Shepel, Elina Lampert (1995). Teacher self-identification in culture from Vygotsky’s developmental perspective.

Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 26(4):425-442.

Teacher Self-Identification in Culture from Vygotsky's Developmental

Perspective

ELINA LAMPERT SHEPEL

Eureka University
Columbia University

Major changes have taken place in Russian education during the past eight years: new openness, new
approaches, new recognition of deficiencies and needs. As teachers sought to throw of the regimentation
of the past, they turned to the newly republished works of L. S. Vygotsky and his followers for ideas. This
article contrasts the differing perspectives on a number of critical issues in Vygotsky's cultural-
historical theory (zone of proximal development, action/act/activity, element/unit analysis, social
situation o f development /contextualism). The recent effort to design a teacher developmental education
program based on the principles of Vygotsky's cultural-historical concept put the concept itself in
question. The principles of such a program will be discussed, particularly the idea of teacher self-
identification in culture. The aim of this article is to facilitate the debate about these important issues
and to define the international perspectives in the development of the cultural-historical concept. SELF-
IDENTIFICATION, VOLUNTARY BEHAVIOR, SOCIALLY MEANINGFUL ACTIVITY, MEDIATED
ACTION, AGENT/SUBJECT OF LEARNING ACTIVITY

I have on my table a violin string. It is free. I twist one end of it and it responds. It is free. But it's not
free to do what a violin string is supposed to do-to produce music. So I take it, fix it in my violin and
tighten it until it is taut. Only then is it free to be a violin string.

-Sir Rabindranath Tagore

The anthropologist sees man-without-culture as resembling a loose violin string - a thing mute and inert.
Man-in-culture takes on the properties of the violin string mounted-it now has a voice and almost a soul.
But the string, no matter how marvelous its potential, can never sing at will. It can have no autonomy; its
destiny lies in the hand of its master. Is the person endowed with culture still no more than the mounted
string, no freer, no more self-determining? What does it mean to be free in terms of L. S. Vygotsky's
cultural-historical concept?
This is the first of a series of questions that I encountered in my professional life. Being involved in
research on the Teacher Developmental Education Program, based on Vygotsky's cultural-historical
concept, I realized how a theory is able to empower the professional with the cultural and theoretical
frame of reference, but at the same time to make him or her dependent and limited within a "restricted"
area of one dominant theoretical paradigm. Any theory as a framework of thinking shapes the
consciousness and limits the scholar or the teacher to a single province or a single symbol system.
According to Greene (1988), freedom presupposes exploration of the alternative modes of being in the
world, the capacity to surpass the given.
Vygotsky's methodology of thinking is embedded in a possibility paradigm. The Georgian
philosopher Merab Mamardashvili, who influenced the fourth generation of Vygotskian scholars, states
that the human being is a possibility; a physical birth does not guarantee that you are human (1990:189).
Human life is the conscious effort to sustain oneself in time and culture. Development, as a constant
spiritual effort, makes it possible to remain human. Freedom is a possibility too. To be free means to be
aware of the possibility of conscious choice versus simply existing, acting in order to be able to break
with what Virginia Woolf called the "cotton wool" of habit, of mere routine, of automatism, to seek
alternative ways of being, to look for openings.
From Vygotsky's developmental perspective, to be free is to reflect on alternative modes of being in
the world and to be the responsible author of constructing multiple socially meaningful realities, creating
the history of one's own development. All these actions are culturally mediated. Voluntary behavior as a
transition from direct, natural forms and ways of behaving to mediated, constructed forms is a necessary
but not sufficient condition to become free.
The dialectics of freedom and culture are embedded in a social, political, and educational context. The
search for freedom never occurs in a vacuum. People internalize higher psychological functions as
agents of socially meaningful activities: "the relationship between higher psychological functions was an
actual relationship between people; social forms of behavior in the process of development become
forms of personality's thinking and behavior (Vygotsky 1982:221; unless other-wise noted, all
translations are my own). Freedom is neither a given nor something to be taken for granted. It should be
created and recreated through human action. Freedom is a cultural-historical concept that can be
constructed through a particular social meaningful activity.
Freedom is characterized by a subject-subject relationship. Being a subject is one of the fundamental
human abilities-to construct and transform his or her own life. The freedom of self-determination allows
man to become an agent of existing socially meaningful activities and to create new ones. A subject is a
person who acts. Being a subject means to analyze a cessation of action, reflect on the lack of means,
formulate the goals, and actually to take a step in order to reach them. Human action as a free; voluntary
action has a dual character: ideal and real. Theoretical thinking shapes the ideal plan, but humanity
creates the real one.
Greene and Freire stress the importance of critical thinking in subject-subject relationships. Critical
thinking is a tool that helps one to become conscious of "spaces where one can take initiatives and
uncover humanizing possibilities" (Greene 1988:17, emphasis in original). Critical thinking, understood
as the ability to reflect and to analyze, is essential for liberation from oppression if we are to agree with
Freer that the op-pressed are subordinate to the consciousness of the master (1970:34).
In the Russian tradition we discuss subjectivity in terms of socially meaningful activity, theoretical
thinking, and voluntary behavior. Subjectivity is not a general term. Subject of what? Subject does not
exist apart from an action. A subject is an agent of a particular activity. For example, when a child learns
how to learn and reflects on his own learning, he or she becomes an agent of the learning activity. So,
mastering different cultural socially meaningful activities, becoming their agent, you become the master
of your own actions in different contexts, that is, you become free. Why theoretical thinking? Davidov
distinguished between theoretical and empirical thinking. Theoretical thinking has specific content
different from empirical thinking interlinked phenomena in the form of a system. Without it the same
phenomena can be just the subject of empirical observation. The specific content of theoretical thinking
is the objective relation between general/universal and unique/specific. Theoretical concepts, unlike
empirical ones, do not point to similar features in objects of a given class but observe fundamental
relationships within a system. Theoretical generalization has the power of prediction. Thus when we
construct analysis, reflection, de-signing, and modeling as the fundamental abilities in the framework of
theoretical thinking, it differs greatly from developing these abilities as separate ones. Theoretical
thinking is not a panacea, but a cultural means to create a context of development.
Thirty years of research under the leadership of the academician Davidov on implementation of the
principles of theoretical thinking in the elementary-school curriculum gave evidence of a significant
difference in development of students in experimental classes in comparison with their peers in regular
classes. Seven years of research at Eureka University under the leadership of A. Adamsky and my own
research in Developmental Teacher Education and Management Development Programs show that
principles of theoretical thinking can be a powerful tool of development for both teacher education and
management train-ng. Theoretical thinking empowers teacher-students with the abilities to model the
educational reality, to construct a shared mediated action with a child, to be aware of and develop basic
theoretical contradictions within a subject, to be able to reflect and analyze multiple educational realities
during a lesson, and finally, to construct and design their own professional actions. But at the same time
it limits the teacher to a single frame of reference. To what extent are we free to mold our identity within
the culture and gain the ability to reach its boundaries? The accumulation and mastery of a cultural tool
kit and its use in overcoming a dependency on a particular culture is one of the basic contradictions of
human development. The philosopher and linguist Mikhail Bakhtin (1981) asserted that culture exists at
the outer edge, in the situation of uncertainty.
Freedom depends a lot upon how the reality is interpreted and objectified and upon who transforms a
vague and enigmatic chaos into a meaningful cosmos. Freedom is especially important in the process of
change, when even previously established meanings are being trans-formed. There is much evidence
worldwide of negative experience in educational reform movements, mostly because the necessity of
change has not been objectified by their participants but was given to them as a ready-made decision. In
this case the process of change has an oppressive character. Instead of individual responsibility, shared
decision-making, and values as a shared objectified certainty, unreflected necessity to change becomes
an order.

