By golly... Vygotsky!
Posted by Lindsay Jagodowski on Friday, January 20, 2012
My hope for the early stages of my literary research was to find some peer reviewed, well established support for theater work with youth in the field of psychology. This evening's task was to read an article by Lev Vygotsky which was published in the Journal of Russian and East European Psychology in 2004. This article by the title 'Imagination and Creativity in Childhood' shared a great deal of theory on how creativity and imagination develop in children while linking this process to literacy and artistic development. On page 69 - I hit a gold mine of information! Chapter 7, entitled 'Theatrical Creativity in School-Age Children' shares the view of Vygotsky and a few other theorists on process based theater for the encouragement of creativity and emotional development in youth. Below are a few key excerpts;
"Children's theatrical creativity or dramatization efforts are close to their literary creative activity. Along with verbal creation, the dramatization, or staging, of plays is the most frequent and widespread form of creativity practiced by children... Drama, more than any other form of creation, is closely and directly linked to play, which is the root of all creativity in children" (p.69-71)
"... plays written by the children themselves or created an improvised by them as they are played are vastly more compatible with children's understanding ... Such plays will inevitably be more awkward ... but they will have the enormous advantage of having been generated through the creative efforts of the children themselves. It must not be forgotten that the basic law of children's creativity is that its value lies not in its results, not in the product of creation, but in the process itself" (p. 72).
For the purposes of this specific study focused on students in grades 4-6 it appears that there is indeed a psychological foundation to the theory of process vs product and student initiated theatrical production. I greatly look forward to further readings by Vygotsky as well as the writing of Piaget and Kegan on the social and moral development of children. It is my feeling that this psychological background of morality, creativity and socialization will inform my understanding of bullying in a vastly different way that the readings specifically on theater or the phenom of bullying itself.
"Children's theatrical creativity or dramatization efforts are close to their literary creative activity. Along with verbal creation, the dramatization, or staging, of plays is the most frequent and widespread form of creativity practiced by children... Drama, more than any other form of creation, is closely and directly linked to play, which is the root of all creativity in children" (p.69-71)
"... plays written by the children themselves or created an improvised by them as they are played are vastly more compatible with children's understanding ... Such plays will inevitably be more awkward ... but they will have the enormous advantage of having been generated through the creative efforts of the children themselves. It must not be forgotten that the basic law of children's creativity is that its value lies not in its results, not in the product of creation, but in the process itself" (p. 72).
For the purposes of this specific study focused on students in grades 4-6 it appears that there is indeed a psychological foundation to the theory of process vs product and student initiated theatrical production. I greatly look forward to further readings by Vygotsky as well as the writing of Piaget and Kegan on the social and moral development of children. It is my feeling that this psychological background of morality, creativity and socialization will inform my understanding of bullying in a vastly different way that the readings specifically on theater or the phenom of bullying itself.
