Game and mental development. Basic theories of children's play. Game genesis. The role of play in the mental development of the child. Types of games and age of the child

Many educators and psychologists who have studied play have emphasized the importance of play for the child's mental development. The outstanding Russian teacher K. D. Ushinsky gave great importance to the game. He wrote: “For a child, play is reality, and reality much more interesting than the one that surrounds him. It is more interesting for the child because, in part, there is his own creation. The child lives in play, and the traces of this life remain deeper in him than the traces of real life, into which he could not yet enter due to the complexity of its phenomena and interests. In real life, a child is nothing more than a child, a being that does not yet have any independence, blindly and carelessly carried away by the course of life; in the game, the child, already a maturing person, tries his hand and independently manages his own creations. The game is the leading activity in school age, it has a significant impact on the development of the child. First of all, in the game, children learn to fully communicate with each other. Research conducted by A.P. Usanova and her students revealed the following levels of formation of such relationships during preschool childhood: - the level of disorganized behavior that leads to the destruction of other children's games (the child takes away toys, breaks buildings, etc.). Mostly this behavior occurs in younger preschoolers who do not yet know how to play; however, in recent times tendencies towards aggressive behavior and destruction are observed in a large number of older children - even among older preschoolers there are children with behavior that characterizes the first level; - the level of single games is characterized by the fact that the child does not interact with other children, but does not prevent them from playing. The fact that the baby is focused on his game, knows how to organize it, is a prerequisite for the transition to joint games; - the level of games next to each other is manifested in the fact that two or three children can play at the same table, but each acts in accordance with his game goal, realizing his plan. The value of this level is that the child develops an understanding of how to relate to the game of another. At this level, conditions are created for the natural association of playing children; - the level of short-term communication, interaction is characterized by the fact that for some time the child subordinates his actions to the general plan and harmonizes them with the actions of others. New stage games are distinguished by the appearance of a plan and the desire of children to pick up the appropriate objects, toys. But the idea is not yet stable; during the games, children can change it or forget about it. This behavior indicates a lack of ability to organize the game, plan it. But the most important thing is that preschoolers do not yet feel their connection and dependence on common activities; -- the level of long-term communication-interaction based on interest in the content of the game. The child has the initial forms of a responsible attitude to his role in common game. He begins to evaluate the quality and result of his personal actions and the actions of his peers in terms of the tasks of joint play. The duration of the game is related to the interest of children. At this stage, children are quite independent, they can come up with an interesting plot, organize a game and play for a long time; -- the level of constant interaction based on common interests, electoral sympathies. Children, united by friendly interests, are able to yield to each other in choosing a plot, distributing roles, and coordinating their actions. The game situation and actions with it have a constant impact on the mental development of the child. preschool age. In the game, the child learns to act with the substitute for the object - he gives the substitute a new game name and acts with it in accordance with the name. The subject-substitute becomes a support for thinking. On the basis of actions with objects - substitutes, the child learns to think about a real object. Gradually, play actions with objects are reduced and the child learns to think about objects and act with them mentally. Thus, the game to a greater extent contributes to the fact that the child gradually moves to thinking in terms of representations. Role play is essential to the development of the imagination. In the games of children of older preschool age, substitute objects are no longer necessary, just as many game actions are optional. Children learn to identify objects and actions with them, to create new situations in their imagination. The game can take place internally. Productive activities of the child - drawing, design - at different stages of preschool childhood are closely merged with the game. Drawing, the child often plays the plot. The animals drawn by him fight among themselves, catch up with each other, the wind plucks hanging apples, etc. Within the play activity, learning activity begins to take shape, which later becomes the leading activity. The elements of the teaching are introduced by an adult; they do not arise directly from the game. A preschooler begins to learn by playing - he treats learning as a kind of role play with certain rules. Fulfilling these rules, the child imperceptibly masters elementary educational actions. The preschooler has a desire to learn and the initial skills are added. The game as a leading activity is of particular importance for the development of reflective thinking. Reflection is the ability of a person to analyze his own actions, deeds, motives and correlate them with universal human values, as well as with the actions, deeds, motives of other people. In a role-playing game, the prerequisites for reflection arise as a purely human ability to comprehend one's own actions, anticipating the reaction of other people. The game, with its appropriate organization, creates favorable conditions for the development and improvement of the movements of a preschool child. Complex motor skills are acquired by a child not in the game, but through direct teaching, but it is the game that creates favorable conditions for their further improvement. The game is the first form of activity available to preschoolers, which involves the conscious reproduction and improvement of new movements. In a developed role-playing game with its intricate plots and complex roles that create a fairly wide scope for improvisation, children develop creative imagination . The game contributes to the formation of arbitrary memory. The mechanism for controlling one's behavior - obedience to the rules - is formed precisely in the game, and then appears in other types of activity. Arbitrariness implies the presence of a pattern of behavior followed by the child, and control. In the game, the model is not moral norms or other requirements of adults, but the image of another person, whose behavior is copied by the child. Self-control only appears towards the end of preschool age, so initially the child needs external control - from his playmates. Children control each other first, and then each of himself. External control gradually falls out of the process of controlling behavior, and the image begins to regulate the child's behavior directly. Thus, the game contributes to the formation of arbitrary behavior of the child. The game has a significant impact on intellectual development. At the initial stages of the development of a role-playing game, a child already has thoughts about an object on the basis of a word, but he can act on a mental plane only when he is based on real objects. The development of play actions with objects goes along the line of their reduction and generalization. This forms the basis for the transition to mental actions (generalization of objects, their comparison, abstraction of the concept from the object, imagination). The game prepares the child for the upcoming schooling, which consists in the formation of specific forms of mental actions. Role play is important not only for the development of certain forms of mental activity of a preschool child, but also for the formation of his personality. The fulfillment by the child of the assumed role of adults is connected with his emotional impulses. As the game progresses, many fleeting desires arise, mainly due to the attraction of other objects not at the child's disposal, or the roles that other children play. But the child must give up these accidental desires in favor of the main motive. “In the process of resolving this conflict, which takes place in almost any role-playing game, two important features of the child’s motivational sphere are formed: firstly, the subordination of motives is formed here, the subordination of situational motives to more general and higher ones; secondly, here the motives of a higher type are formed, associated with the fulfillment of the duties assumed. (D. B. Elkonin). The game develops not only the motivational-need sphere of the child. In the process of carrying out certain tasks, playful in form, but reflecting a certain social content, children master social functions, social relations, and socially developed norms of behavior. Thus, the formation of the most important aspects of the personality of a preschool child as a member of society takes place in the game. The game is called the "queen of childhood" (D. B. Elkonin).

Lecture 3. Game and mental development child

Purpose of the lecture: to determine the role and place of play in the mental development of a younger student.

Key Issues Addressed in the Lecture:

1. The role of play in the mental development of the child.
2. Formation of arbitrariness in the game.
3. Requirements for the organization of games.

Question 1. The role of the game in the mental development of the child.

The meaning of the game according to L. S. Vygotsky lies in the development and exercise of all the abilities and inclinations of the child. The game teaches, shapes, changes, educates. Play creates the child's zone of proximal development (L. S. Vygotsky, 1983). An analysis of a child's play activity can serve as an important diagnostic tool for determining the level of a child's development. As K. D. Ushinsky wrote, “in his games, a child discovers without pretense his entire spiritual life”

Even more important than diagnostic, the game is for the full upbringing and development of the child. As far back as the 19th century, the Russian teacher A. I. Sikorsky pointed out this: “The main tool or tool mental development early childhood is served by tireless mental activity, which is usually called games and amusements.

Game plot, presentation of educational or any other tasks in game form, first of all, serve to attract the child to activities, create positive motivation in him (recall the example of D. B. Elkonin (1978) about his daughters who categorically refuse to eat semolina and gladly gobble it up in the game in kindergarten), relieve fears , including fears of training sessions, new environment and people, facilitate the child's acceptance of educational (correctional and developmental activities) and provide optimal conditions for its implementation. "The child, wishing, performs, thinking, acts." Learning in an imaginary situation makes the child feel like a "source" of learning. The immersion of a baby with still unformed play activity into an imaginary situation, in the environment of older playing children, affects his zone of proximal development, and contributes to the transition of the child to the next age stage. In adolescence, an imaginary situation becomes a means of comprehending one's own relationships and emotions, but also a way of idealizing the image of "I".

The game stimulatesexploratory behavioraimed at finding and acquiring new information. stimulateddevelopment of cognitive abilities,observation, ingenuity and curiosity. By creating imaginary situations, the child has the opportunity to move alongspace and time- consequently, spatio-temporal functions develop.

There is evidence of a connection between the features of play at preschool age and the formation of reading skills in children. primary school. It is shown that children who do not succeed in reading, less than successful schoolchildren, played before school with their peers outside the home, spent less time board games, folded pictures and engaged in artistic creativity.

In the situation of the game is formedmore complex organization of movements,new movements are reproduced and improved. Play (especially collective play) successfully contributes to overcoming motor disinhibition in neurotic children (Spivakovskaya, 1981).

Moves to a new stage of development in the game andspeech activity.The child acts with the meanings of objects, relying at the initial stages of the development of the game on their material substitutes - toys, and then only on the word-name as a sign of the object, and actions become generalized actions accompanied by speech. The game situation creates a renaming of the subject, and then the player. The so-called "role speech" (D. B. Elkonin) appears, determined by the role of the speaker and the role of the one to whom it is addressed. This is best evidenced by the experience of the experimental formation of role-playing games in mentally retarded children: as role-playing behavior was formed, children's speech became richer and more diverse in its functions: planning speech and speech arose as a means of an emotional attitude to objects (Sokolova, 1973). role play in puppet show helps children with stuttering overcome speech defects.

Active play activity with meanings torn off from objects develops imagination and increasescreative potentialchild, as the child in his own way transforms environment, which often leads to new, unconventional results.

The game translates thinking child to a new, higher level. In the game, the ability for abstract thinking, generalization and categorization is formed due to the fact that the child's play actions are abstracted from a specific objective situation and acquire a collapsed, generalized character. From detailed actions to mental actions, their verbalization and conclusions - this is the way to form abstract thinking in the game.

Role play developsvoluntary attention and voluntary memorythrough the desire to understand and best reproduce the inner content of the role and all the rules for its implementation. These cognitive abilities are essential to success in school.

The game is formed child's self-awareness ability to identifythrough identifying oneself with an image or role in a figurative or role-playing game, with other players in a game with rules, or with other characters or spectators in a director's game. Identification ensures the formation of interpersonal decentration and arbitrariness. From identifying himself with the other, the child in play moves on to separating himself from the other. Through the game position (role), a personal position is formed, the ability to see oneself from the position of another, the desire to take a different position, motivation for achievement.

The formation of the ability to decenter in the game is a necessary condition for the socialization of the child, and its basis is the cognitive abilities of the child developing in the game. The game is the best opportunity for a harmonious combination of learning and development of the child.

Having ceased to be the leading activity, one or another type of play turns into a form of organizing the life and activity of the child. In this capacity, the game has a different meaning, a different place in the lives of children, makes a different contribution to their mental development. In this and only in this capacity, the game can become a learning tool, a tool used to organize and support the educational process, a tool used in psycho-correctional pedagogy, etc.” (Kravtsov, 2001, p. 299).

At any stage of development, in any form, the game contributes to the intellectual, emotional and moral development of the child.

Self-test task:

1. Choose the verbs that most adequately reflect the meaning of the game.

A. teaches, shapes, changes, educates.

B. plays, tests, punishes, encourages

V. educates, develops, integrates

ANSWER. AND.

2. What cognitive processes develop during the game in children of primary school age?

A. voluntary memory, voluntary attention, abstract thinking

B. involuntary attention, involuntary memory, thinking

B. speech, learning skills, creativity.

ANSWER. AND.

Question 2. Formation of arbitrariness in the game.

L. S. Vygotsky called the game "a school ... of arbitrary behavior."

Voluntary behavior is understood as “behavior that is carried out in accordance with a pattern (regardless of whether it is given in the form of the actions of another person or in the form of an already distinguished rule) and controlled by comparing with this pattern as a standard.”

