Working on Sunday, Riding a Bike, and ZPD

Today is ZPD day. That's right, an entire day (well, a significant portion of the day) devoted to contemplating and reflecting on The Zone of Proximal Development. I know what it is. Understanding it isn't the problem. I can think of example after concrete example from my own life experiences. For a while, I thought I must be missing something significant, a concept of such influence and importance can't possibly be this simple, right?

We are at point E developmentally (in our knowledge, in our physical skill, in our mental skill, in some combination). Everything from point A to point E is our level of independent performance (those things which are within our developmental level, those things which we can do w/o any direction or help from another, those things that we have truly internalized). With the help of a more capable peer, w/ the collaboration of a team, or with a combination of the two, we can reach well beyond point E – toward let's say point M. Everything between E and M is our ZPD. This is the area that is perhaps just on the edge or slightly beyond where we are developmentally – it is the emerging edge of our capability. We cannot reach into it on our own, but we can progress toward and through it with the help of a more capable peer (or a collaborative group that contains one or more "more capable" peers).

Beyond M is point Z. The zone from point M to point Z is one that we cannot yet progress through even w/ assistance. We are not yet developmentally ready to even approach it.

The very best, most beneficial and useful instruction (teaching, learning, experience) is that which pulls us into our ZPD and enables us to move what is known, what is internalized, into what was the ZPD. Thus, while we may be at point E today, tomorrow we will be at G or H, and soon after we will be at M. When that occurs, then points beyond M evolve from being beyond us even w/ assistance, to becoming part of our new, emerging ZPD.

So, why is it so terribly hard for me to come up w/ a simple visual image. Concentric circles come to mind, but they have been done (and done and done). I though of a kite (or maybe learning to fly a kite) or glider/paper airplane, but then I saw the hot air balloon example (A Vision of Vygotsky by Wink and Putney 2002, page 88). I thought of an escalator (moving stairway), but then saw the spiral staircase (Wink and Putney, page94). I thought of a boat, but I'm not sure I like that either, and being the desert rat that I am, I know very little of boats.

All these thoughts were running through my hyper brain when I awoke this morning. I decided to give school a break and go into work for a few hours. Working Sunday may seem like torture, but it is actually quite the opposite. The building is virtually empty (just me on the 4th floor, the lone security guard stationed at the entrance, and a few second and third shift support people in the basement). I can get work done in peace, think while I work, wear shorts and a t-shirt if I feel like it, turn up the radio, and get a head start on this week's 40hrs so that I can take off early later in the week.

Of course, a few hours turned into 5 hours. Currently, I'm working on a particularly frustrating project. I'm redoing someone else's work. In effect, the work I'm re-doing is the result of our team failing to help a former member progress through their own ZPD. I didn't see it this way until today, and perhaps the connection is only a result of my own current concentration on the idea of ZPD. Does that make the connection less valid? I don't think so.

So, what happened? Why did we fail to bring our colleague along with us? Frustrated as I currently am with having to fix someone else's less than satisfactory work, my first thought was that there was nothing we could have done differently. That the oneness was all on the individual, that the problem was that this colleague didn't want to grow, didn't want to improve their work. I spent five hours reworking these projects, bringing them up to (or close to) our standard, fuming the whole time. After 5 hours, only 2 of the 12 total simulations were fixed and half my Sunday was gone. Time to stop, so I decided to walk home the long way to get some exercise and perspective. As I walked home two things occurred to me in rapid succession.

1 - That the way I learned to ride a bicycle is a perfect representation of ZPD.