Theory on the Verge

In the 1990s the fourth generation of Vygotsky scholars has begun to rethink some basic concepts of
cultural-historical theory. There are some reasons for this. First of all, for several decades Vygotsky's
followers have been interpreting, renaming, developing, and shaping the theory in different dimensions.
The achieved results achieved and reflected experience led to the need to come back to some essential
meanings. The first reason for this is historical-genetical. The cultural-historical concept and an
educational approach called "developmental education" have reached the historical stage of
developmental crisis as a cultural developing system.
The second reason is sociopolitical. In the middle of the 1980s with the new value system of
"perestroika," the whole context of Vygotsky's theory suddenly changed. In a nonreflective totalitarian
landscape of aggressive misunderstanding, for many years, at least three generations of Vygotskian
scholars struggled and survived, both spiritually and physically. Suddenly, the value of independent
critical thinking has been proclaimed through mass media and political speeches. No need to fight any
more. No need to blame the oppressors. For the first time the cultural-historical concept happened to be
"politically correct." Thus the community of scholars was faced with new tasks; among them, the most
influential for reconceptualization was the task of creating a model of a teachers' in-service
developmental education program.
And finally, the third reason is the international dialogue. The dialogue on Vygotsky's methodology
and dialectical "tree" of concepts started a long time ago when Vygotsky was re-creating Hegel, arguing
with Piaget, and so forth. But actual communication in "space" of different scholars from Western
Europe and the United States with Vygotskian Russian scholars recently began to influence the
development of the
theory in Russia. This dialogue with Vygotsky scholars from other countries and representatives of other
theoretical schools helps to find the reflective position on the boundary and redefine some essential
meanings. Theoretical dialogue as a certain "third space," or mediator, helps to open up new cultural
perspectives of development and challenge all the theories involved. In this article some of the essential
contradictions for the future dialogue will be pointed out.
Carpay (1993:4) said that Vygotskianism is a way of life. To rethink Vygotsky's main concepts, that
is, to practice Vygotskian thinking, this reflective position on the boundary of cultural-historical theory
should be found. To gain this status within Vygotsky's cultural-historical concept means to define basic
contradictions as dialectical germ cells of the conceptual development. Here are some of the concepts
and contradictions being discussed among Russian Vygotskian scholars and their Western colleagues. As
a scholar, interpreter, and mediator at a number of international conferences in Russia, Western Europe,
and the United States, I found that the following notions are understood in different ways: teaching and
learning versus development, learning leading development, and zone o f proximal development.

Zone of Proximal Development

The zone of proximal development (ZPD) is defined by Vygotsky as "the distance between the actual
developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential
development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more
capable peers" (Vygotsky 1984:246-255). This methodological concept set the course toward the new
body of knowledge that was anticipated by Hegel and Marx in the 19th century and that influenced
development of an educational approach in Russia: developmental education. "Pedagogy should be
oriented not on the past, but on the next day of a child's development" (Vygotsky 1984:251); that is, only
learning that is constructed in the ZPD can be considered developmental. Two things are significant
here: ZPD is an abstract notion that implies the historical, not the individual, child; and ZPD is a
possible transition, not a fixed state of consciousness. Only through dialectics of the relationship
between zone of actual development (ZAD) and zone of proximal development is it possible to define
both.
In the United States the creation of the ZPD is sometimes discussed. I believe that the ZPD is
culturally, historically, and socially determined. For example, in the 1990s everybody seems to be
concerned about an elementary school student's ability to learn independently, and it is accepted as
ability in the ZPD for a six-year-old child, but in the social context of 1960s Russia, an independent
learning ability for an elementary school student was a strange proposition. ZPD is defined by a
developing culture and is determined by the social situation of development and norms and forms of
interactions. One creates the ways to internalize the tools of culturally mediated activity to construct a
new image of oneself that is in the ZPD. According to Elkonin, the inner moving force of the personality
and psychological development is an "eternal dissatisfaction with oneself' (translated from 1989:259).
One creates his or her place in culture through the constant effort of mind and soul to be the other.
A child is from the very early stages two individuals-he himself and the other (the desired ideal of
himself).... Transition periods are the ones where the new desired ideals are created, and stable periods
are the ones where the ideals are constructed; leading activities are the forms. Therefore construction is a
necessary inner moment in the development. This is a form of interaction between real and ideal forms.
[Translated from Elkonin 1989:315] The relationship between individual "ideal form" and cultural "ideal
form" is an abstract notion of the ZPD of a historical child.
For many years in Russia the concept of ZPD has been discussed in the context of Elkonin's theory of
age. Developmental education deals with the historical child. Every act of development happens on the
crossroads of the phylogenetic and ontogenetic dimensions. The nucleus of the act of development is a
new psychological construct in the conscious-ness, a new, higher psychological function. For example,
for the pre-school child it is imagination; for the elementary-school-age child it is theoretical thinking;
and so forth. This development of a new psychological function is the mediator for the transition from
ZAD to ZPD for the historical child. These higher psychological functions (imagination, theoretical
thinking, etc.) are reflected by historically developing human consciousness; they are hidden within
cultural forms and can be reconstructed and internalized through corresponding socially meaningful
activities. Therefore to teach developmentally is to teach in the zone of proximal development for the
child or adult of particular historical age, toward the ideal form of human potential within the historically
developing cultural consciousness, using the cultural tool kit of mediated signs to reconstruct the ideal
plan of the cultural form. What is created, what is reconstructed, and what is rediscovered in relation to
the zone of proximal development is a topic for further discourse among Vygotsky scholars.
Social Situation of Development/Context
I agree totally with Carpey (1993:4) when he says that, if reason was a key term for the 18th century, as
development was for the 19th, then surely culture and contextualism are serious candidates for such a
position in the second half of the 20th century.
The social situation of development is a system of relationships among the child, his or her peer
group, and adults.
It should be admitted that the beginning of every age is characterized by a unique-for-this-age system of
relationships between the child and the world, above all a social one. “We will name this relationship
social situation of development in this particular age. Social situation of development is the initial
starting point for all the dynamic change that happens during this period. It defines totally those forms
and the means by which the child gains new characteristics of personality, derived from the social
reality, as the main source of development, as the way for the social to become the individual.
[Translated from Vygotsky 1984,4:258-259]
This concept, together with the leading type of activity and newly formed higher psychological function,
became the foundation for Daniil Elkonin's theory of age. Social situation o f development as a concept
can be regarded only within an analysis of the developmental dynamics, the developmental change of the
human being toward an ideal form of voluntary behavior, the ability to reflect, transform, and manage
the system of relationships in the world via material/ideal artifacts. (This concept should not be confused
with context or social context, words that are widely used now and are understood as a frame for a
particular action or process.)

