Creating Developmental Learning Environments

Abstract

This article presents developmental learning, an approach practiced at the Barbara Taylor School in New York City, that has been influenced by key methodological insights and empirical findings of Lev Vygotsky about how children learn and develop. The argument is made that Vygotsky's work reveals a critical feature of human development: development is simultaneously the tool-and-result of developmental activity, rather than the outcome, in a means-end, tool for result fashion, of something prior. Vygotsky's analysis of the languagelearning 'zone of proximal development' of infancy and early childhood is analyzed as a model of the creation of a developmental environment. An example of a math 'lesson' from the Barbara Taylor School is next presented as an instance of creating a developmental environment in this elementary school. An activity-oriented analysis of the 'lesson' is presented, highlighting the importance of: the joint activity ofmeaningmaking; supporting children to do what they don't know how to do; and the role of teachers being good learners (rather than good 'knowers') in creating environments in which learning leads development.