Boris Elkonin’s Colleagues and Experts discussed his Legacy

On November 14th, 2023, Boris Daniilovich Elkonin, a prominent figure in Russian psychology and developmental pedagogy, passed away. In honor of this notable scholar and practitioner, we held a roundtable discussion on his legacy.

Oksana Ostroverkh, a colleague of Boris Daniilovich in the Draft Project at the Krasnoyarsk Gymnasium “Univers”, shared her memories on how Elkonin’s ideas have influenced primary education. She highlighted the concept of separating the learning space into a “Draft” (a space for children’s testing) and a “Clean” (a space for effective learning).

Boris Daniilovich considered “trial” and error work to be extremely important – it allows the child to understand the task and determine whether they can complete it. He suggested dividing the classroom into preparation and implementation zones. In the preparation area, teachers did not focus on correctness, but instead assisted children in their trial and error process.

In 2000, under the leadership of Boris Elkonin, the Teenage School Project was established, bringing together 70 innovative educational institutions. At this time, Elena Chudinova discussed the transformation of primary schools based on principles of developmental learning.

The training program incorporated the concept of “positionality”, which involves considering issues from different perspectives. This included theories such as Darwin’s and Lamarck’s, which explore the evolution of life, and interdisciplinary connections to reflect the holistic nature of knowledge. Attention was paid to the dynamics of education in primary schools in comparison to secondary schools, and new textbooks in science and mathematics were developed and published. Galina Zuckerman stressed the significance of the theoretical contributions made by Boris Elkonin, who expanded upon the ideas of Vygotsky and Elkonin in order to explore how education can help transform a child’s innate abilities into cultural competencies while preserving their inherent strengths.

20.01.2024