Action/Act/Activity/Doing
It is difficult to find a concept more widely used in Russian psychological literature than the concept of
activity. For several decades this concept has been developed through theoretical and experimental re-
search.
Vygotsky saw consciousness as the leading psychological concept, a fundamental contradiction on the
basis of which the whole psychological theory is built. And according to his methodological principles,
he was looking for the way to understand consciousness as a whole. What makes it whole? He
understood consciousness through the concept of activity. "The link between the activities of
consciousness is not constant.
This link should become a focus of our research" (Vygotsky 1982:157). And it is even more important
to consider, not the separate activities, but the relationships between them. "The link and relation-ship
between different activities is the central issue in the study of any system" (Vygotsky 1984, 2:157).
Activity is one of the main concepts in developmental education, and it should be regarded within a
system of developing concepts. The agents of the socially meaningful activities construct jointly the
images of the world. Consciousness is developed and manifested in activity as an interpersonally
distributed one. For example, theoretical thinking can be formed in a particular type of activity: learning.
(According to Davydov and Galperin, the most powerful learning arrangement is in the realm of
theoretical thinking.) In the process of investigative teaching and learning, a theoretical concept is
distributed in the consciousness of teacher and students. Theoretical concepts do not exist unless they are
recreated and rediscovered in a learning activity such as quasi-research. Activity is a form of
transmission of culture.
For many years action was considered a unit of activity. In experimental school-laboratories (School 91,
Moscow; Schools 4 and 17, Kharkov) psychologists, subject specialists, and teachers designed the
curriculum and teaching methodology whose educational goal was to form theoretical thinking-that is,
such abilities as reflection, analysis, planning, evaluation, and modeling-in the consciousness of the
elementary school students. Learning was considered to be an activity in which these abilities could be
gained. In the course of research it became possible to identify act as a unit of activity. In fact, this
means that at the present stage of the development of the cultural-historical concept the relationships
between different actions within one activity and relation-ships between different activities are being
reflected. Several things are important when we discuss human action versus doing. Human action has a
dual nature, two dimensions, and includes two actions: the ideal plan and a real one. The internal picture
of a human action is the form in which action and nonaction are coordinated. It is a mediated action,
action with a tool, with a constructed image of itself. The human action is always addressed.
Element/Unit Analysis

