Lev Vygotsky was born in 1896. He became one of the younger leading
psychologists. At the age of only 18 he wrote an essay on Shakespeare's
Hamlet which later was incorporated into one of his psychological
writings. He entered into the medical school at Moscow University and then
later to law school while attending a private university to study
literature. He taught for a short while in a provincial school to go onto
having lectures at a teachers college for psychology. 'The Psychology of
Art' (1925) was his first big project. That was used as his PhD thesis at
Moscow University, even though he never did receive any formal training in
psychology. Another one of his works/theories was call the Vygotskian
approach which was helped with Alex Luria and Alexei Leontiev. A major one
of his theories was the zone of proximal development or otherwise known
simply as ZPD. This was a big contribution towards the world of
psychology. ZPD was the level of development attained when children engage
in social behavior. Full development will depend on the amount of
interaction. Adult guidance and peers interaction will help the skill grow
further than being compared to doing it alone. Vygotsky mainly wanted to
explain consciousness as an end project of socialization, such as learning
a language. "Thought and Language" was his most famous work. It was
published after his death in 1934 from tuberculosis. Some other works
published before he passed away were "Educational Psychology" (1926) and
"Mind and Society" (1930) and his last published work before his death was
Thinking and Speech in 1934. His ideas generally where not accepted at all
to the political ideology in Russia. The government threw out all his
ideas after his death but his students kept his ideas alive. His works
later ended up having an influence on education in Russia. His theories
continue to grow in interest and popularity to this day.