The game contributes to the awareness of oneself as a subject of action, forms an understanding of freedom and prohibitions, differentiation of one's will and someone else's. The plot of the game restructures for the child the internal psychological meaning of the actions performed / not performed. A new psychological form of motives arises in the game: unconscious, affectively colored immediate desires are transformed in the game into generalized, partially conscious intentions.

Initiative as the ability to act on one's own impulses is the most important component of voluntary behavior. Its second component is comprehension situations of game action (“want” and “need”). An important factor in the formation of voluntary control and regulation is the desire to earn the approval of an adult.

A special role in the development of voluntary behavior belongs to the role-playing game and the game with the rules. The role of an adult, which the child takes on, regulates actions with objects and relations with other children in accordance with their roles. Having assumed a certain role, the child is guided by its rules and subordinates his impulsive behavior to the fulfillment of these rules (obligations). Any role is not only a predetermined mode of action, but also the inhibition of some desirable for the child in this moment impulsive actions, because they are prohibited by the rules of the game. In the course of such games, children begin to manifest a volitional restraining principle.

D. B. Elkonin experimentally identified four stages in the formation of obedience to the rule in a role-playing game as the central core of the role performed by the child:

1. There are no rules, since in fact there is no role yet, and the child's behavior is subject to impulsive desire;
2. The rule does not yet appear explicitly, but overcomes the immediate desire in case of conflict;
3. The rule clearly plays a role, but does not yet fully define behavior. When a violation is pointed out, the error in the performance of the role is immediately corrected;
4. Behavior is completely determined by the rules of the game, which always win over impulsive situational desires for other actions.

Playing with the rules leads to the appearance of schematic plans that give a perspective on the actions of each participant in the game. The more developed the game, the more rules it has, which apply to an increasing number of game moments: the role relationships of children, the values ​​attached to toys, the sequence of plot development. Role relationships in the game reflect the real interpersonal relationships of people whose roles are played by the child.

If you can win the competition only by obeying certain rules, then the implementation of these rules becomes not only understandable and justified for children, but also pleasant.

Arbitrary control of behavior is gradually being replaced by automated forms of control. External rules become internal representations of how one should behave in a certain situation. The formation of arbitrary regulation of one's activity is an important component of the development of a child's personality.

At the same time, a high level of voluntary regulation in play, as a rule, does not correlate with that in everyday life (retaining and following instructions from an adult) due to the unformed supra-situational position at primary school age, associated with insufficient maturity of the morpho-functional systems of the brain that provide regulation and control of activities

Meanwhile, the beginning of schooling places increased demands on the level of formation of arbitrary regulation of activity.

Game activity contributes best to its formation, because any game is a test of the will, an action “along the line of greatest resistance” (in the words of L. S. Vygotsky) and, thus, a school of volitional behavior and, consequently, a school of personality. “The game gives the child a new form of desire, i.e., teaches him to desire, correlating desire to the fictitious “I” (i.e., to the role in the game and its rule), i.e., in the game, the highest achievements of the child are possible, which tomorrow become his average real level, his morality... Action in an imaginary field, in an imaginary situation, the creation of an arbitrary intention, the formation of a life plan, volitional motives - all this arises in the game and puts it on the highest level of development" (Vygotsky, 1978).

Self-test task:

1. What is meant by voluntary behavior?

A. behavior carried out in accordance with the model and controlled by comparing with this sample as a standard.

B. attitude to one's own abilities and capabilities, an adequate attitude to self-assessment by other people, the ability to see the path to success.

B. a purposeful system of sequentially performed actions that bring the body into practical contact with the environment.

ANSWER. AND.

1. Specify the main components of arbitrary behavior.

A. cognitive activity, interaction and cooperation;

B. passivity, actions at the direction of an adult;

B. initiative, understanding the situation of the game action, the desire for the approval of an adult

ANSWER. AT.

Question 3. Requirements for the organization of children's games.

The game must be provided with two-positional: a combination of situational (imaginary) and supra-situational (semantic) position. Otherwise, it will not be a game, but actions by the rules. It is also important, according to E. E. Kravtsova, to switch the attention of children from the procedural side of the game to emotional identification with this or that hero, character, partner, friend. “... To be a doctor, one must not so much give an injection or listen to a patient as feel like a doctor who cares about others, wants to help the weak, etc.” .

For the implementation of two-position, the moment of competition, win / loss, reward is of paramount importance. At the same time, it is impossible to accustom children to constant success in the game through the system of concessions, "giveaway" in the game, which are necessary at the initial stage of the formation of motivation in the game, but become harmful when they are used excessively. The ability to adequately perceive the loss is for the child the prevention of stress in case of failures in the future. On the other hand, if the same child constantly wins in a group of players, this creates envy and refusal to play in the rest. Therefore, for a “weak”, competitively incapable child, individual play and competition with oneself is preferable. In any case, he needs approval, encouragement, a positive experience of success in order to maintain faith in his strengths and capabilities. By praising a child, we give him a new impetus to achieve, and censure can prevent him from realizing even the available opportunities. And this is equally true for games in the correctional and developmental group, and for games at home with the baby's parents. A. S. Spivakovskaya offers a method of step-by-step encouragement, when a reward (chips) is given not only for the correct performance of the entire difficult game action, but also for its correctly performed stages.

In correctional and developmental education, the question oforganization of didactic games.Students get acquainted with each new didactic game under the guidance of a teacher in the following way: the teacher says (or reads) what the game is called. Then he introduces the children to the objects (materials) that they will have to deal with during the game. This moment is of great psychological importance, since it should create an appropriate psychological attitude in children, which will help them listen carefully to the rules of the game. They should be short, precise and clear. It is up to the teacher to decide whether it is necessary to give students a more complete explanation of the game in combination with showing part (or the whole) of the game action. It should be welcomed if children participate in the discussion of the rules of the game or suggest modifications to them, do not forget to praise the children for everything new that they have come up with. Then the game starts. The teacher controls that the rules are followed. He can participate in the game as a leader or as a simple participant on a general basis. The game is evaluated in accordance with the results obtained and how the rules of the game were observed by its participants. Incentives should always prevail over censures and prohibitions. Let us remember the call of Janusz Korczak: "Do not suppress, but uplift". Not a single, even minimal, achievement of each child should go unnoticed.

The game should not be too longdo not cause satiety and fatiguechild. Sedentary games must be alternated with pauses filled with active motor exercises. Highly nervous and timid children should not immediately be actively included in a group game: if you first give him the opportunity to just sit and watch others, an experienced teacher will soon notice that the baby is ready to join the game.

Children who come to remedial classes, as a rule, have low neurodynamic indicators of mental activity, which can also manifest themselves in the game. If you push them, rush them, this not only does not speed up the game, but can even destroy it.

Watching children play or playing with them can help parents and educators develop their owneducational position corresponding to the current level of developmentchild. The effectiveness of this position is ensured by its dynamism, that is, when organizing each subsequent game, it is necessary to take into account all the achievements or difficulties of the child in previous games. At the same time, game tasks should be somewhat ahead of the level achieved by the child, focusing onits zone of proximal development.

Number of participantsdidactic game can range from one child (competing with his previous result) to a large group. The number of players does not determine the quality and effectiveness of the game. In a group of two people, the game can reach a high level of development, and in a larger group, stand at a lower level.

If the didactic game is of a collective nature, then the issue related to its assessment is resolved with the participation of all players. The teacher also develops students' skills for self-organization: unites them to play the game, teaches them to correctly distribute the items available for the game, choose a leader when necessary, and obey the rules of the game. The teacher should encourage the ability of students to organize didactic games themselves, their desire to come up with their own, original game. When playing with children, the teacher (parent) must alternate between simpler and more complex tasks in order to give the child rest and maintain strong motivation to participate in the game throughfeeling the satisfaction of winningin the previous game. Sometimes it is useful to warn the child that now it will be more difficult game in order to train his ability to concentrate his own efforts. It is important to didactic games would not turn into coercion, training. Their effectiveness, first of all, depends on the motivational involvement of the child in the game, the pleasure from it. The formation of the ability to assimilate new knowledge, the ability to willingly and purposefully assimilate it is more important in correctional and developmental education than the very knowledge of a new rule or the ability to apply it. This ability will help the child at school not to memorize the information offered at school mechanically, but to consciously assimilate it, including concepts and skills previously formed in the game.

The leading role in the organization of gaming activities belongs topersonality of the teacher(psychologist, parent) conducting the game. They need to "develop the ability to hear the child." “Ease, patience, tact - these are the basic requirements for the behavior of adults who have taken on the task of directing children's play. Feel free to play along with the child. If you took it upon yourself playing role, give your voice an appropriate intonation. Do not interrupt the game abruptly, do not forget that children are not capable of quick switching. If your exit from the game is necessary, beat that too. Well, let's say your store is closed for lunch or the doctor is called to visit a sick person. When playing with a child, show your adult fantasy. To do this, it is necessary to educate and develop the creative abilities of the teacher (educator), allowing him to create and maintain an imaginary situation. "An imaginative adult will be able to create conditions for the development of the child's imagination." At the same time, in the co-creation of children and teachers (parents), it is desirable that the child act as the main organizer of the game, and the adult as its active participant.

A teacher who conducts correctional and developmental classes with problem children needs to be in close contact with the child's parents, who should consolidate the knowledge and skills formed in the classroom at home. To do this, it is necessary to teach parents how to use game interaction, which, according to A. N. Kornev (2004), in particular includes:

• manifestation of active emotional and speech interest in the child's play actions;
• formation of the ability to join the game without depriving the child of initiative;
• manifestation of the position of partnership both physically (sit on the carpet with the child) and psychologically (share the importance of game tasks and actions);
• the formation of the ability to conduct a dialogue during the game in a situation of "divided attention" (Focusing on the general plot of the game) and consistency with the child's remarks.

"Correctly manage the game- means to influence the game in the interests of the full mental development of the child.But at the same time, it is necessary to understand the logic and patterns of development of the game itself. Otherwise, out of ignorance, we can reinforce some undesirable forms of behavior or, through careless interference, destroy the emerging positive aspects.

In addition to understanding the logic of the game, it is also necessary to take into account the individual characteristics of the child. Therefore, much attention should be paid to the differentiation of the material, procedure and tasks in the game activity according to the age of the players and the level of their knowledge and ideas in the sections and areas being studied.

The organization of group classes with children is largely determined by their age, which determines not only the degree of cognitive development, but also the level of communication of the child, and, accordingly, the nature of behavioral disorders in case of underdevelopment of this level.

Self-test task:

1. What can be the number of participants in the game?

A. 1-2

B. 5

At any

ANSWER. AT.

2. Game tasks should focus on...

A. zone of proximal development

B. level of actual development

ANSWER. AND.

3. What does the concept of "two-position in the game" mean?

A. a combination of situational and supra-situational positions;

B. imaginary position

B. semantic position

GAME AND MENTAL DEVELOPMENT

The final chapter of the book: Elkonin D.B. The psychology of the game. Moscow: Pedagogy, 1978.

Long before play became the subject of scientific research, it was widely used as one of the most important means of educating children. In the second chapter of this book, we put forward a hypothesis about the historical origin of the game, linking it with a change in the position of the child in society. The time when education stood out as a special social function goes back centuries, and the use of play as a means of education goes back to the same depth of centuries. Different pedagogical systems have given different roles to the game, but there is not a single system in which, to one degree or another, a place would not be assigned to the game. Such a special place of play in various systems of education, apparently, was determined by the fact that play is in some way consonant with the nature of the child. We know that it is consonant not with the biological, but with the social nature of the child, an extremely early need for communication with adults, which turns into a tendency to live a common life with adults.

In a relationship younger ages even now, in most countries of the world, the upbringing of children before they enter school is a private matter of the family, and the content and methods of education are transmitted by tradition. Of course, in some countries there is a lot of work to educate parents, but it mainly focuses on nutrition and hygiene care. The problems of pedagogy of family education in relation to children of preschool age have not yet been sufficiently developed. Yes, and it is difficult to turn all parents into teachers who consciously guide the development of children in these most crucial periods of childhood.

As soon as the questions of organized, purposeful, pedagogically expedient public education of the youngest children arise, their solution faces a number of difficulties of an economic and political nature. In order for society to take care of the upbringing of preschool children, it must be primarily interested in the comprehensive upbringing of all children without exception.