In recent years, Vygotsky's methodology has been the object of inter-national discussion. This is not
surprising because the principles of his research methodology proved to be effective in different fields of
study. For example, the principles of mediated intervention, sociocultural analysis, and using models as
cultural artifacts to predict and formulate a vision play a central role in the design of management theory
that is now being developed in a number of regions of the former Soviet Union by professors and
consultants of Eureka University (in Moscow). I would like to consider a methodological principle that
has not been widely discussed.
Vygotsky distinguished element analysis from unit analysis. In element analysis, it is important to
know a number of elements and their specific features. In unit analysis methodologically one needs to
find the basic concept, or the so-called germ cell, and follow the history of its development within a
system of concepts. What I want to emphasize is that even if we deal with a concept in its genesis, it
should be considered within a system of developing, mediated contradictions.
Let's apply this methodological principle in analyzing the concept of system, specifically of the school
as a system. I believe that the initial assumption about the school as a system influences the whole
process of change. In Figure 1, system is understood as a number of elements. Element analysis helps to
reorganize but keeps the system basically the same. Either an element is added, or the elements are
reorganized. In this case we do not influence the frame itself; that is, we do not change our philosophy
and our set of values. In the case of curriculum change, we add one more subject, change the sequence of
topics, and so forth. Unit is understood here as a system of relationships, a germ-cell with basic
dialectical contradictions that make it develop. When the whole paradigm is supposed to be restructured,
the system of relationships should be influenced (see Figure 2).

"Logic of Feelings "/Feeling

Russian Vygotsky scholars were once asked, during an international seminar at Eureka University in
Moscow, how they felt about a given concept. They were taken aback. Emotions were never understood
as a direct source of knowledge or understanding within the Vygotsky school. Developmental education
was often accused of being too rational. Two issues are important here. First, to influence feelings
directly is not human from the cultural-historical perspective. Second, generalized cognitive emotion, a
kind of "think-feeling" has always been considered and analyzed as an important part of the process of
learning and rediscovering the concept. Regarding a concept of age, Vygotsky paid

434 Anthropology & Education Quarterly Volume 26,1995

much attention to an ability to generalize feelings; which he called the "logic of feelings." But there is a
need for profound and systematic research on the emotional side of human action in culture within
developmental education.
Reflection/Description
 Thought is freedom in relation to what one does, the motion
by which one detaches oneself from it, establishes it as an
object, and reflects upon it as a problem.
Michel Foucault
Writing in the context of the concept of reflection encourages reflection on reflection itself, and this,
in turn, suggests a paradox: literally, to, - reflect is to think, not to describe the event. But reflection is
more than merely bringing something to mind. Reflection means asking basic questions of oneself. The
basic and comprehensive question during reflection is "What am I doing and why?" Reflection is a form
of slightly distorted self-evaluation, distorted in the sense that judgment is emphasized rather than data
collection. On the other hand, to reflect means to stop acting, but at the same time it is one of the most
powerful actions. Dewey's definition of reflective thinking as "active, persistent and careful
consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in light of the grounds that support it and the
further conclusions to which it tends" (Dewey 1933:9) is close to a Vygotskian understanding, but in
Vygotskian terms every concept should be considered within a paradigm of development and voluntary
mediated action. The ability to reflect is one of an acting subject, who lives on the verge and reflects on
it. Before you start thinking about the beginning, you wait for the uncertainty to glimmer. With the
tolerance for ambiguity, you make your path of self-critical questioning through a maze of multiple
possibilities. Reflection is a "becoming space" for the new thinking and imagining. It is a living force of
consciousness. In reflection, the consciousness not only addresses itself as acting, but also the reasons
for acting, the ability itself. Within a frame of human development the genesis of every concept should
be regarded as being recreated simultaneously in three historical dimensions: phylogenetic (the history of
human consciousness since human beings emerged as a distinct species), ontogenetic (the individual
history of development), and microgenetic (the development of the particular psychological process in
the course of trial interactions in a single experimental session).
Phylogenetic. The special phylogenetic capacity of Homo sapiens is cultural mediation. Let's take, for
example, reflection. Reflection is the ability to make one's own behavior an object of study; to manage it
via the ideal ability to regard oneself as the other. Reflection in this case works as an ideal artifact, a
cultural tool, cardinally changing human consciousness.
Different forms of reflection are preserved and transmitted from generation to generation. An individual
builds up his or her consciousness through decoding, reconstructing, redeveloping forms of culture. The
ability to reflect appears at an advanced stage on the sufficiently developed stage of human development.
One can indicate the presence of reflective position if the distinction is made between thinking and the
forms in which it occurs, or between the person in the process of thinking and the thought itself.
The direct transfer of the philosophical concept in psychology and education can only lead to its
depreciation. Taken from its context and transferred to the other without being embedded in a
developing system of concepts and reconstruction of its meaning, this concept will not add anything
either to psychology or to education.

