to the projection of a meta structure. In its framework initial constructs are completely brought to life, but the third covering one has the most powerful potential of development;

3) thinking gets the quality called “multidimensionality”

Structural dialectical approach(the line of research in Russia)

Dialectical thinking is regarded as a creative and productive one in the framework of structural dialectic approach.

It is defined as an operations with the oppositions in order to find a new solution which belongs to the new stractural level.

Nikolay Veraksa: “Dialectical thinking operations reveal the process of transformation of objects and situations. In fact they describe a space of possible transformations of an object. In this context dialectical logic is one that gives birth to new possibilities with a help of transition from one pair of oppositions which determins the structure of a problem situation to another one using a range of operations of dialectic thinking. In such a way any object can be considered as a part of a structure of the possibilities space” [Veraksa, 2010]

http://psychologyinrussia.com/volumes/index.php?article=1359&sphrase_id=19932

http://psychologyinrussia.com/volumes/index.php?article=2592&sphrase_id=19932

The multidimensionality of thinking

A characteristic of thinking that provides variability of the transformations of a substantial contradiction in a problem situation.

Lev Vygotsky underlines that in order to come to a real productive act of thinking that can lead a thought to a completely new point, discovery, “..it is necessary, that X, which is a problem point of our analyses and at the same time a part of a structure A, enter suddenly to a structure B”. Than the researcher ask how it is possible that X being a component of a structure A enter to a structure B simultaneously? Vygotsky supposes that it is possible through a higher concept which is upper than structures A and B and absorbs them. It can be interpreted as a overcoming of structure dependence [Vygotski, 1999]

Оренбург

We belive that multidimendionality of thinking is very important in the context of discussion

about educational models.This characteristic allows teacher to design an

educational process according to Soft transformation pattern.

Such a design of educational interactions determines the fact that this characteristic

of students’ thinking is formed.

Patricia Arlin:«New measures and assessments of postformal and dialectical thinking have contributed to the progress made in the study of advanced forms of adult thinking. There is no parallel development of ways to assess mature creative thinking. Even the most recent assessments rely heavily on Guilford’s “structure of the intellect” model of 1967 and Torrance’s translation of a subset of these factors into a set of divergent thinking tasks. What is needed to propel this research forward are well developed postformal measures of creativity» [Arlin, 2011]

EXAMPLE OF TASK:

Once upon a time there was a very talented man. He was 30 or maybe 40 years old. Maybe he had a family, maybe not. Maybe he went to an office every day, or maybe he stayed at home most of the time. We’re not familiar with all these details. But for many years he had been painting wonderful landscape scenes. Friends and acquaintances often told him that he could feel nature and transfer its beauty to the canvas like no one else. His whole house was decorated with paintings, and he gave many of his masterpieces to friends, as he loved to meet with them. But one day he realized that painting was his mission and the basis of his life. However, it’s not that easy to become a real painter! It is one thing to paint for pleasure as a hobby and another to grow professionally, establish a career, make money, and promote oneself… • What advice would you give to our protagonist, who

has made a serious decision to make painting his profession?

For reference: The action takes place nowadays. The city where this man lives is a big industrial administrative center.

This morning he opened a newspaper and became aware of some of the latest city news, in particular:• (1) The level of unemployment increased 20% compared with the previous

year. The general level of the life of the population continues to decrease.• (2) Demonstrations of ecoactivists against air pollution in the city are

becoming more and more aggressive. Yesterday they were picketing an oil refinery, police had to intervene; some demonstrators were injured, and some were detained.….(9) The city football team easily won thenational championship with an amazing score, although the goal keeper claimed that he had decided to leave his profession because of his age.

• (10) Inhabitants of big apartment blocks now have the right to make renovations in their entrance halls without informing city authorities.

The objective of this technique was to find out:

1) if the respondent can transform unfavorable conditions into resources while preserving the initial goal, not another one;2) how diverse the proposed project solutions are— that is, how many independent lines of development of the situation a respondent can construct based on the different factors listed above or, perhaps, on other factors suggested by the respondent.

The aim of our empirical study was to examine a correlation between multidimensionality of thinking and another characteristic of creative thinking – flexibility (Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (verbal battery)

The hypothesis:

There is a significant positive connection between multidimensionality of thinking and flexibility of thinking.

Participants:A total of 85 people participated in the study. They were 15 to 17 years old, students at a high schools in Kaliningradskaya oblast, and winners of different stages of the all-Russian academic competition in physics, chemistry, and mathematics. All respondents had a high level of academic success and of general intelligence.

The result:

Flexibility of thinking (Torrance test) and multidimensionality of thinking (DMT technique) (r=0.391, p≤0.001).

We can anticipate that increasing the level of multidimensionality will cause an increase in flexibility, but not in reverse.

The next hypotheses is that even if one trains flexibility of thinking, it will not transform into multidimensionality.

Recent publications:• Veraksa N. (2014) Dialectic and Formal Structures in Cognition of Preschool• Veraksa N., Belolutskaya A., Vorobyeva I., Krasheninnikov E., Rachkova E., Shiyan I., Shiyan

O.  (2013) Structural dialectical approach in psychology: problems and research results. Psychology in Russia: State of the Art, 6, 2, 65-77.

• Veraksa N. (2012) Lev Vygostky methodology. Peritia. Revista Portuguesa de Psicologia. 12, 48-62.Children. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences Volume 146, 118–123

• Veraksa N. (2011) Development of cognitive capacities in preschool age. International Journal of Early Years Education, 1, 79-88.

• Belolutskaya A. (2015). Multidimensionality of thinking in the context of creativity studies. Psychology in Russia: State of the Art, 8(1), 43-60.

• Belolutskaya A. (2014) The Concept of Oppositions as a Determining Factor for Development of Dialectical Mental Actions in the Thinking of a Pre-school Child. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences  (2014), pp. 99-104.

• Belolutskaya A. (2013) Structural Flexibility of Thinking in the Context of Dialectical Approach in Psychology. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2013. - pp. 308-311.

Our contacts: neveraksa@gmail.com; anabel@eurekanet.ru