Under the dominance of family education, there are only two types of activities that affect the development of the child. This is, firstly, various forms of labor in the family, and secondly, the game in its most diverse forms. Labor is more and more squeezed out of the life of the modern family, only some forms of domestic self-service work remain. Play, like everything that is not labor, in a completely undifferentiated form becomes the main form of a child's life, the universal and the only spontaneously emerging form of child rearing. Closed in the circle of family and family relations, living within the limits of his nursery, the child naturally reflects in games mainly these relations and the functions that individual members of the family perform in relation to him and to each other. Perhaps it is precisely from here that the impression is created of the existence of a special children's world and play as an activity that has as its main content all sorts of forms of compensation, behind which lies the child's tendency to break out of this vicious circle into the world of broad social relations.

The educational system of the kindergarten includes the development of a wide range of children's interests and activities. These are elementary forms of domestic labor and self-service, and constructive activities with the inclusion of elementary labor skills, and various forms of productive activity - drawing, modeling, etc., and classes to familiarize the child with the phenomena of nature and society surrounding the child, and various forms of aesthetic activity - singing, rhythm, dancing, and elementary forms of learning activities to master reading, writing, the beginnings of mathematics, and, finally, role-playing.

Some educators still have a tendency to universalize the value of the game for mental development, a wide variety of functions are attributed to it, both purely educational and educational, so there is a need to more accurately determine the impact of the game on the development of the child and find its place in the general system of educational work of institutions for children. preschool children. Of course, all those activities that exist in the organized system of public education are not separated from each other by a wall and there are close ties between them. Some of them probably overlap in their influence on mental development. Nevertheless, it is necessary to determine more precisely those aspects of the mental development and formation of the child's personality that are predominantly developed in play and cannot develop or experience only a limited impact in other types of activity.

The study of the significance of the game for mental development and personality formation is very difficult. A pure experiment is impossible here, simply because it is impossible to remove play activity from the life of children and see how the development process will proceed. This cannot be done for reasons of a purely pedagogical nature and in fact, since where, due to the imperfect organization of the life of children in preschool institutions they will not have time for independent role-playing, they play at home, thus compensating for the shortcomings in the organization of life in kindergarten. These individual, home games are of limited value and cannot replace team play. At home, often the only playmate is a doll, and the range of relationships that can be recreated with a doll is relatively limited. A role-playing game in a group of children with inexhaustible possibilities of recreating the most diverse relationships and connections that people enter into in real life is quite another matter.

For these reasons, the actual experimental study of the significance of role play for development is difficult. It is therefore necessary to use, on the one hand, a purely theoretical analysis and, on the other hand, a comparison of the behavior of children in play with their behavior in other types of activity.

Before proceeding to the presentation of materials that make it possible to imagine the significance of play for mental development, let us point out one limitation that we set ourselves from the very beginning. We will not consider the purely didactic meaning of the game, i.e., the meaning of the game for acquiring new ideas or forming new skills and abilities. From our point of view, the purely didactic value of the game is very limited. It is possible, of course, and this is often done, to use the game for purely didactic purposes, but then, as our observations show, its specific features recede into the background.

You can, for example, organize a game in the store in order to teach children how to use scales. To do this, real scales and weights are introduced into the game, some bulk material is given, and children alternately, performing the functions of sellers and buyers, learn to measure and weigh certain items. In such games, children, of course, can learn to weigh, and measure, and count, and even count money and give change. Observations show that in this case, actions with weights and other measures, counting operations, etc., become the center of children's activity, but relations between people in the process of "purchase and sale" are relegated to the background. Here you can rarely find an attentive attitude of sellers to buyers and a polite attitude of buyers to sellers. But the content of the role-playing game is precisely this.

This does not mean at all that we deny the possibility of such use of the game. Far from it, but we will not consider the significance of this use of the game. Role play is not an exercise at all. A child, acting out the activities of a driver, doctor, sailor, captain, seller, does not acquire any skills. He doesn't learn how to use a real syringe, or how to drive a real car, how to cook real food, or how to weigh goods.

The importance of role-playing for development has not yet been sufficiently explored. Our proposed understanding of its role should be considered only a preliminary sketch, and by no means a final decision.

1. Game and development of the motivational-need sphere

The most important, although until recently underestimated, is the importance of the game for the development of the motivational-need sphere of the child. L. S. Vygotsky was undoubtedly right when he brought to the fore the problem of motives and needs as central to understanding the very emergence of a role-playing game. Pointing out the contradiction between new desires being born and the tendency towards their immediate realization, which cannot be realized, he only posed the problem, but did not solve it. This is natural, since at that time there were no factual materials that would provide a solution. And even now this question can be solved only hypothetically.

A. N. Leontiev (1965 b), in one of the earliest publications devoted to the further development of the theory of the game put forward by L. S. Vygotsky, proposed a hypothetical solution to this problem. According to A. N. Leontiev, the essence of the matter lies in the fact that “the objective world, perceived by the child, is expanding more and more for him. This world no longer includes only objects that make up the immediate environment of the child, objects with which the child himself can act and act, but these are also objects of adult action with which the child is not yet able to actually act, which are still physically inaccessible to him. .

Thus, at the basis of the transformation of play during the transition from the period of pre-preschool to preschool childhood lies the expansion of the range of human objects, the mastery of which now confronts him as a task and the world of which he is aware of in the course of his further mental development” (1965 b, p. 470).

“For a child at this stage of his mental development,” A. N. Leontiev continues, “abstract theoretical activity, abstract contemplative cognition does not yet exist, and therefore awareness appears in him primarily in the form of action. A child mastering the world around him is a child striving to act in this world.

Therefore, in the course of the development of his awareness of the objective world, the child strives to enter into an effective relationship not only to things directly accessible to him, but also to the wider world, i.e., strives to act like an adult” (ibid., p. 471). The last sentence is the crux of the matter. However, it seems to us that the mechanism of the emergence of these new desires is not quite accurately described by A.N. Leontiev. He sees the contradiction that leads to role play in the clash of the child's classic "I myself" with the adult's no less classic "can't". It is not enough for a child to contemplate a moving car, it is not enough even to sit in this car, he needs to act, drive, command the car.

“In the activity of the child, that is, in its actual internal form, this contradiction appears as a contradiction between the child’s rapid development of the need to act with objects, on the one hand, and the development of operations that carry out these actions (i.e., modes of action) - with another. The child wants to drive a car himself, he wants to row a boat himself, but he cannot carry out this action, and cannot carry it out primarily because he does not and cannot master those operations that are required by the real objective conditions of this action. ibid., p. 472).

In the light of the facts presented in the studies of F. I. Fradkina and L. S. Slavina, to which we have already referred, the process proceeds somewhat differently. The very expansion of the range of objects with which the child wants to act independently is secondary. It is based, metaphorically speaking, on the child's "discovery" of a new world, the world of adults with their activities, their functions, their relationships. This world was obscured for the child by objective actions, which he mastered under the guidance and with the help of an adult, but without noticing the adults.

A child in early childhood is completely absorbed in the subject and the methods of action with it, its functional significance. But now he has mastered some, albeit very elementary, actions and can perform them independently. At this moment, the child separates from the adult and the child notices that he is acting like an adult. The child actually acted like an adult before, but did not notice it. He looked at the object through an adult, as through glass. In this, as we have seen, the adults themselves help him, pointing out to the child that he is acting "like someone else." The affect is transferred from the object to the person who was previously behind the object. Thanks to this, the adult and his actions begin to act as a model for the child.

Objectively, this means that the adult speaks to the child primarily in terms of his functions. The child wants to act like an adult, he is completely dominated by this desire. It is under the influence of this very general desire, at first with the help of an adult (caregiver, parents), that he begins to act as if he were an adult. This affect is so strong that a small hint is enough - and the child happily turns, of course, purely emotionally, into an adult. It is the intensity of this affect that explains the ease with which children assume the roles of adults. The experiments of L. S. Slavina showed this with sufficient persuasiveness. These tips from adults, as it were, indicate a way out for intense affect. Therefore, they should not be feared, they go in the direction of the dominant affect that owns the child - to act independently and act like adults. (Note that in cases where this desire does not find such an outlet for itself, it can take on completely different forms - whims, conflicts, etc.)

The main paradox in the transition from object-based to role-playing is that directly in the subject | environment of children at the time of this transition, a significant change may not occur. The child had and still has all the same toys - dolls, cars, cubes, bowls, etc. Moreover, nothing changes significantly in the actions themselves at the first stages of the development of a role-playing game. The child washed the doll, fed it, put it to bed. Now he is doing the same actions from the outside with the same doll. What happened? All these items and actions with them are now included in new system the child's relationship to reality, into a new affective-attractive activity. Thanks to this, they objectively acquired a new meaning. The transformation of a child into a mother, and dolls into a child, leads to the transformation of bathing, feeding, cooking into caring for a child. These actions now express the attitude of the mother to the child - her love and affection, and perhaps vice versa; it depends on the specific conditions of the child's life, those specific relationships that surround him.

A child on the border of the transition from objective to role-playing does not yet know either the social relations of adults, or the social functions of adults, or the social meaning of their activities. He acts in the direction of his desire, objectively puts himself in the position of an adult, while there is an emotionally effective orientation in the relations of adults and the meanings of their activities. Here the intellect follows the emotionally effective experience.

The generalization and abbreviation of play actions is a symptom of the fact that such a separation of human relations is taking place and that this highlighted meaning is emotionally experienced. Thanks to this, at first a purely emotional understanding of the functions of an adult occurs as an activity that is significant for other people and, therefore, causing a certain attitude on their part.

Added to this is another feature of the role-playing game that was under-appreciated. After all, a child, no matter how emotionally he enters the role of an adult, still feels like a child. He looks at himself through the role that he has taken on, that is, through an adult, emotionally compares himself with an adult and discovers that he is not yet an adult. The consciousness that he is still a child occurs through the game, and from here a new motive arises - to become an adult and really carry out his functions.

LI Bozhovich (1951) showed that by the end of preschool age, the child has new motives. These motives acquire a concrete form of the desire to go to school and begin to carry out serious socially significant and socially valued activities. For a child, this is the path to adulthood.

The game, on the other hand, acts as an activity that is closely related to the child's needs. The primary emotionally effective orientation in the meanings of human activity takes place in it, the consciousness of one’s limited place in the system of adult relations and the need to be an adult arise. Those tendencies pointed out by a number of authors as underlying the emergence of play are in fact the result of development in preschool age, and role play is of particular importance.

The significance of the game is not limited to the fact that the child has new motives for activity and tasks associated with them. It is essential that a new psychological form of motives arise in play. Hypothetically, one can imagine that it is in the game that the transition occurs from motives that have the form of pre-conscious, affectively colored immediate desires, to motives that have the form of generalized intentions, standing on the verge of consciousness.

Of course, other types of activity also influence the formation of these new needs, but in no other activity is there such an emotionally filled entry into the life of adults, such an effective allocation of social functions and the meaning of human activity, as in the game. This is the first and main significance of role play for the development of the child.

2. Game and overcoming "cognitive egocentrism"

J. Piaget, who devoted a large number of experimental studies to the study of the child's thinking, characterizes the main quality of thinking in preschool children, on which all the rest depend, as "cognitive egocentrism." By this feature, Piaget understands the insufficient delimitation of his point of view from other possible ones, and hence its actual dominance. The problem of "cognitive egocentrism", the possibility of overcoming it and the transition of thinking to a higher stage of development, is devoted to quite a lot of various studies.

The process of transition from the level of thinking characteristic of the preschool period of development to higher forms is very complicated. It seems to us that the selection of an adult as a model of action that occurs on the border of the early and; preschool periods of development, already contains the possibility of such a transition. Role play leads to a change in the position of the child - from his individual and specifically childish - to a new position of an adult. The very acceptance of a role by the child and the associated change in the meanings of the things involved in the game is a continuous change from one position to another.

We assumed that the game is such an activity in which the main processes related to overcoming "cognitive egocentrism" take place. An experimental verification of this assumption was carried out by V. A. Nedospasova (1972) in a special study that had the character of an experimental formation of “decentration” in children.