Ontogenetic. If you look for the word reflection in Vygotsky's works, you will hardly find it. But without
naming it, Vygotsky posed the problem of transfer from direct forms of behavior to indirect, mediated
forms of behavior organization and management, and to voluntary behavior. The essential moment of
such a behavior organization is its objectivation, its presentation through the mediation of signs.
Reflection changes the character of the action. An acting person stops dealing with the situational
action but regards the sphere of possible actions. The structure of an action changes (see Figure 3).
Reflection as a cultural ability is a fundamental characteristic of self-consciousness. It is a powerful
effort of thought leading out of the limits of one certainty to the relationship and connection with other
certainties; in other words, it is a kind of ideal "bridge" rooted in the past toward
Microgenetic. In learning activity it is important to distinguish between formal reflection and
fundamental reflection. If the learner relies on situational data, then reflection can be considered
situational even if the doer of the action realizes the reasons for his actions. If the subject of the activity
grounds his actions and reflection in the nonsituational, but basic, conceptual framework and
considers it the reasons for his actions, then such a reflection should be considered a fundamental one,
because it leads to the solution of tasks different in form but similar in meaning.
It is important to state that both formal and fundamental reflection is the processes of considering
ways of acting as opposed to conditions of action. In the attempt to contextualize his or her action, the
individual either has recourse to a previously discovered way of acting or tries to work out the new one.
Reflection is a human ability of the agent of the action to be self-conscious, the ability to regard oneself
or one's own action as the other, as the subject of the purposeful change.
Some of the contradictions and clarifications pointed out have been highlighted in the course of
research on the Teacher In-Service Developmental Education Program. The second part of this article
will focus on the problems of teacher in-service education, based on the principles of developmental
education.
A Teacher's Learning Activity as a Process of Self-Identification in Culture
Culture and human life at the end of the 20th century are fundamental challenges to the mind and
soul. Education is confronted by new tasks. One's understanding of the world, oneself, and other people-
the notion of professionalism-depends a great deal on the capacity for personal development in a rapidly
and constantly changing world. It is more and more difficult for a human being, who is only a composite
of functions, directed by a set of rules, to identify him- or herself in a modern world.
The state of postmodern social consciousness has given rise to a worldwide debate on the revalidation
of an old concept, the concept of cultural identity. It is widely discussed in a public discourse in relation
to the impact of the sociocultural dimensions of economic and societal development (Toulmin 1990).
It was Herder, a German philosopher of history, who coined the notion of cultural identity. He argued
that ideas and outlooks could be understood adequately only in genetic and historical terms, as
expressions of the particular stage in the continuing development of the society in which they originated.
Herder first drew wide attention to the propo-sition that among the basic human needs is the wish to
belong to a particular group united by some common links (especially language and collective memory).
The fact that the concept of cultural identity has later been distorted does not imply its irrelevance to the
present-day frame of mind.
Lawrence Grossberg states that the process of identification for a modern humanistic individual is
articulated in three distinct dimensions: the "subject" as a unified source of knowledge and experience,
the "agent" as a position of activity, and the "self" as the bearer of social identity. For him, identity as
subjectivity is understood as a disassembled and reassembled unity among these three dimensions
(Grossberg 1988).
The concept of identity has many different connotations and is often discussed in a context of society,
race, and gender. At one time it seems to refer to a conscious sense of individual uniqueness, at another
to an unconscious striving for a continuity of experience, and yet again, as a solidarity with a group's
ideals. In some respects the term identity appears to be colloquial and naive, a mere manner of speaking,
while in others it is related to existing theoretical concepts, for example, in the psychological notions of
self-concept, self-system, self-representation, and so forth. I would like to discuss identity as a category
of professional development. I think we somehow underestimate the degree of influence of professional
"self" on gradual integration of personality self-images.
The teacher must choose among different educational professional communities that have different
professional group identities. Like all the communities pursuing projects in the world, they are governed
by "norms, values and principles that are both overtly seen and covertly felt. By being made up of
individuals and groups of scholars, they also have a significant history of both intellectual and
