Vygotsky Scaffolding

Psy 235 Final Paper

I am happy to be 40 and finishing up my Young Adulthood, my life has not been perfect but it has been mine to live. Going into my ‘Middle Adulthood” being back in school is my not just my ‘midlife crisis’, but a way for me to have my own leave my own generativity. My long-term relationship had ended, career was at a standstill, and I did not know whom I was going to be moving forward through life. I needed to make a radical change, but could not divorce the wife I did not have or buy the car I could not afford. This was my Maslow’s ‘self-actualization’ moment…I had to begin to find and live up to my fullest potential. This course helped me understand why I made…why I needed to make my decision to come back to school try and be a nurse. Studying Vygotsky’s theories and his belief in the role of social interaction in the development of cognition helped me understand how I make decisions about career and life. I know understand through Vygotsky’s ‘scaffolding’ the influence of people in my life from my parents and their friends, to my friends and their parents.

Vygotsky's theories stress the fundamental role of social interaction in the development of cognition, as he believed strongly that community plays a central role in the process of "making meaning.” (Mcleod)

For me the decision to come back to school to be a nurse was a long road to understanding myself, which coincidently has a lot to do with my upbringing. Vygotsky believed that each of us has a zone of proximal development, that as children we learn from being near adults who teach us through mentorship. I grew up military chaplain’s kid, moving all around the world. From a very young age I saw people serving a purpose larger than them, in the 1980’s we were fighting the big and bad mighty Russians. I wanted to be like my friends father’s who were mostly fighter pilots, who chased Russian bombers over the skies of Europe.

Growing up in a military family meant...