In one of his early works, J. Piaget (1932) drew attention to a vivid manifestation of egocentrism when children solve the Wien problem about three brothers. The essence of such a decision is that, while correctly indicating how many brothers he has, the child cannot correctly indicate how many brothers one of his brothers has, i.e., take the point of view of one of his brothers. So, if there are two brothers in the family, then to the question: “How many brothers do you have?” - the child answers correctly: "I have one brother, Kolya." To the question: "How many brothers does Kolya have" - ​​he answers: "Kolya has no brothers."

Subsequently, this main symptom of egocentrism, i.e., the dominance of one’s immediate position in the child’s thinking and the inability to take a different position and recognize the existence of other points of view, was obtained by J. Piaget and his collaborators in solving a wide variety of problems, the content of which was spatial relations and relationships between individual aspects of various phenomena.

In preliminary experiments conducted by V. A. Nedospasova, in which the problem of three brothers was proposed not in relation to one’s own family, but in relation to someone else’s or one’s conditional family, the egocentric position either did not manifest itself at all, or manifested itself to a much lesser extent. This served as the basis for the assumption that if the child is formed to treat his family as a "stranger", that is, to form a new position in the child, then all the symptoms of "cognitive egocentrism" can be removed.

The experiment was carried out according to the classical scheme of experimental genetic formation. Children (5, 6, 7 years old) were selected, in whom, when solving the problem of three brothers and a series of other problems proposed by the collaborators of J. Piaget, as well as specially designed by Nedospasova, “cognitive egocentrism” was clearly detected. In these children, the formation of a new position, which we called conditionally dynamic, was carried out.

Previously, the children were introduced to the relationships within the family. To do this, three dolls representing brothers and two dolls representing parents were placed in front of the child. During the conversation with the child, relationships were established: parents, son, brother. After the children were able to find their bearings relatively easily in kinship within this doll family, the parents left, leaving only brothers or sisters, and the process of formation began, passing through two phases. In the first phase of the experiment, the child, with the help of the experimenter, identified himself with one of the brothers (sisters), called himself by the name of the doll, assumed her role, the role of one of the brothers, and reasoned from this new position.

For example, if a child in this situation became Kolya, then he had to determine who his brothers were, pointing to other dolls and naming their names, and then give his name, that is, establish his position. The child consistently identified himself with all the dolls and determined who in each of these situations becomes his brothers, and then who he becomes if his brothers are these dolls.

The whole experiment was carried out on dolls, the child saw the whole situation in front of him and at the same time expressed his opinion about each situation. Then the experiment was carried out on the conditional graphic symbols of the brothers. The brothers were designated by colored circles, and the children, assuming the role of this or that brother, circled the brothers with their color, at the same time naming their names. So the child moved, in a purely conventional sense, successively to the positions of all the brothers. Finally, the same actions were carried out on a purely verbal plane. The transition from action on puppets to actions on graphic symbols and, finally, on a purely verbal plane, occurred only after the child performed actions freely enough in a given way.

Control measurements carried out after this phase of formation showed that the final overcoming of "cognitive egocentrism" does not occur in this case. Only in some children higher levels of control tasks were obtained. Analysis of the results of this control experiment allowed us to identify a phenomenon that we called "sequential centration". While conventionally accepting each time a new position, a new role from which the child examines the situation, he nevertheless continues to isolate, although each time new, but only obvious to him interconnections. However, these positions exist as unrelated, not intersecting, and not coordinated with each other. Children. are bound by the position they take in each individual case, without assuming the simultaneous existence of the points of view of other persons and other aspects of the object or situation under consideration. Children do not notice that, having taken a different position, they themselves have become different in the eyes of other participants (in our experiment, other dolls), that is, they are perceived differently. Being Kolya, the child sees that he has become a brother for Andrei and Vitya, but he still does not see that, as Andrei, he has become a brother of other people, that is, not only he has new brothers, but he himself has become a brother of others persons.

Having established the presence of "successive centralization" in children, V. A. Nedospasova proceeded to the second phase of the experiment. The situation has been restored. Three dolls were again placed in front of the child. The child identified himself with one of them, but now he had to name not his brothers, but the brothers of someone from those with whom he did not identify himself. For example, there are three dolls on the table in front of the child - Sasha, Kostya and Vanya. They say to the child: “You are Vanya, but don’t tell me who your brothers are. This I know. You tell me who are Sasha's brothers? At Kostya? Whose brothers are you and Sasha? And you and Kostya? Formation was carried out with puppets, then in graphic terms and finally in purely verbal terms. Formation ended when the child, without any support, that is, on a purely verbal plane, made all the reasoning, taking a conditional position, but reasoning at the same time from the point of view of another person. Let's give an example: an experiment with Valya (5; 3). Exp.: Let us have three sisters in the problem. Which for example? Let's call one Zina, the other Nadia, the third Anya. If you are Zina, then what kind of sisters will Anya have? Valya: Then Anya will have me and Nadia. Exp.: Then what kind of sisters will Nadia have? Valya: When I am Zina, Nadia has me and Anya. Exp.: And if you are Nadia?

Valya: Then Anya has me, Nadia and Zina. Zina has me and Anya. After completion of formation on a purely verbal level, all children were offered control tasks, including the task of three brothers; the Three Mountains problem and the Beads problem (both used by Piaget's collaborators); the task of determining the right and left sides and several tasks invented by V. A. Nedospasova, in which the phenomenon of “centration” appeared very clearly. In all age groups, all these tasks were solved without any help from the experimenter in 80-100% of cases, and with a little help - by all children. Thus, under the conditions of this pre-experimental game, it was possible to overcome the phenomenon of "cognitive egocentrism".

Of course, in reality, everything is much more complicated. Experimental genetic research is only a model of actual processes. What are the grounds for thinking that the conducted experiment is a model of the processes that take place in a role-playing game, and that it is the role-playing game that is the activity in which the “decentration” mechanism is formed.

First of all, we point out that this experiment is not a model of any role-playing game, but only one in which there is at least one partner, i.e., a collective game. In such a game, a child who has taken on a certain role, acting from this new position, is forced to take into account the role of his partner.

The child now addresses his comrade not in the same way as in ordinary life, for example, as Kolya addresses Vanya, but in accordance with the new position that is determined by the role he has taken on. It may even be that in real life there is an antagonistic relationship between two children, but as play partners they are replaced by a relationship of care and cooperation. Each of the partners now acts in relation to each other from a new conditional position. He must coordinate his actions with the role of partner, although he himself is not in this role.

In addition, all the objects that are involved in the game and which are given certain meanings from the point of view of one role, should be perceived by all participants in the game precisely in these meanings, although they are not really acted upon. For example, in the repeatedly described doctor game, there are always two partners - a doctor and a patient. The doctor must coordinate his actions with the role of the patient, and vice versa. This also applies to items. Imagine that the doctor is holding a stick representing a syringe. She is a syringe for the doctor because he acts with her in a certain way. But for the patient, a wand is a wand. She can become a syringe for him only if he takes the point of view of the doctor, without at the same time assuming his role. Thus, the game acts as a real practice is not | only a change of position when taking on a role, but also how j the practice of relations with a partner in the game from the point of view of the 1 role that the partner performs, not only as a real one; the practice of actions with objects in accordance with the meanings assigned to them, but also as the practice of coordinating points of view on the meanings of these objects without directly manipulating them. This is the ongoing process of "decentration". The game acts as a cooperative activity of children. J. Piaget has long pointed out the importance of cooperation for the formation of operator structures. However, he, firstly, did not note that the cooperation of the child with adults begins very early, and, secondly, he believed that real cooperation occurs only towards the end of preschool age, along with the emergence of games with rules, which, according to J. Piaget, demand a general recognition of permissible conditions. In fact, such a kind of cooperation arises along with the emergence of the role-playing game and is its necessary condition.

We have already pointed out that Piaget was interested in play only in connection with the emergence of the symbolic function. He was interested in the individual symbol, through which the child adapts, according to Piaget, a world alien to him to his individual egocentric thought. Indeed, in individual game, in which the child at best has a doll as a partner, there is no strict need either to change position or to coordinate his point of view with the points of view of other participants in the game. Maybe, . that at the same time, the game not only does not fulfill the function of "moral and cognitive decentration", but, on the contrary, fixes even more the personal, unique point of view of the child on. C objects and relationships, fixes an egocentric position. Such a game can really take the child away from real world into the closed world of his individual desires, limited by the framework of narrow family relations.

In an experimental study by V. A. Nedospasova, play appeared to us as an activity in which both the cognitive and emotional “decentration” of the child takes place. In this we see the crucial importance of the game for intellectual development. The point is not only that individual intellectual operations are developed or re-formed in play, but that the child's position in relation to the world around him changes radically and the very mechanism of a possible change of position and coordination of his point of view with other possible points of view is formed. It is this change that opens up the possibility and the way for the transition of thinking to a new level and the formation of new intellectual operations.

3. Play and development of mental actions

In Soviet psychology, studies of the formation of mental actions and concepts have been widely developed. We owe the development of this most important problem primarily to the research of P. Ya. Gal'perin and his collaborators. P. Ya. Galperin (1959), as a result of numerous experimental studies, which were in the nature of experimental genetic formation of mental actions and concepts, established the main stages through which the formation of any new mental action and the concept associated with it must pass. If we exclude the stage of preliminary orientation in the task, then the formation of mental actions and concepts with predetermined properties naturally passes through the following stages: the stage of formation of an action on material objects or their material substitute models; the stage of formation of the same action in terms of loud speech; finally, the stage of formation of the actual mental action (in some cases, intermediate stages are also observed, for example, the formation of an action in terms of expanded speech, but to oneself, etc.). These stages can be called the stages of the functional development of mental actions.

One of the unresolved so far, but at the same time the most important problems is the problem of the relationship between functional and ontogenetic, age-related development. It is impossible to imagine the process of ontogenetic development without functional development, if we accept, of course, the main thesis for us that the mental development of a child cannot occur otherwise than in the form of assimilation of the generalized experience of previous generations, fixed in the ways of acting with objects, in cultural objects, in science , although development is not limited to assimilation.

It is possible, though purely hypothetically, to imagine the functional development of any new mental action as a concise repetition of the stages of the ontogenetic development of thinking and, at the same time, as the formation of a zone of its proximal development. If we accept the stages in the development of thinking established in Soviet psychology (practical-effective, visual-figurative, verbal-logical) and compare with the stages established during functional formation, then such an assumption has some grounds. Considering the child's actions in play, it is easy to see that the child is already acting with the meanings of objects, but still relies on their material substitutes - toys. An analysis of the development of actions in the game shows that the reliance on substitute objects and actions with them is more and more reduced. If at the initial stages of development a substitute object and a relatively detailed action with it (the stage of a materialized action, according to P. Ya. Galperin) are required, then at the later stages of the development of the game, the object appears | through the word-name already as a sign of the thing, and actions - as abbreviated and generalized gestures accompanied by speech. Thus, play actions are of an intermediate nature, gradually acquiring the character of mental actions with the meanings of objects, performed in terms of loud speech and still slightly relying on external action, but already acquiring the character of a generalized gesture-indication. It is interesting to note that the words uttered by the child in the course of play are already of a generalized nature. For example, when preparing for dinner, the child comes up to the wall, makes one or two movements with his hands - washes them - and says: “Washed”, and then, in the same way, making a series of movements of food, bringing a stick-spoon to his mouth, declares: “Here and ate." This path of development towards actions in the mind with meanings torn off from objects is at the same time the emergence of prerequisites for the formation of imagination.

In the light of the above considerations, the game acts as an activity in which the formation of prerequisites for the transition of mental actions to a new, higher stage - mental actions based on speech. The functional development of play actions merges into ontogenetic development, creating a zone of proximal development of mental actions. Perhaps this model of the relationship between functional and ontogenetic development, which we observe so clearly in the game, is a general model of the relationship between functional and ontogenetic development. This is the subject of special studies.

In connection with the discussion of the issue of game roles in the intellectual development of the child, the views of J. Bruner are of great interest. In the article we have already mentioned (J. Bruner, 1972), he highly appreciates the importance of the manipulative games of higher apes for the development of the intellectual activity of these animals and even believes that such games contain prerequisites for their subsequent use of tools. We have already expressed our point of view on such manipulative games when analyzing the views of Buytendijk.