I must have only been 6 or 7 when I learned how to ride a two-wheeler. Prior to that I rode a tricycle on my own, but I had also learned to balance on a two wheeler by virtue of my father riding me to school on his bike. He would have me sit in front of him so that I could experience what it felt like to balance on a bike. I also got to ride on the back by balancing on the double basket (as opposed to a child seat, which were not widely used in the early 1970's). And then, one weekend, it was time for me to ride my own two wheeler, ALL BY MYSELF! I was completely certain that I was not ready. All my friends had two wheelers with training wheels. I was sure that I needed training wheels too. My father said, "no training wheels, you will learn without them." I must be honest, I did not believe him. He pulled out my shiny new bike, complete with the coveted banana seat, told me to get on it, and held on to the back of it and walked (then ran) along with me while I mastered the art of peddling and keeping it straight (I had learned something of steering while riding on the bike with him and learned how to pedal on my trusty old tricycle). I was having fun and feeling quite secure in the fact that I would not fall over because my Dad was holding on. He had assured me that he wouldn't let go "until I was ready." I don't know how long it took, I don't even recall if all this happened on the same day or over the course of several days. What I do remember though, viscerally, as if it happened yesterday, was the moment my dad took me into and through my bicycle riding ZPD. I was happily riding down the street in front of our house. I glanced back to say something to my dad and suddenly realized that he was no longer there, he was halfway down the block behind me and I was riding all by myself. I would love to say that I rode perfectly, confident in the fact that I could now ride a bike. I didn't. I realized that he wasn't there, realized that that meant there was no one holding one and making sure I didn't fall, hesitated for a moment, and promptly fell flat on my - well side I guess. One minute I was balancing all by myself, the next minute I was on the ground. I cried, I even felt a bit betrayed by my dad because even if he thought I was ready, I knew I wasn't and I had proved it by falling over. But he pointed out that before I fell, during that few moments when I didn't realize he was there and even for a minute after I realized it, I did balance all by myself. He got me back up on that bike and we did it again. I think it took many more tries before I was truly riding all by myself, but I'm quite sure my progress was faster because of that initial time and even perhaps because of the shock of the realization that it included.

My dad pulled me up through my own ZPD. The process had several stages, starting with when I rode on his bike with him, concluding with me riding my own first bike by myself (not that first moment of riding it, but all the weeks, months, and years of riding that followed). It is interesting to note that I rode a bike for years both for pleasure and as a primary means of transportation (as a student and later as a working adult). It is also interesting to note that I learned on my own how to ride a bike w/ toe clips and later the nuanced difference between riding a rode bike and riding a mountain bike. Maintaining and fixing a bike was part of my education too. At each stage I progressed slightly beyond my comfort zone, always w/ the help of someone else (even if it was strictly from observation of the other or from reading a manual). Like my skills and knowledge, the ZPD is dynamic, it keeps moving, keeps evolving, is always a part of my potential. I wonder if Zone of Potential Development is a better word. I wonder if Zone is the word for it at all. Maybe that is the train of thought I need to follow to come up with my own unique visual representation. Or - maybe I should just draw a cartoon, and allegory about learning to ride a bike.

So, that took longer to write than it did to think about. All of that occurred to me in the course of walking one block. The rest of the walk was spent contemplating the second thing that occurred to me.

2 - Perhaps the reason our colleague did not move through their personal ZPD was not because they were stubborn, cantankerous, angry, unwilling to try, etc. Or, to be honest, perhaps that was indeed part of it - but not all of it. Maybe we, as a team, did not work as facilitators to help pull our colleague through the ZPD. Instead, we told our colleague what was wrong, told this person how to fix it, made a set of rules and standards that did less to facilitate development than it did to facilitate stubbornness and (on some level) failure. Now, to be fair, we are working in an adult professional team environment in a corporate work-place. The focus of our team is to get the job done. We are all adults and perhaps we should each take responsibility for our own work and our own professional development. But, I still wonder if we could also do a better job of facilitating each other's learning. It seems to me that this observation and my further reflection on it could directly impact my approach to my PAR (ARP).

Well, as usual, this is a long blog and it has relevance for more than one course. I should probably cross post the last part in my ARP blog. I should also step away from the computer and find some food.

Oh... and just for the heck of it. Click here for a nice explanation of ZPD and Scaffolding.