Buying a Home

To day was a busy day for my family. Since we were planning to buy a home, we went with our realtor to see a couple of houses. She was living in the neighborhood, she took us, for long time. Therefore, she was explaining the good and bad things about each community.

“Individual development cannot be understood without reference to the social milieu in which the child is embedded.” (Tudge & Rogoff, 1989) According to Vygotsky, one of the brilliant psychologists, “Biological and cultural development do not occur in isolation. It is important to consider the social and cultural factors as they mediate the development of human intellectual capabilities.”

Children convert social relations in to psychological functions by mediation through signs. The mediation signs are, indexical (Cause-effect relationship with the events), iconic (images or pictures) and symbolic (abstract relation with the events). These signs are the same signs suggested by Bruner (1961). Children used to internalize these signs and leads to a new learning.
We decided not to buy few houses even though they were good. It is because the social situations in some of the communies were not very good. We were very much concerned about our children. Our children came from another country, another social system. We like our children to internalize all the good signs from the local social system, not the bad. We know their school, teachers, classmates, friends, or neighbors are going to influence their individual development. Before we buy any house, I will thoroughly study the social and cultural conditions of the community; I am going to put my children. As a father that is one thing, I can do for my children.


Reference: Driscoll, M (2005). Psychology of Learning For Instruction. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc.