Lev Vygotsky at school: the cultural-historical approach as the basis for a new model of development in the context of digitalization / Lev Vygotski en la escuela: el enfoque histórico-cultural como base de un nuevo modelo de desarrollo en el contexto de la digitalización

Abstract

The study objective is to substantiate the importance of a new development model based on the cultural-historical approach. The article describes the effects of digitalization on modern schools. The author believes that public schools were not ready for such a transformation. While ‘smart’ technologies are replacing the previously typical ‘assembly line’ logic and disciplinary matrix of schooling, they also reject a human aspect, treating teachers and pupils as functions. Outside the school environment, children firmly entrench themselves within their digital habitats, and so they lose a direct contact with adults. Any evaluation methods developed in the pre-digital era are endangered. Children lack human contact with adults, behavioural models and cultural norms. Their communication is short of interactivity. Their mastery and interposition of behaviour diverge from the classical scheme.

The union of digital teaching and assembly line methods has brought forth the hardcoded ways of child behaviour. It has created a digital chasm and virtual inversion, at the same time losing certain basic principles of interposition necessary for development within ontogenesis.