In one of the subsequent works, J. Bruner (1975) experimentally shows the role of preliminary manipulations with the material (tool elements) for the subsequent solution of intellectual problems. Children of preschool age were offered the usual task for practical intelligence of the type of Koehler's tasks. One group of children, before solving the problem, watched how an adult connects sticks with a bracket; another practiced self-attaching a brace to one of the sticks; the third observed how adults solve the problem as a whole; the fourth was given the opportunity to play with materials outside the solution of the problem (to freely manipulate the material); the fifth group did not see the material at all before presenting the problem for solution. It turned out that play group(fourth) completed the task as well as the one in which the children observed the entire process of solving the problem by adults, and much better than the children in the other groups.

Based on these very interesting experiments, J. Bruner highly appreciates the importance of play for intellectual development, since in the course of play such combinations of material and such an orientation in its properties can arise that can lead to the subsequent use of this material as tools in solving problems.

It seems to us that in these experiments we are not talking about the game, but rather about free, not bound by decision any specific task of experimenting with a material, a kind of free constructive activity in which the orientation in the properties of the material occurs more fully, since it is not associated with the use of this material for solving any specific problem. In Bruner's experiments, there was not a game, but a special activity that ethologists call research.

In the game, as it seems to us, more general mechanisms of intellectual activity develop.

4. Play and development of voluntary behavior

During the study of the game, it was found that any role-playing game contains a hidden rule and that the development of role-playing games goes from games with a detailed game situation and hidden rules to games with an open rule and roles hidden behind it. We will not repeat all the facts obtained in the relevant studies and already cited by us. L. S. Vygotsky’s position was fully justified that in the game “the child cries like a patient and rejoices like a player” and that in the game every minute the child refuses fleeting desires in favor of fulfilling the role he has taken on.

All the facts cited show convincingly enough that a significant restructuring of the child's behavior takes place in play—it becomes arbitrary. By voluntary behavior, we will understand behavior that is carried out in accordance with a pattern (regardless of whether it is given in the form of the actions of another person or in the form of an already distinguished rule) and controlled by comparison with this pattern as a standard.

A. V. Zaporozhets was the first to draw attention to the fact that the nature of the movements performed by the child in the conditions of play and in the conditions of a direct task is significantly different. A. V. Zaporozhets found that in the course of development, the structure and organization of movements change. They clearly distinguish between the preparation phase and the execution phase. “Higher forms of the structure of movements first arise in the early genetic stages only when solving problems that, due to their external form, thanks to the visibility and obviousness of the demands that they make on the child, organize his behavior in a certain way. However, in the process of further development, these higher forms of organization of movement, which before each time needed favorable conditions, subsequently acquire a certain stability, become, as it were, the child’s usual manner of motor behavior and manifest themselves under conditions of the most diverse tasks, even in cases where there is no there are external circumstances favorable to them” (1948, p. 139).

A. V. Zaporozhets cites important results of the study of T. O. Ginevskaya, who specifically studied the importance of play for the organization of movements. At the same time, it turned out that both the effectiveness of the movement and its organization essentially depend on what structural place the movement occupies in the fulfillment of the role that the child performs. So, in a dramatized game of an athlete, not only did the relative efficiency of the jump increase, but the very nature of the movement changed - the preparatory phase, or the phase of a kind of start, stood out much more clearly in it. “The qualitative difference in motor behavior in the two compared series of experiments,” writes A.V. Zaporozhets, “consisted, in particular, in the fact that in a situation of dramatized play, most children switched to a more complex organization of movement with a clearly distinguished preparatory and executive phase, i.e. .e. gave better results than in the game "Hare hunters" (ibid., p. 161).

Concluding his research, A. V. Zaporozhets writes: “The game is the first form of activity accessible to a preschooler, which involves the conscious reproduction and improvement of new movements.

In this respect, the motor development performed by the preschooler in play is a real prologue to the conscious! physical exercises of schoolchildren” (ibid., p. 166).

3. V. Manuylenko (1948) conducted a special experimental study of the development of voluntary behavior. The object of the study was the ability of a preschool child to voluntarily maintain a pose of immobility. The criterion was the time during which the children could maintain such a pose. Of all the experimental series conducted, it is of interest to us to compare the results of two series - when playing the role of a sentry in collective game and with a direct task, stand still in the presence of the whole group. The results obtained very eloquently showed that in all age groups the duration of maintaining the immobility posture in the situation of performing a role exceeds the indices of maintaining the same posture in conditions of a direct task. This advantage is especially great in children of 4-6 years old, and it falls somewhat towards the end of preschool age.

What's the matter? What is the psychological mechanism of this peculiar "magic" of the role? Undoubtedly, motivation is of great importance. The performance of the role, being emotionally attractive, has a stimulating effect on the performance of actions in which the role is embodied. Pointing out motives is, however, insufficient. It is necessary to find the psychological mechanism through which motives can exert this influence. The answer to this question is helped by a series of experiments additionally carried out by 3. V. Manuilenko. These series consisted in the fact that in some cases the playing group was present while performing the role of sentry, while in others the performance of this role was taken outside the playroom and the child performed his role in a situation of loneliness. It turned out that in the presence of the group, the immobility posture was performed longer and more strictly than in the situation of loneliness. When performing a role in the presence of a group, children sometimes pointed out to the child who performed the role the need for a certain behavior. The presence of children, as it were, increased control over their behavior on the part of the performer himself.

There is reason to believe that when the role is performed, the pattern of behavior contained in the role becomes at the same time the standard against which the child himself compares his behavior and controls it. The child in the game performs simultaneously, as it were, two functions; on the one hand, he fulfills his role, and on the other hand, he controls his behavior. Arbitrary behavior is characterized not only by the presence of a pattern, but also by the presence of control over the implementation of this pattern. Role behavior in the game, as it turns out from the analysis, is complexly organized. It has a model that acts, on the one hand, as orienting behavior and, on the other hand, as a standard for control; it has the execution of actions defined by the pattern; it has a comparison with the sample, i.e. control. Thus, when performing a role, there is a kind of bifurcation, i.e., reflection. Of course, this is not yet conscious control. The whole game is dominated by an attractive thought and is colored by an affective attitude, but it already contains all the basic components of voluntary behavior. The control function is still very weak and often still requires support from the situation, from the participants in the game. This is the weakness of this emerging function, but the significance of the game is that this function is born here. That is why the game can be considered a school of arbitrary behavior,

Since the content of roles, as we have already established, is mainly concentrated around the norms of relations between people, i.e., its main content is the norms of behavior that exist among adults, then in the game the child, as it were, passes into the developed world of higher forms of human activity. , in the developed world of the rules of human relationships. The norms that underlie human relationships become, through play, a source of moral development for the child himself. In this respect, the importance of the game can hardly be overestimated. The game is a school of morality, but not morality in presentation, but morality in action.

The game is important for the formation of a friendly children's team, and for the formation of independence, and for the formation of a positive attitude towards work, and for correcting some deviations in the behavior of individual children, and for many other things. All these educational effects are based as their basis on the influence that the game has on the mental development of the child, on the formation of his personality.

Those aspects of mental development that we have singled out and in relation to which the decisive influence of play has been shown are the most significant, since their development prepares the transition to a new, higher stage of mental development, the transition to a new period of development.

In play activity, the mental qualities and personal characteristics of the child are most intensively formed. In the game, other types of activity are added, which then acquire independent significance.

The impact of play on the overall development of the child.Game activity influences the formation of the arbitrariness of mental processes. So, in the game, children begin to develop voluntary attention and random memory. In the conditions of the game, children concentrate better and remember more than in the laboratory.

youthful experiences. The conscious goal (to focus attention, to remember and remember) is allocated to the child earlier and most easily in the game. The very conditions of the game require the child to concentrate on the objects included in the game situation, on the content of the actions being played and the plot. If the child does not want to be attentive to what the upcoming game situation requires of him, if he does not remember the conditions of the game, then he is simply expelled by his peers. The need for communication, for emotional encouragement forces the child to purposeful concentration and memorization.

The game situation and actions in it have a constant impact on the development mental activity preschool child). In play, the child learns to act with the object's substitute; he gives the substitute a new game name and acts with it in accordance with the name. The substitute object becomes a support for thinking. On the basis of actions with substitute objects, the child learns to think about a real object. Gradually, play actions with objects are reduced, the child learns to think about objects and act with them mentally. Thus, the game to a large extent contributes to the fact that the child gradually moves to thinking in terms of representations.

At the same time, the experience of playing and especially real relationships of the child in the plot-role-playing game forms the basis of a special property of thinking that allows you to take the point of view of other people, anticipate their future behavior and build your own behavior on the basis of this.

Role Play is Defining to develop the imagination. In play activity, the child learns to replace objects with other objects, to take on various roles. This ability underlies the development of the imagination. In the games of children of older preschool age, substitute objects are no longer required, just as many game actions are not required. Children learn to identify objects and actions with them, to create new situations in their imagination. The pen can then flow internally. Six-year-old Katyusha is looking at a photograph showing a girl resting her cheek on her finger and looking thoughtfully at the doll. The doll is planted near a toy sewing machine. Katyusha says: “The girl thinks as if her doll is sewing.” With her explanation, little Katya discovered her own way of playing.

The influence of the game on the development of the child's personality lies in the fact that through it he gets acquainted with the behavior and relationships of adults who become a model for his own behavior, and in it he acquires the basic communication skills, the qualities necessary to establish contact with peers. him to obey the rules,

Productive activities of the child - drawing, design - at different stages of preschool childhood are closely merged with the game. So, while drawing, the child often plays out this or that plot. The animals drawn by him fight among themselves, catch up with each other, people go to visit and return home, the wind blows away hanging apples, etc. The construction of the cubes is woven into the course of the game. The child is a driver, he carries blocks to construction, then he is a loader unloading these blocks, and finally a construction worker building a house. In a joint game, these functions are distributed among several children. Interest in drawing, design initially arises precisely as a game interest aimed at process creating a pattern, design in accordance with the game plan. And only in the middle and older preschool age is interest transferred to the result of the activity (for example, drawing), and it is freed from the influence of the game.

Within the play activity, learning activity begins to take shape, which later becomes the leading activity. The teaching is introduced by an adult, it does not arise directly from the game. But a preschooler begins to learn by playing - he treats learning as a kind of role-playing game with certain rules. However, by following these rules, the child imperceptibly masters elementary learning activities. A fundamentally different attitude of adults to learning than to play gradually, little by little, restructures the attitude towards it on the part of the child. He develops a desire and an initial ability to learn.

The influence of the game on the development of speech function. The game has a huge impact for the development of speech. The game situation requires from each child included in it a certain level of development of verbal communication. If a child is not able to clearly express his wishes regarding the course of the game, if he is not able to understand the verbal instructions of his playmates, he will be a burden to his peers. The need to explain to peers stimulates the development of coherent speech.

for the development of the sign function of the child's speech. The sign function permeates all aspects and manifestations of the human psyche. Assimilation of the sign function of speech leads to a radical restructuring of all mental functions of the child. In the game, the development of the sign function is carried out through the replacement of some "objects with others. Substitute objects act as signs of missing objects. A sign can be any element of reality (an object of human culture that has a fixed functional purpose; a toy acting as a conditional copy of a real object; a polyfunctional object from natural materials or created by human culture, etc.), acting as a substitute for another

element of reality. Naming the missing object and its substitute with the same word focuses the child's attention on certain properties of the object, which are comprehended in a new way through substitutions. This opens up yet another path to knowledge. In addition, the substitute object (the sign of the missing) mediates the connection between the missing object and the word and transforms the verbal content in a new way.

In play, the child comprehends specific signs of a twofold type: individual conventional signs, having little in common in their sensual nature with the designated object; iconic signs, sensual properties of which are visually close to the replaced object.

Individual conventional signs and iconic signs in the game take on the function of the missing object, which they replace. A different degree of proximity of the object-sign that replaces the missing object and the object being replaced contributes to the development of the sign function of speech: the mediating relationship "object - its sign - its name" enriches the semantic side of the word as a sign.

Substitution actions, in addition, contribute to the development of the child's free handling of objects and their use not only in the quality that was learned in the first years of life, but also in a different way (a clean handkerchief, for example, can replace a bandage or a summer cap) .

Reflection. The game as a leading activity is of particular importance for the development of reflective thinking.

Reflection is the ability of a person to analyze his own actions, deeds, motives and correlate them with universal human values, as well as with the actions, deeds, motives of other people. Reflection contributes to adequate human behavior in the world of people.