interpersonal struggle" (Apple 1990:88). Behind every educational community of learners, there is
always a particular school of thought and norms and values of communication. Sometimes it is hidden
and not recognized, existing just in the teacher's "blood"; in other cases, teachers are very conscious of
the genesis of their norms and teaching strategies. For example, teachers from Waldorf school
communities never risk arguing about the values of their educational beliefs and norms and their
understanding of child development; they simply believe in it. Elementary school teachers in England
are not aware of the fact that almost all of their values are predetermined by Piaget's theory of child
development. And finally, for Vygotskian teachers, challenging the fundamental concepts is the way to
develop the approach itself. It is always an enigma why, with the presentation of different educational
approaches, some teachers choose Montessori's approach, others Vygotsky's or Dewey's, while the rest
try to combine various theories. In a short time they learn the "corporate" language and values and the
norms of communication. The question as to the teacher's awareness of his or her underpinning
philosophy and psychological principles of teaching should be a controversial one. A number of
researchers consider such an awareness to be an unnecessary complication in teacher education. In terms
of the Vygotskian theoretical concepts discussed in the first part of this article, the teacher's awareness of
the philosophy, psychology, and principles of curriculum design is crucial to becoming a self-
determining professional, whose strategies are based on metacontextual knowledge and not on
something declara-tive and procedural. This kind of awareness is also important if we discuss the
teacher's status as one of a cultural mediator.
Nowadays the application of cultural-historical theory in education and its development and
modification of educational practices depend to a great extent on a reconceptualization of a theory of
professional development and the design of a teacher developmental education program.
In Vygotskian tradition the teacher is expected to be not only a cultural mediator but also a teacher-
researcher. To gain this status the student teachers should experience investigative learning during the
process of their own education. To understand in Vygotsky's terms means to change. For the teacher to
be able to change and develop curriculum it is necessary to have the cultural and educational tools to
change and develop as a professional. The process of professional self-determination, the conscious
choice of this or that educational strategy, is a very powerful means of development.
 A holistic educational system such as developmental education has an external dimension and internal
dimension. By external dimension I mean a philosophical system of views, a psychological theory of
development and curriculum, the essential knowledge for teaching in developmental education. By
internal dimension I mean the integration of the regulated units of psychological activity being formed in
the process of the teacher's mastery of a cultural educational system of developmental education.
Therefore, an ideal plan of developmental education is a psychological system, or speaking in
Vygotskian terms, a system of higher psychological functions, mediated by the acts of activity. For
example, for a future teacher to be able to construct a mediated activity with his or her students, he or
she must be able to conduct theoretical analysis with the help of different cultural artifacts. To learn how
to do it, he or she must experience a cognitive conflict in a specially organized activity, reflect on a
"gap," and construct a cultural tool with the help of which he or she can solve this conflict included in
the particular learning task.
The teacher's professional development and self-determination are only possible by means of a process
of mastering a cultural educational system. A professional mastery of any cultural educational system
involves the internalization of an ideal plan, a psychological system of the concept, mediated by specific
types of activities.
The teacher's professional development is a self-directed process of becoming a subject/agent of
learning professional activity. The social situation of development should provide various educational
alternatives for a teacher to make choices. The teacher in his or her ontogenesis learns through making
decisions, choosing among profound and ethically valuable alternatives. Anthropology and a theory of
values address educational psychology through the question of the genesis of meanings and values, how
these values are connected with the motives of an acting subject, how these motives have been acquired,
and how the subject evaluates them and his or her own activity. A personality cannot be defined by a list
of features. Professional status is shaped in the decision-making processes. Personality is manifested in
its confrontations with the world and, in our case, with the system of values and norms of a cultural
educational system.
The teacher's learning is a meaning-making activity. A teacher must be given an opportunity to
construct his or her own frame of reference and professional action in a situation of cultural self-
determination. This leads us to the issue of goal setting. Leontiev (1975:101-123) asserted that an action
