Ellis: Mr. Vygotsky I just want to say thanks for coming to the 21st century. We really appreciate all of the trouble you went through just to be here.

Vygotsky: Yes, yes the time machine ride was quite scary but I am alright now. Can I have another one of those drinks...er what do you call them?

Ellis: Pepsi. The drink is called Pepsi. Help yourself. Anyway, I had a chance to read your book Thinking and Speaking which I found to be quite interesting, but before I get distracted by your vast accomplishments, what do you think of some of the methods and tools we now have as educators?

Vygotsky: I am very impressed, of course, with the advancements we have made in the world. At first, I was actually stunned at the progress the human race has made, however, after having a little time to observe things, I have a few reservations and concerns. As you already know, I am very interested in the idea of learning through interpersonal communication and social interactions.

I think what concerns me is the fact that I can easily see how students could be alienated from each other on these machines you have here. Being with adults and other students and doing things that you need to learn is very, very important in the learning process.

Ellis: You know, Mr Vygotsky, you are my kind of guy. I have always liked the concept of actually using what we like to call a "hands on" approach to learning and teaching. At least for me, I was always able to learn to do things by actually being involved in the activity.

Vygotsky: Yes, yes that is so important because when children, for example, are out among others utilizing the social process, they are using higher mental functions. When I was a young man in Moscow, I was forced to sit in a classroom and memorize my lessons from a book. However, as I grew older I noticed that I was learning more by actually doing things with others especially if they were adults that were trying to teach me things. This is how I began to formalize in my mind the learning processes that I would study and publish one day.

Ellis: Wow, and now here you are sitting with me in the year 2008 and drinking Pepsi. It just doesn't any better than this. OK , so your way of thinking is that we learn by doing things. Can you give me at least one example of how the thinking and cognitive processes would be able to learn a specific thing.?

Vygotsky: I love using what I call my child and horse analogy. Here we have a child, let us call him Nicholas, and his father gave him a horse. Nicholas does not know how to ride a horse and his father thinks he is still too young to earn how to actually ride one since he is only 5 years old. His father can put him up on the horse, but as for allowing young Nicholas to ride by himself, that would be out of the question. Nicholas is very persistent and he throws a few tantrums but it does not do him any good because his father will not let him ride alone. So, eventually, Nicholas gets a stick or a toy horse and pretends to ride it. This is what I like to call a pivot.

Ellis: Pivot, eh? It sounds like a new dance move.

Vygotsky: You people in the 21st century have a very strange sense of humor. To continue on, this pivot is the idea or imaginary substitute. Because the idea that Nicholas has planted in his mind that the stick or wooden horse is actually a horse, he can begin to learn from it to help prepare him for the next stage in the learning process.

Ellis: So you mean that he will more prepared to actually get on the horse someday because he has prepared his mind that way through imagination and play.

Vygotsky: Yes, you see so many things are learned in gradual stages that we hardly notice them. Of course, little girls like to play "house" with dolls and other children. Boys like to pretend that they are in the military using toys or sticks as guns, there really is no end to this type of learning. This type of representation is more complex than the example I just gave you when you consider cultural and representations set up by society. A soldier would get a medal for doing something heroic. Now, if you gave the same medal to an ape, it would just see the shiny metal that is reflected by light and he may even like the taste of the medal. But a human sees the medal and gets a great sense of pride from it because of the importance that society has placed on it. It is just really a piece of pewter but the cultural significance is much greater.

NEXT PAGE