The game leads to the development of reflection, since in the game there is a real opportunity to control how the action that is part of the communication process is performed. Thus, playing "hospital", the child cries and suffers as a patient and is pleased with himself as a well-performing his role. The dual position of the player - performer and controller - develops the ability to correlate their behavior with the behavior of a certain model. In a role-playing game, the prerequisites for reflection arise as a purely human ability to comprehend one's own actions, needs and experiences with the actions, needs and experiences of other people.

Play and its role in the mental development of the child

Transcript of a lecture delivered in 1933 at the Leningrad State Pedagogical Institute named after V.I. A.I. Herzen.

When we talk about play and its role in the development of a preschooler, two main questions arise here. The first question is how the game itself arises in development, the question of the origin of the game, its genesis; the second question is what role this activity plays in development, which means play as a form of child development in preschool age. Is play the leading or simply predominant form of a child's activity at this age?

It seems to me that from the point of view of development, play is not the predominant form of activity, but it is, in a certain sense, the leading line of development in preschool age.

Now let's move on to the problem of the game itself. We know that defining play in terms of the pleasure it brings to the child is not the correct definition for two reasons. Firstly, because we are dealing with a number of activities that can bring a child much more intense experiences of pleasure than play.

The pleasure principle applies equally to the process of sucking, for example, because it gives the child functional pleasure to suck on the pacifier, even when he is not satiated.

On the other hand, we know games in which the process of activity itself does not yet give pleasure - games that dominate at the end of preschool and at the beginning of school age and which bring pleasure only if their result turns out to be interesting for the child; these are, for example, the so-called "sports games" (sports games are not only sports games, but also games with a win, games with results). They are very often colored by an acute feeling of displeasure when the game ends not in the child's favor.

Thus, the definition of play on the basis of pleasure, of course, cannot be considered correct.

However, it seems to me that to refuse to approach the problem of play from the point of view of how the child's needs, his motivations for activity, his affective strivings are realized in it, would mean terribly intellectualizing play. The difficulty of a number of game theories is some intellectualization of this problem.

I am inclined to give this question an even more general meaning and I think that the mistake of a number of developmental theories is to ignore the needs of the child - understanding them in a broad sense, starting with drives and ending with interest as a need of an intellectual nature - in short, ignoring everything that can be combined under the name of motives and motives of activity. We often explain the development of a child by the development of his intellectual functions, i.e. before us, every child appears as a theoretical being, which, depending on the greater or lesser level of intellectual development, passes from one age level to another.

The needs, inclinations, motives of the child, the motives of his activity are not taken into account, without which, as research shows, the child never passes from one stage to another. In particular, it seems to me that the analysis of the game should begin with the clarification of precisely these moments.

Apparently, every shift, every transition from one age level to another is associated with a sharp change in motives and motivations for activity.

What is the greatest value for an infant almost ceases to interest the child at an early age. This maturation of new needs, new motives for activity, of course, must be brought to the fore. In particular, it is impossible not to see that the child in play satisfies some needs, some impulses, and that without understanding the uniqueness of these impulses, we cannot imagine the unique type of activity that play is.

At preschool age, peculiar needs, peculiar impulses arise, which are very important for the entire development of the child, and which lead directly to play. They lie in the fact that a child at this age has a whole series of unrealizable tendencies, unrealizable desires directly. A young child tends to directly resolve and satisfy his desires. Postponing the fulfillment of a desire is difficult for a young child, it is possible only within some narrow limits; no one knew a child under three years of age who would have the desire to do something in a few days. Usually the way from incitement to its realization turns out to be extremely short. It seems to me that if at preschool age we did not have the maturation of needs that could not be realized immediately, then we would not have play. Research shows that not only where we are dealing with children who are not intellectually developed enough, but also where we have an underdevelopment of the affective sphere, the game does not develop.

It seems to me that from the point of view of the affective sphere, the game is created in such a situation of development when unrealizable tendencies appear. A young child behaves like this: he wants to take a thing and he needs to take it now. If this thing cannot be taken, then he either makes a scandal - lies on the floor and kicks, or he refuses, puts up, does not take this thing. With him, unsatisfied desires have their own special ways of substitution, refusal, and so on. By the beginning of preschool age, unsatisfied desires appear, tendencies that are not immediately realized, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the tendency of an early age to the immediate realization of desires persists. The child wants, for example, to be in the place of the mother or wants to be a rider and ride a horse. This is an unfulfilled wish. What does a young child do if he sees a passing cab and wants to ride it at all costs? If this is a capricious and spoiled child, then he will demand from his mother that they put him on this cab at all costs, he can throw himself right there on the street on the ground, etc. If it is an obedient child, accustomed to refusing desires, then he will move away, or the mother will offer him candy, or simply distract him with some stronger affect, and the child will give up his immediate desire.

In contrast, after the age of three, a child develops peculiar contradictory tendencies; on the one hand, he has a whole series of needs that are not immediately realized, desires that are not fulfilled now and yet do not disappear like desires; on the other hand, he retains almost the entire tendency towards the immediate realization of desires.

This is where play arises, which, from the point of view of the question of why a child plays, must always be understood as an imaginary illusory realization of unrealizable desires.

Imagination is that neoformation which is absent in the consciousness of a young child, is absolutely absent in an animal, and which represents a specific human form of the activity of consciousness; like all functions of consciousness, it arises initially in action. The old formula that children's play is imagination in action can be reversed and it can be said that the imagination of the adolescent and schoolchild is play without action.

It is difficult to imagine that the urge that makes a child play was really just an affective urge of the same kind as that of an infant when sucking on a pacifier.

It's hard to let the pleasure of preschool game was due to the same affective mechanism as simple pacifier sucking. This does not fit in with anything from the point of view of the development of a preschooler.

All this does not mean that the game arises in as a result of each individual unsatisfied desire - the child wanted to ride a cab - this desire was not satisfied now, the child came into the room and began to play cab. That never happens. Here we are talking that the child has not only individual affective reactions to individual phenomena, but generalized unobjectified affective tendencies. Take a child suffering from a low-value complex, a microcephalus, for example; he could not be in the children's team - he was teased so much that he began to beat all the mirrors and glasses where his image was. This is a profound difference from the early age; there, with a separate phenomenon (in a specific situation), for example, every time they tease, a separate affective reaction arises, not yet generalized. At preschool age, the child generalizes his affective attitude to the phenomenon, regardless of the present concrete situation, since the attitude is affectively connected with the meaning of the phenomenon, and therefore he always shows a complex of low value.

The essence of the game is that it is the fulfillment of desires, but not individual desires, but generalized affects. A child at this age is aware of his relationships with adults, he reacts affectively to them, but unlike early childhood, he generalizes these affective reactions (he is impressed by the authority of adults in general, etc.).

The presence of such generalized affects in play does not mean that the child himself understands the motives for which the game is started, that he does it consciously. He plays without being aware of the motives of playing activity. This essentially distinguishes the game from work and other activities. In general, it must be said that the area of ​​motives, actions, motives is among the less conscious and becomes fully accessible to consciousness only in the transitional age. Only a teenager is aware of what he is doing this or that for. Now let's leave for a few minutes the question of the affective side, let's look at it as some kind of premise, and let's see how the play activity itself unfolds.

It seems to me that the criterion for distinguishing a child's play activity from the general group of other forms of his activity should be the fact that in play the child creates an imaginary situation. This becomes possible on the basis of the divergence of the visible and semantic fields that appear at preschool age.

This idea is not new in the sense that the presence of a game with an imaginary situation has always been known, but it was considered as one of the groups of the game. In this case, the imaginary situation was given the value of a secondary feature. The imaginary situation was not, in the view of the old authors, the main quality that makes a game a game, since only one specific group of games was characterized by this feature.

The main difficulty of this idea, it seems to me, lies in three points. First, there is the danger of an intellectualistic approach to the game; fears may arise that if the game is understood as symbolism, then it turns into some kind of activity, similar to algebra in action; it turns into a system of some kind of signs generalizing reality; here we no longer find anything specific to play and imagine the child as a failed algebraist who still does not know how to write icons on paper, but depicts them in action. It is necessary to show the connection with the impulses in the game, because the game itself, it seems to me, is never a symbolic action in the proper sense of the word.

Secondly, it seems to me that this thought represents play as a cognitive process, it points to the significance of this cognitive process, leaving aside not only the affective moment, but also the moment of the child's activity.

The third point - it is necessary to reveal what this activity does in development, i.e. that with the help of an imaginary situation can develop in a child.

If I may, let us begin with the second question, since I have already touched briefly on the connection with affective impulse. We have seen that in the affective urge that leads to play there are the beginnings not of symbolism, but of the necessity of an imaginary situation, for if play really develops from unsatisfied desires, from unrealizable tendencies, if it consists in the fact that it is a realization in a playful form tendencies that are currently unrealizable, then moments of an imaginary situation will involuntarily be laid in the very affective nature of this game.

Let's start from the second point - with the child's activity in the game. What does the behavior of a child in an imaginary situation mean? We know that there is a form of play that was also singled out long ago and that usually refers to the late period of preschool age; its development was considered central at school age; It's about games with rules. A number of investigators, although not at all belonging to the camp of dialectical materialists, have followed in this area the path recommended by Marx when he says that "human anatomy is the key to ape anatomy." They became in the light of this late game with the rules to consider the game of early age, and their study led to the conclusion that the game with an imaginary situation, in essence, is a game with rules; It seems to me that one can even put forward the proposition that there is no play where there is no child's behavior with rules, his peculiar attitude to the rules.

Let me explain this idea. Take any game with an imaginary situation. The imaginary situation already contains rules of behavior, although this is not a game with developed rules formulated in advance. The child imagined himself a mother, and the doll - a child, he must behave, obeying the rules of maternal behavior. This was shown very well by one of the researchers in an ingenious experiment, based on the famous observations of Selley. The latter, as is known, described the game, remarkable in that the game situation and the real situation in children coincided. Two sisters - one five, the other seven - once agreed: "Let's play sisters." Thus, Selley described a case where two sisters played that they were two sisters, i.e. played out a real situation. The experiment mentioned above based its methodology on the children's play inspired by the experimenter, but on the basis of real relationships. In some cases I have succeeded in inducing such play in children with great ease. So, it is very easy to force a child to play with his mother that he is a child, and the mother is a mother, i.e. into what really is. The essential difference between play, as described by Sally, is that the child, when he starts playing, tries to be a sister. A girl in life behaves without thinking that she is a sister in relation to another. She does nothing towards the other, because she is the sister of this other, except, perhaps, in those cases when the mother says: "Give in." In the game of sisters in “sisters”, each of the sisters constantly manifests her sisterhood all the time; the fact that two sisters began to play sisters leads to the fact that each of them receives rules for behavior. (I must be a sister in relation to the other sister in the entire game situation.) Only such actions that fit these rules are playful, suitable for the situation.

The game takes a situation that emphasizes that these girls are sisters, they are dressed the same, they walk holding hands; in a word, what is taken is what emphasizes their position as sisters in relation to adults, in relation to strangers. The eldest, holding the hand of the younger, all the time says about those who portray people: "These are strangers, these are not ours." This means: “My sister and I act the same way, we are treated the same way, but with others, strangers, differently.” Here there is an emphasis on the sameness of everything that for a child is concentrated in the concept of a sister, and this means that my sister stands in a different relationship to me than strangers. What exists imperceptibly for a child in life becomes a rule of behavior in play.

Thus, it turns out that if you create a game in such a way that it would seem that there is no imaginary situation in it, then what remains? The rule remains. What remains is that the child begins to behave in this situation, as this situation dictates.

Let's leave this wonderful experiment in the field of play for a moment and turn to any game. It seems to me that wherever there is an imaginary situation in the game, there is a rule everywhere. Not rules formulated in advance and changing throughout the game, but rules arising from an imaginary situation. Therefore, imagine that a child can behave in an imaginary situation without rules, i.e. the way he behaves in a real situation is simply impossible. If the child plays the role of mother, then he has rules for the behavior of the mother. The role that the child performs, his attitude to the object, if the object has changed its meaning, will always follow from the rule, i.e. an imaginary situation will always contain rules. In play, the child is free, but this is an illusory freedom.

