It turns out that someone took the teacher qualification examination, and there was a "zone of recent development" in the examination questions. However, many people missed this knowledge point when reviewing, which led to losing points in the exam and was very upset.
What is the "zone of proximal development"? What does "zone of proximal development" mean to children?
Today Xiaoyan will popularize the knowledge about "recently developed areas" for everyone.
The theory of zone of proximal development was put forward by Vygotsky, a child psychologist in the former Soviet Union.
He pointed out that we need to determine two levels of children's development, the first is the existing level, and the second is the level that can be achieved under guidance. The difference between these two levels is called "zone of proximal development" or learning zone.
Some scholars also call the recently developed area "challenge area", that is, the degree that children can reach through hard work, that is, "jumping and reaching".
In the process of children's growth, whether it is life skills, social communication ability or academic progress, there is a "proximal development zone", and at both ends, there are "comfort zone" and "panic zone".
If you stay in the "comfort zone" all the time, the task is not difficult, and it is difficult for children to make progress; In the "panic zone", if the goal is too high and the child can't reach it, it will hit the child's confidence and cause fear and retreat.
In the task of "learning area", children can make progress and enhance their self-confidence through their own efforts.
So the recent development zone is of great significance to the growth of children. However, many parents don't know the theory of proximal development zone, which stifles many children's growth opportunities.
Take Xixi, a 4-year-old "prodigy" in Taiwan Province Province, as an example. Why is he called a "prodigy"? Come and feel:
The practice in the article, sitting on the platform of a big classroom, is full of adults, scrambling to throw all kinds of questions at him:
It is full of philosophical and speculative questions. I believe many adults may not be able to answer, but Xixi can give an impeccable answer without thinking, and the golden sentence of "Peace in the storm" comes.
At first glance, you may think that Xixi is really awesome, but if you look closely, you will find that Xixi's words may all be memorized in advance.
When a lady asked "What should I do if I encounter setbacks", Xixi was shocked and asked his father for help. Dad reminded him: frustration, adversity, is that there is no prosperity.
He just like solved the key words, fluently say:
It can be seen that Sisi didn't know what he really meant when he said this.
Xixi's parents did not correctly understand their children's current development level and potential development level, but only instilled content beyond their children's understanding.
In this process, children do not learn from the "zone of proximal development", but only accept it mechanically. The so-called "knowledge" in his mouth is difficult to internalize into the real ability of children.
For children, letting them learn to go beyond the "zone of proximal development" is actually encouraging them to grow up, which is very unfavorable to their growth.
Parents often have three types for their children's learning and growth.
● The first type: laissez-faire parents
Such parents do not interfere with their children's learning and let them explore on their own, without providing any help in the process.
In this case, children are likely to give up their efforts because they can't get help, so it is difficult to cross the "nearest development zone" and they can only stay put.
● The second type: arranged parents.
This kind of parents will complete their own tasks for their children. For example, some parents help their children with their homework, but the children always can't. Parents have no choice but to tell their children how to do it directly, or simply help them do it directly.
Children who grow up like this have no chance to cross the "nearest development zone", and of course it is difficult to grow up.
● The third type: scaffolding parents
As we all know, scaffolding is a working platform used in building construction. In the process of building a house, workers stand on scaffolding and put raw materials on it. When the house was built, the scaffolding was taken down.
In the recently developed areas, parents should play the role of scaffolding.
It can be said that without scaffolding, the construction will be very difficult, but after the construction is completed, the scaffolding will also be removed. And parents are the scaffolding for children.
When children grow up, they need scaffolding to make progress and achieve their goals. When children have the ability to solve problems independently, parents' scaffolding is removed.
For example, what do scaffolding parents do if they want to cultivate the habit of packing their own things at school?
At the beginning, they will give their children a list of things to take to school, and let them pack their schoolbags themselves to prevent them from forgetting their homework or books. Children will gradually develop the habit of packing according to the list every day, and then they can pack their own things without looking at the list and reminding their parents.
So, how can we build scaffolding for children?
First, observe children and understand their recent development areas.
Different children have different areas of recent development, which requires parents to judge according to their personality and the difficulty of specific things. There is no uniform standard.
The same thing is a study area for some children and a panic area for some children.
An educator told a case:
A boy, under the strict instruction of his mother, knew more than 2,000 words at the age of 3 and could add and subtract within 20.
Everyone thought that a child prodigy had a bright future, but as soon as he went to school, he was seriously tired of learning and found it boring. Finally, he had to take a year off.
Before the age of 4, children mainly use the right brain and are still in the stage of thinking in images, while words, letters and numbers are abstract symbols. Obviously, 3 years old is not the most suitable recent development area for children to learn words and numbers.
Boys' mothers let their children learn these things too early, so it is easy for boys to fall into a panic zone because their goals are too high and their tasks are too difficult, resulting in fear of difficulties and retreat.
When children reach the appropriate age to learn words and numbers, boys lose the challenge of the "zone of proximal development" because they learn these things very early and stay in the comfort zone, thus losing interest in learning.
Therefore, if you don't know the child's recent development zone, it will lead to the child's ability staying in the comfort zone without improvement, or falling into the panic zone and afraid of improvement, thus hindering the child's growth.
Second, break down the goal and complete it step by step.
There is a character named Dong Jianchang in the TV series The Vicissitudes of the Right Path on Earth. When he took the recruits, he talked about what to do in educating the recruits. There was an interesting lecture:
This is actually quite reasonable, because many times, when we teach our children what to do, we always emphasize "how to do it" without telling them how to do it, let alone discussing with them how to do it better.
For example, we always give children an order: "put away the toys" and "get dressed" … but we don't teach them how to put away the toys and get dressed. Without help, it is difficult for children to cross the nearest development zone and learn one thing.
Therefore, when a child wants to accomplish a slightly difficult big goal, it may be better to break it down into small goals according to the child's existing ability, and let the children complete it one by one, and finally complete the big goal.
For children, this reduces the difficulty for children to achieve big goals, and can well prevent children from falling into the panic zone, so as to smoothly let children cross the nearest development zone and improve their abilities.
Third, parents should quit at the right time.
When helping children, parents should not be arranged instead, but should quit at the right time.
When observing the improvement of children's ability, we must control the desire to help children and let them do it themselves, so as to give full play to their initiative.
According to Vygotsky's research, if parents are good at scaffolding, children will do better when they complete difficult tasks independently. When they help children take small steps, children will make faster progress and work harder.
Let's act together to find the children's recent development area, so that children can make faster and better progress!