has both intentional and operational aspects. An operational aspect is defined not only by a goal but also
by a set of conditions to reach it. In other words, the accomplishing action corresponds to the task, a task
that is a goal itself, given under certain conditions. Designing the pedagogical action presupposes that
the teacher has a clear vision of his or her goal and is able to analyze the objective conditions related to
it. That means that to become an agent of learning-professional activity it is necessary to have the ability
to plan and design pedagogical actions and anticipate feedback. Even teaching how to create uncertainty,
as a free space for mutual inquiry has to be planned and reflected.
Activity, for Hegel and Leontiev, presumes the ability to objectify the content and methods of activity
under conditions of the thinking experiments. On the one hand, it allows professional reflection on them
and, on the other hand, management of them. The principle of objectivation of someone's own
psychological processes, one's own thinking and consciousness, as one of the backgrounds of an activity
approach demands from the teacher a mastery of the cultural tool kit of such an objectivation and
development of the ability to reflect.
 A theory of learning activity and principles of curriculum design enable the creation of a model of
teacher professional development. In order for a student-teacher to become an agent of learning-
professional activity, the content of a developmental teacher education program should be designed as a
system of psychopedagogical concepts of developmental education. A learning session becomes a space
for a teacher investigative learning activity.
The following principles of the seminar design can be defined:
(1) Principle of Correspondence of Method to Content. A seminar is de-signed as a learning task on
one of the basic contradictions, philosophical categories or psychological concepts of cultural-historical
theory. It provides the possibility of involving a teacher in the discussion of philosopher, psychologist,
and educator on a real conceptual problem. According to Rubenstein (1989), the thinking process begins
when a doer of the action must solve the problem; this situation engenders a motivation to develop
thinking abilities. Vygotsky considered development of thinking to be central to the whole structure of
consciousness and for the whole system of activity of the psychological functions (Vygotsky 1984,
2:415). If an elementary school student masters a learning activity such as quasi-research, a teacher is
involved in a research activity on the construction of fundamental psychological and educational
concepts.
(2) Principle of Modeling. Forms of learning activity as a sphere of possibilities are grounded on the
basic contradictions of the seminar. The main activity principle is the principle of modeling.
(3) Principle of Self-Determination. There is a choice of activities at the seminar to support the
possibility of professional self-determination.
(4) Principle of Self-Organization and Co-organization of Different Contents and Types of Activity.
(5) Principle of Analysis and Reflection at Every Stage.
A teacher's professional development is his or her formation as a subject (doer of the action).
Development of subjectivity is based on the development of the abilities to analyze, plan, design, and
reflect. The developmental education concept is not a goal to achieve but a means that helps to formulate
one's own professional position.
In a situation of diversity of educational goals, a teacher must be able to formulate goals of his own
professional activity. Culture is an ability to deal with diversity. It seems impossible to formulate your
own professional goals and design your own way of professional development without analysis of and
reflection on your own professional activity, without awareness of the cultural educational system
background, and without awareness of a value system.
A traditional school of skills and empirical concepts did not require a development of such abilities as
reflection and analysis. That is why a lot of teachers in Russia now are not capable of formulating their
own educational goals. A lack of means for self-determination has led to the loss of cultural
identification, where the teacher's professional position is unclear.
How is a cultural educational system consciously chosen? Analyzing different educational systems, a
teacher reflects upon his or her own
Professional values. But the real self-determination occurs only during the mastering of an educational
strategy. Gaining a professional position is understood as a process of self-identification. In the process
of learning, a teacher analyzes his or her professional stereotypes, modifies the methods of professional
activity, finds his or her approach to a new curriculum, and creates an image of "self"-professional.
The following stages can be defined in the process of modeling of the teacher's professional position:
• Awareness of the professional values and the backgrounds of professional activity
• Modification of the former professional stereotypes, analysis of the professional deficiencies
• Mastery of the cultural educational system;

• Creating a new professional image of oneself and professional activity in the sociocultural context.

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