If the task of the researcher at first was to reveal the implicit rule contained in any game with an imaginary situation, then relatively recently we have received proof that the so-called " pure play with the rules” (of a schoolchild and the game of a preschooler by the end of this age) is essentially a game with an imaginary situation, for just as an imaginary situation necessarily contains rules of behavior, so any game with rules contains an imaginary situation. What does it mean, for example, to play chess? Create an imaginary situation. Why? Because an officer can only walk like this, a king like that, and a queen like that; beat, remove from the board, etc. - these are purely chess concepts; but some kind of imaginary situation, although not directly replacing life relationships, is still here. Take the most simple game with children's rules. It immediately turns into an imaginary situation in the sense that as soon as the game is regulated by some rules, then a number of real actions turn out to be impossible in relation to this.

In the same way as at the beginning it was possible to show that every imaginary situation contains rules in a hidden form, it was also possible to show the opposite - that every game with rules contains an imaginary situation in a hidden form. The development from an explicit imaginary situation and hidden rules to a game with explicit rules and a hidden imaginary situation constitutes two poles, outlines the evolution of children's play.

Every game with an imaginary situation is at the same time a game with rules, and every game with rules is a game with an imaginary situation. It seems to me that this position is clear.

However, there is one misunderstanding that needs to be corrected from the very beginning. The child learns to behave according to a certain rule from the first months of his life. If we take a child of an early age, then such rules that one must sit at the table and be silent, not touch other people's things, obey the mother - these are the rules that the life of a child is full of. What is specific about the rules of the game? It seems to me that the solution of this question becomes possible in connection with some new works. In particular, Piaget's new work on the development of moral rules in the child has rendered me the greatest help here; in this work there is one part devoted to the study of the rules of the game, in which Piaget gives, it seems to me, an extremely convincing solution to these difficulties.

Piaget shares two, as he puts it, morality in a child, two sources of development of the rules of children's behavior, which are different from each other.

In the game, this appears with particular clarity. Some rules arise in the child, as Piaget shows, from the unilateral influence of the adult on the child. If you can not touch other people's things, then this rule was taught by the mother; or you have to sit quietly at the table - this is what adults put forward as an external law in relation to the child. This is the one morality of the child. Other rules arise, as Piaget says, from the mutual cooperation of the adult and the child, or children among themselves; these are the rules in the establishment of which the child himself participates.

The game rules, of course, differ significantly from the rule of not touching other people's things and sitting quietly at the table; First of all, they differ in that they are installed by the child himself. These are his rules for himself, the rules, as Piaget says, of internal self-restraint and self-determination. The child says to himself: "I must behave this way and that way in this game." This is quite different than when a child is told that this is possible, but this is not. Piaget showed a very interesting phenomenon in the development of children's morality, which he calls moral realism; he points out that the first line of development of external rules (do's and don'ts) leads to moral realism, i.e. to the fact that the child confuses moral rules with physical rules; he confuses that it is impossible to re-light a match once lit and that in general it is impossible to light matches or touch a glass, because it can be broken; all these “don’ts” for a child at an early age are one and the same, he has a completely different attitude towards the rules that he establishes himself*.

Let us now turn to the question of the role of play, of its influence on the development of the child. It looks huge to me.

I will try to convey two main ideas. I think that playing with an imaginary situation is essentially new, impossible for a child under three; this is a new type of behavior, the essence of which is that activity in an imaginary situation frees the child from situational bondage.

The behavior of a young child to a large extent, the behavior of an infant in an absolute degree, as shown by the experiments of Levin and others, is behavior determined by the position in which the activity takes place. A famous example is Levin's experiment with a stone. This experience is a real illustration of the extent to which a child of early age is bound in every action by the position in which his activity takes place. We have found in this an extremely characteristic feature of the behavior of a young child in the sense of his attitude to his surroundings, to the real situation in which his activity takes place. It is difficult to imagine a great contrast to what these experiments of Levin depict for us in the sense of the situational connection of activity with what we see in play: in play, the child learns to act in a cognizable, not a visible situation. It seems to me that this formula accurately conveys what is happening in the game. In play, the child learns to act in the knowable, i.e. in a mental, and not a visible situation, relying on internal tendencies and motives, and not on the motives and motives that come from the thing. Let me remind you of Levin's teaching about the motivating nature of things for a young child, that things dictate to him what needs to be done - the door pulls the child to open and close it, the stairs - to run up, the bell - to that to call. In a word, things have an inherent motive force in relation to the actions of a young child; it determines the child's behavior to such an extent that Levin came up with the idea of ​​creating a psychological topology, i.e. to mathematically express the trajectory of the child's movement in the field, depending on how things are located there with different attractive and repulsive forces for the child.

What is the root of the situational connectedness of the child? We found it in one central fact of consciousness, characteristic of early age and consisting in the unity of affect and perception. Perception at this age is generally not independent, but the initial moment in the motor-affective reaction, i.e. every perception is thus a stimulus to action. Since the situation is always psychologically given through perception, and perception is not separated from affective and motor activity, it is clear that a child with such a structure of consciousness cannot act otherwise than as bound by the situation, as bound by the field in which he is.

In play, things lose their motivational character. The child sees one thing, but acts differently in relation to what is visible. Thus, it turns out that the child begins to act regardless of what he sees. There are patients with some brain damage who lose this ability to act independently of what they see; when you see these patients, you begin to understand that the freedom of action that each of us and a child of a more mature age has was not given immediately, but had to go through a long path of development.

Action in a situation that is not seen, but only thought, action in an imaginary field, in an imaginary situation, leads to the fact that the child learns to be determined in his behavior not only by direct perception of a thing or a situation directly affecting him, but by the meaning of this situation.

Young children discover in experiments and in everyday observation that it is impossible for them to diverge between the semantic and visible fields. This is a very important fact. Even a two-year-old child, when he has to repeat, looking at the child sitting in front of him: "Tanya is coming," changes the phrase and says: "Tanya is sitting." In some diseases we are dealing with exactly the same situation. Goldstein and Gelb described a number of patients who are unable to say what is not. Gelb has materials about one patient who, being able to write well with his left hand, could not write the phrase: “I can write well with my right hand”; looking out the window in good weather, he could not repeat the phrase: “Today is bad weather,” but said: “Today is good weather.” Very often, in a patient with a speech disorder, we have a symptom of the impossibility of repeating a meaningless phrase, for example: "The snow is black", at a time when a number of other phrases, equally difficult in grammatical and semantic composition, are repeated.

In a child of early age there is a close fusion of the word with the thing, the meaning with the visible, in which the discrepancy between the semantic field and the visible field becomes impossible.

This can be understood based on the process of development of children's speech. You say to the child - "hours". He starts searching and finds a watch, i.e. the first function of the word is to orient itself in space, to highlight individual places in space; the word originally means a well-known place in a situation.

At preschool age in play we have for the first time a discrepancy between the semantic field and the optical field. It seems to me that one can repeat the thought of one of the researchers, who says that in game action the thought is separated from the thing, and the action begins from the thought, and not from the thing.

A thought is separated from a thing because a piece of wood begins to play the role of a doll, a stick becomes a horse, action according to the rules begins to be determined from the thought, and not from the thing itself. This is such a revolution in the child's attitude to the real, concrete immediate situation, which is difficult to assess in all its significance. The child doesn't do it right away. To tear a thought (the meaning of a word) from a thing is a terribly difficult task for a child. The game is a transitional form to this. At the moment when the stick, i.e. thing becomes a reference point for separating the meaning of a horse from a real horse, at this critical moment one of the basic psychological structures that determines the child's attitude to reality changes radically.

The child cannot yet tear the thought away from the thing, he must have a point of support in another thing; here we have the expression of this weakness of the child; in order to think about the horse, to determine his actions with this horse, he needs a stick, a fulcrum. But still, at this critical moment, the basic structure that determines the child's attitude to reality, namely the structure of perception, changes radically. A feature of human perception that occurs at an early age is the so-called "real perception". It is something to which we have nothing analogous in the perception of an animal. The essence of this is that I see not only the world as colors and shapes, but also a world that has meaning and meaning. I do not see something round, black, with two hands, but I see a clock and I can separate one from the other. There are patients who, when they see a watch, will say that they see a round, white, with two thin steel strips, but they do not know that it is a watch, they have lost their real attitude to the thing. So, the structure of human perception could be figuratively expressed as a fraction, the numerator of which is the thing, and the denominator is the meaning; this expresses a certain relationship between the thing and the meaning that arises on the basis of speech. This means that each human perception is not a single perception, but a generalized perception. Goldstein says that such object-formed perception and generalization are one and the same. Here in this fraction - a thing-sense - a thing is dominant in a child; meaning is directly related to it. At that critical moment when the child's wand becomes a horse, i.e. when a thing - a stick - becomes a reference point in order to tear off the meaning of a horse from a real horse, this fraction, as the researcher says, is overturned, and the semantic moment becomes dominant: meaning / thing.

Nevertheless, the properties of the thing as such remain of considerable importance: any stick can play the role of a horse, but, for example, a postcard cannot be a horse for a child. Goethe's proposition that for a child in play everything can become everything is a wrong proposition. For adults, with conscious symbolism, of course, the card can also be a horse. If I want to show the location of the experiments, I put down a match and say - this is a horse. And that's enough. For a child, this cannot be a horse, it must be a stick, so the game is not a symbolism. A symbol is a sign, and a stick is not a sign of a horse. The properties of the thing are preserved, but their value is overturned, i.e. thought becomes central. We can say that things in this structure from the dominant moment become something subordinate.

Thus, the child in the game creates such a structure - meaning / thing, where the semantic side, the meaning of the word, the meaning of the thing, is dominant, determining his behavior.

Meaning is emancipated to some extent from the thing with which it was formerly directly merged. I would say that in the game the child operates with a meaning that is divorced from the thing, but it is inseparable from the real action with the real object.

Thus, an extremely interesting contradiction arises, which lies in the fact that the child operates with meanings divorced from things and actions, but operates with them inseparably from some real action and some other real thing. This is the transitional nature of the game, which makes it an intermediate link between the purely situational connectedness of an early age and thinking that is divorced from the real situation.

In the game, the child operates with things as things that have meaning, operates with the meanings of words that replace the thing, therefore, in the game, the emancipation of the word from the thing takes place (a behaviorist would describe the game and its characteristic properties as follows: the child calls ordinary things by unusual names, his ordinary actions - unusual designations, despite the fact that he knows the real names).

The separation of a word from a thing needs a strong point in the form of another thing. But at the moment when the stick, that is, the thing, becomes the fulcrum for separating the meaning "horse" from the real horse (the child cannot tear the meaning from the thing or the word from the thing otherwise than by finding a fulcrum in another thing, that is, by the power of one things to steal the name of another), he makes one thing, as it were, act on another in the semantic field. The transfer of meanings is facilitated by the fact that the child takes the word for a property of a thing, does not see the word, but sees behind it the thing it signifies. For a child, the word "horse", referred to a stick, means: "there is a horse", i.e. he mentally sees thing by word.

The game moves to internal processes at school age, to internal speech, logical memory, abstract thinking. In play, the child operates with meanings divorced from things, but inseparable from real action with real objects, but separating the meaning of a horse from a real horse and transferring it to a stick (a real fulcrum, otherwise the meaning will evaporate, evaporate) and real action with a stick, as with horse, there is a necessary transitional stage to operating with meanings, that is, the child first acts with meanings, as with things, and then becomes aware of them and begins to think, that is, just as the child has skills before grammatical and written speech, but does not know what has them, that is, does not realize and does not own them arbitrarily; In play, the child unconsciously and involuntarily takes advantage of the fact that it is possible to separate meaning from a thing, that is, he does not know what he is doing, he does not know that he is speaking in prose, just as he speaks but does not notice the word.

Hence the functional definition of concepts, i.e. things, hence the word is part of the thing.

So, I would like to say that the fact of creating an imaginary situation is not an accidental fact in the life of a child; it has as its first consequence the emancipation of the child from situational bondage. The first paradox of the game is that the child operates with a detached meaning, but in a real situation. The second paradox is that the child acts in play along the line of least resistance, i.e. he does what he most wants to do, because the game is associated with pleasure. At the same time, he learns to act along the line of greatest resistance: obeying the rules, children refuse what they want, since obeying the rules and refusing to act on a direct impulse in the game is the path to maximum pleasure.

