The Role of Teaching and Instruction

“…the sign primarily appears in the child's behavior as a means of social relations,

as an inter-psychological function.

Becoming afterward a means by which the child controls its behavior,

the sign simply transfers the social attitude toward the subject within the personality.”

---- Tool and Symbol in Child Development by Lev Vygotsky

The advanced psychological function is mediated by symbol and tool. At the start, children primarily receive information by social interaction, which manifests as an inter-psychological process between different individuals, with the media of signs. I am not sure whether I comprehend it appropriately, but I wondered if it could be explained by the example below. 

In kindergarten, the teacher asks children to wash their hands before having their lunch or dessert. The behavior "washing hands" is associated with the action "eating a meal" with the teacher's instruction sign, in both language and action demonstration. The connection is built completely through social interaction, the input process at the very start of advanced psychological function. Later on, when children develop an idea of washing hands before eating something (just call it handwash-eat behavior; suppose children generate the connection between these two actions or accept what teachers guide them to do), it could influence their subsequent learning and experience. They might connect the concept of health with the handwash-eat behavior when they learn that some bacteria could lead to health problems such as getting sick. They might also generate an attitude towards people who do not care about washing hand before eating something. They might get shocked when they visit a society consists of a different culture where all the people never wash their hand before they eat.

The idea that internalization of extrinsic sign could be transformed to one's own thoughts, personalities, or attitudes reminds me of Vygotsky’s social-historical theory, saying that advanced psychological function developed in two ways in the development of children. The first is in the process of group activities and social activities, as an inter-psychological function. The second is individual activities, as an internal thinking mode. Vygotsky’s theory of psychological development illustrated the process of external input and inner processing within the individual psychological function. However, with an emphasize on the first step — what we got in our mind is based on what surrounds us, is the society that we are rooted in.

The thought came from outside of the individual through social interactions, however, it could be processed independently within an individual's psychological thinking or one's inner speech when they are confronted with other experiences pertaining to this. However, the "conflict" could happen when the individual finds out that what one is taught won't work in some cases, or is totally a fallacy.

I am wondering what should a teacher teach. What we teach is restricted to the social history and culture that we live in, is limited to the current level of science and technology development, is confined with the economy and resources that we can obtain. Teachers are actually providing some materials for the learning content, and very few ways of processing the knowledge. However, the remaining part, the internalization and generating, the process of learning, can only be built upon individual oneself.

I also think about the teacher's role in an individual's learning. Does it matter if we change the classroom instruction method or the teaching format, such as student-led discussion, asking a student as a facilitator, implementing blended learning?