Research Journal Assignment #11a: Introduction

One of the most crucial concerns of the American society should be the education system, and more so now than ever, due to the incredible influx in students, "Total public school enrollment is projected to set new enrollment records each year from 2007 through 2018, reaching an estimated high of 53.9 million students in 2018" (NCES). With this massive increase in students comes an increased responsibility to train and foster these children in the most excellent way capable, not simply to ensure that each child is educated but to ensure that each child receives the best education they can. How can the schools meet the needs of their communities and students? How can schools make certain that their students are obtaining an optimum education? There are many external conditions that affect a school's capability of effectively teaching its students such as available resources, the condition of the neighborhood and family life surrounding the school, and the amount allotted to schools in each state. Most of these external forces cannot be controlled and are out of the hands of the schools. It is for this reason that it is more prudent for schools to turn their focus inward for how to better their approach. This process of refining the schools starts with the very core of the school by analyzing methods of instruction and how effective they are.

The educational process needs to be an exciting and enriching experience for students as Psychologist Jean Piaget so aptly stated, "Education for most people means trying to lead the child to resemble the typical adult of society...But for me, education means making creators...You have to make inventors, innovators, not conformists" (Piaget). In order to mold these creators that Piaget desired each school must find the appropriate teaching methods to cultivate the drive to learn in students. There are thousands of cognitive psychologists that have drawn out endless blueprints for how to best educate children but only a select few are continually referenced and cited as leaders of the field. Two of the most influential cognitive psychologists are, the before mentioned, Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky. Both of these psychologists have set the standards for the field and have made monumental discoveries into the development of learners and how best to reach students. Piaget was often referred to as the father of this field and no other theories of development were even worth mentioning in the same breath as his. Then in 1964 Vygotsky, a Russian psychologist during the Soviet era, was introduced to the western world and all of a sudden an equal to Piaget was found. While education owes much to Jean Piaget for without his initial discoveries the field would be hallow and years behind, Vygotsky offers a theory that cannot be ignored. Lev Vygotsky's theory of developmental education provides a more versatile foundation to be used in schools due to its innovative concepts of the Zone of Proximal Development, Vygotskian play, and societal impacts on development.