If you take children in a sports game, you will see the same thing. It is difficult to run a race because the runners are ready to take off when you say "1, 2 ..." and do not last until 3. Obviously, the essence of the internal rules is that the child should not act on immediate impulse.

Play continuously, at every step, creates demands on the child to act contrary to the immediate impulse, i.e. follow the line of greatest resistance. I immediately want to run - this is quite clear, but the game rules tell me to stop. Why does the child not do what he immediately wants to do now? Because the observance of the rules in the whole structure of the game promises such a great enjoyment of the game, which is greater than the immediate impulse; in other words, as one of the researchers declares, recalling the words of Spinoza, "an affect can only be defeated by another, stronger affect." Thus, a situation is created in the game in which, as Zero says, a double affective plan arises. A child, for example, cries in the game, like a patient, but rejoices, like a player. The child refuses to play from a direct impulse, coordinating his behavior, each of his actions with the rules of the game. This is brilliantly described by Gross. His idea is that the will of the child is born and develops from the game with the rules. Indeed, in the simple game of wizards described by Gross, the child must, in order not to lose, run away from the wizard; at the same time he must help his comrade and disenchant him. When the sorcerer touches him, he must stop. At every step, the child comes into conflict between the rule of the game and what he would do if he could now act directly: in the game he acts contrary to what he now wants. Zero showed that the greatest power of self-management in a child arises in play. He reached the maximum will in the child in the sense of giving up immediate attraction in the game - sweets that children were not supposed to eat according to game rules because they depicted inedible things. Usually the child experiences obedience to the rule in refusing what he wants, but here - obedience to the rule and refusal to act on an immediate impulse is the path to maximum pleasure.

Thus, the essential feature of a game is a rule that has become an affect. “An idea that has become an affect, a concept that has become a passion” is the prototype of this ideal of Spinoza in the game, which is the realm of arbitrariness and freedom. Rule fulfillment is a source of pleasure. The rule wins as the strongest impulse (cf. Spinoza - affect can be defeated by the strongest affect). It follows from this that such a rule is an internal rule, that is, a rule of internal self-restraint, self-determination, as Piaget says, and not a rule to which the child obeys as a physical law. In short, play gives the child a new form of desire, i.e. teaches him to desire, relating desires to a fictitious "I", i.e. to the role in the game and its rules, therefore, in the game, the highest achievements of the child are possible, which tomorrow will become his average real level, his morality. Now we can say the same about the activity of the child that we said about the thing. Just as there is a fraction - a thing / meaning, there is a fraction - an action / meaning.

If before the dominant moment was the action, now this structure is overturned and the meaning becomes the numerator, and the action - the denominator.

It is important to understand what kind of liberation from actions the child receives in the game, when this action becomes instead of a real one, for example, food, by the movement of the fingers, i.e. when an action is performed not for the sake of the action, but for the sake of the meaning that it denotes.

In a preschool child, at first the action is dominant over its meaning, a misunderstanding of this action; The child is more able to do than to understand. At preschool age, for the first time, such a structure of action arises in which meaning is decisive; but the action itself is not a secondary, subordinate moment, but a structural moment. Zero showed that children ate from a plate, making a series of movements with their hands that resembled real food, but actions that could not mean food at all became impossible. Throwing the hands back, instead of pulling them to the plate, became impossible, i.e. it had a disruptive effect on the game. The child does not symbolize in the game, but wishes, fulfills the desire, passes through the experience the main categories of reality, which is why the day is played in the game in half an hour, 100 miles are covered in five steps. The child, wishing, performs, thinking - acts; the continuity of the internal action from the external: imagination, comprehension and will, i.e. internal processes in external action.

The main thing is the meaning of the action, but the action itself is not indifferent. At an early age, the situation was reversed, i.e. structurally determining was the action, and the meaning was a secondary, secondary, subordinate moment. The same thing that we said about the separation of meaning from the object also applies to the child’s own actions: a child who, standing still, tramples, imagining that he is riding a horse, thereby overturns the fraction - action / meaning for meaning / action.

Again, in order to separate the meaning of the action from the real action (to ride without being able to do so), the child needs a strong point in the form of a substitute real action. But again, if earlier in the structure "action - meaning" the action was determining, now the structure is overturning and the meaning becomes determining. The action is relegated to the background, becomes a fulcrum - again the meaning is torn off from the action with the help of another action. This is again a repeated point on the way to a pure operation with the meanings of actions, i.e. to volitional choice, decision, struggle of motives, and other processes that are sharply divorced from fulfillment, i.e. the path to will, just as operating with the meanings of things is the path to abstract thinking - after all, in a volitional decision, the determining point is not the very execution of an action, but its meaning. In play, an action replaces another action, just as a thing replaces another thing. How does the child "melt" one thing into another, one action into another? This is carried out through movement in the semantic field, not connected by the visible field, by real things, which subjugates all real things and real actions.

This movement in the semantic field is the most important thing in the game: on the one hand, it is movement in an abstract field (the field, therefore, arises earlier than arbitrary manipulation of values), but the way of movement is situational, concrete (i.e. not logical , but an affective movement). In other words, a semantic field arises, but movement in it occurs in the same way as in a real one - this is the main genetic contradiction of the game. It remains for me to answer three questions: firstly, to show that play is not the predominant, but the leading moment in the development of the child; what does the movement from the predominance of the imaginary situation to the predominance of the rule mean; and thirdly, to show what internal transformations play produces in the development of the child.

I think that play is not the predominant activity of a child. In the main life situations the child behaves diametrically opposite to how he behaves in the game. In his play, action is subordinate to meaning, but in real life, action, of course, dominates meaning.

Thus, we have in the game, if you like, the negative of the child's general life behavior. Therefore, it would be completely unreasonable to consider the game as a prototype of his life activity, as the predominant form. This is the main shortcoming of Koffka's theory, which considers play as another world of the child. Everything that relates to the child, according to Koffka, is play reality. What concerns an adult is a serious reality. The same thing in the game has one meaning, outside of this - a different meaning. In the children's world, the logic of desires dominates, the logic of the satisfaction of desire, and not real logic. The illusory nature of the game is transferred to life. This would be the case if play were the predominant form of the child's activity; but it is difficult to imagine what kind of picture from a lunatic asylum a child would resemble if this form of activity, of which we are talking with you, was at least to some extent transferred to real life would become the predominant form of the child's life activity.

Koffka gives a number of examples of how a child transfers a game situation to life. But the real transference of play behavior into life can only be regarded as a painful symptom. To behave in a real situation, as in an illusory one, means to give the initial sprouts of delirium.

As research shows, play behavior in life is normally observed when play is in the nature of sisters playing “sisters”, i.e. children, sitting at a real dinner, can play dinner or (in the example given by Katz) children who do not want to go to bed say: "Let's play what seems to be night, we have to go to bed"; they begin to play with what they are actually doing, apparently creating some other relationship, thereby facilitating the implementation of an unpleasant action.

Thus, it seems to me that play is not the predominant type of activity in preschool age. Only in theories that consider the child not as a being who satisfies the basic requirements of life, but as a being who lives in search of pleasure, strives to satisfy these pleasures, can such an idea arise that the children's world is a world of play.

Is it possible for a child to behave in such a way that he always acts according to the meaning, is it possible for a preschooler to behave in such a dry way that he does not behave the way he wants with a candy, only because of the thought that he should behave differently? Such obedience to rules is an absolutely impossible thing in life; in the game it becomes possible; Thus, the game creates the zone of proximal development of the child. In the game, the child is always higher than his own middle-aged, above their usual daily behavior; he is in the game, as it were, head and shoulders above himself. The game in a condensed form contains, as in the focus of a magnifying glass, all the tendencies of development; the child in the game, as it were, is trying to make a jump above the level of his usual behavior.

The relationship of play to development should be compared with the relationship of learning to development. Behind the game are changes in needs and changes in consciousness general. The game is a source of development and creates a zone of proximal development. Action in an imaginary field, in an imaginary situation, the creation of an arbitrary intention, the formation of a life plan, volitional motives - all this arises in the game and puts it on the highest level of development, elevates it to the crest of a wave, makes it the ninth wave of development of preschool age, which rises throughout deep waters, but relatively calm.

In essence, the child moves through play activity. Only in this sense can play be called a leading activity, i. determining the development of the child.

The second question is how is the game moving? It is remarkable that the child begins with an imaginary situation, and this imaginary situation is initially very close to the real situation. There is a reproduction of the real situation. Let's say a child, playing with dolls, almost repeats what his mother does with him; the doctor just looked at the child's throat, hurt him, he screamed, but as soon as the doctor left, he immediately climbs into the doll's mouth with a spoon.

This means that in the initial situation the rule is in the highest degree in a compressed, crumpled form. The imaginary itself the situation is also extremely little imaginary. It is an imaginary situation, but it becomes understandable in its relation to the real situation that has just occurred, i.e. it is a remembrance of something past. The game is more like a memory than an imagination; it is rather a memory in action than a new imaginary situation. As the game develops, we have a movement in the direction that the goal of the game is realized.

It is wrong to imagine that play is an activity without a goal; play is the goal activity of the child. AT sports games ah there is a win or a loss, you can run first and you can be second or last. In a word, the goal decides the game. The goal becomes that for which everything else is undertaken. The goal, as the final moment, determines the affective attitude of the child to the game; running in a race, the child can be very worried and very upset; little of his pleasure can remain, because it is physically difficult for him to run, and if he is ahead of him, then he will experience little functional pleasure. The goal by the end of the game in sports games becomes one of the dominant moments of the game, without which the game loses its meaning as much as looking at some tasty candy, putting it in your mouth, chewing it and spitting it back out.

In the game, a pre-set goal is realized - who will run first.

At the end of development, a rule appears, and the more rigid it is, the more it requires adaptation from the child, the more it regulates the child's activity, the more intense and sharper the game becomes. Simple running without a goal, without rules of the game - this is a sluggish game that does not excite the guys.

Zero made the rules of croquet easier for children. He shows how it demagnetizes, i.e. as for a child, the game loses its meaning as the rules fall away. Consequently, by the end of development, what was in the embryo at the beginning appears clearly in the game. The goal is the rules. It was before, but in a collapsed form. There is another moment that is very significant for a sports game - this is a certain record, also very related to the goal.

Let's take chess, for example. Nice to win chess game and unpleasant for a real player to lose it. Zero says that it is as pleasant for a child to be the first to run as it is for a beautiful person to look at himself in the mirror; there is a sense of satisfaction.

Consequently, a complex of qualities emerges that comes forward as much at the end of the development of the game as it collapses at the beginning; moments that are secondary or secondary at the beginning become central at the end and vice versa - the moments that are dominant at the beginning become secondary at the end.

Finally, the third question is what kind of changes in the child's behavior does play produce? In the game, the child is free, i.e. he determines his actions on the basis of his "I". But this is an illusory freedom. He subordinates his actions to a certain meaning, he acts on the basis of the meaning of a thing.

The child learns to be aware of his own actions, to realize that every thing matters.

The fact of creating an imaginary situation from the point of view of development can be considered as a path to the development of abstract thinking; the rule connected with this, it seems to me, leads to the development of the child's actions, on the basis of which the division of play and labor in general becomes possible, which we encounter at school age as a basic fact.

I would also like to draw attention to one point: the game is really a feature of the preschool age.

According to the figurative expression of one of the researchers, the game of a child up to three years old has the character of a serious game, just like the game of a teenager, in a different sense of the word, of course; serious game child of an early age lies in the fact that he plays without separating the imaginary situation from the real one.

In a schoolchild, play begins to exist in the form of a limited form of activity, predominantly of the type of sports games that play a certain role in general development schoolchildren, but not having the significance that play has for a preschooler.

The game in appearance bears little resemblance to what it leads to, and only an internal deep analysis of it makes it possible to determine the process of its movement and its role in the development of the preschooler.

At school age, the game does not die, but penetrates into the relationship to reality. It has its internal continuation in schooling and work (compulsory activity with a rule). All consideration of the essence of the game showed us that in the game a new relationship is created between the semantic field, i.e. between a situation in thought and a real situation.

Based on the materials of the "Journal of the Psychological Society. L.S. Vygotsky".