Stages of implementation

The history of the establishment of a system for the general development of pupils is closely tied to the scientific biography of its founder Leonid Zankov (1901-1977) – a renowned Soviet researcher in the fields of pedagogy and psychology.

Leonid Vladimirovich Zankov was born on 21st April 1901 in Warsaw, the son of a Russian officer. In 1916 he graduated from high school in Moscow, and began work as a teacher in the village of Turdei, in the Tula region, during the years immediately following the Russian revolution.

From 1920 to 1922 the young teacher was head of the ‘Ostrovnya’ boarding school in the Moscow region. In 1922 he was sent to the pedagogical department of the Social Sciences faculty of Moscow University, where he first met the well-known psychologist Lev Vygotsky. Together with his scientific supervisor (Vygotsky was 26 years old), Zankov took part in experimental psychological research in the field of memory.

After completing his university education, Zankov was granted a place in the Psychological Institute at the University of Moscow. It was here that he began his research into the education of children with special needs, under Vygotsky’s supervision. At the same time, he continued his general study of the psychological aspects of memory.

In 1929, the People’s Commissariat for Education decided that special scientific and educational plans should be compiled for working with special needs students. The assignment was given to the Institute for Special Education Research (Russian: defektology). The then well-known pedagogue I.I. Danyushevsky was appointed as director of the institute, while Zankov was appointed as deputy director for scientific research. The Institute was given the country’s first scientific laboratories for research into special needs education and psychology, under Vygotsky’s leadership.

It was during his work at the Institute for Special Education Research that the unique features of Zankov’s methodology first began to emerge - features that would prove fruitful in his own later research. He developed an interest in the interplay between pedagogy and psychology, the psyche’s dependence on learning processes, and the conflict between external influences and internal factors, via the potential of each individual child. He was a firm believer in the importance of observable information from real-world situations, and his reputation as a scientist began to grow. He tried to build his theories on the analysis of objective, reliable facts.

This is particularly clear in the work on memory carried out by Zankov and his staff in the 1930s and 40s. They established clear facts regarding memory in early school-age children, particularly the differences between learning levels, age groups, and individuals. Some conclusions could be drawn about the role culture played in logical memory when new things were being remembered. The results of this research are reflected in his doctoral dissertation “Reminiscence Psychology” (1942), in a series of articles, and in the monographs “Schoolchildren’s Memory” (1943) and “Memory” (1952).

It is worth noting that Zankov, in 1943-44, led a group of researchers carrying out scientific and practical work on restoring speech in injured soldiers in hospitals for cranial and brain injuries.

In 1944, Zankov was appointed director of the Institute for Special Education Research, a part of the Russian Academy of Education. He was selected as a correspondence member of the Academy in 1954, and a full member in 1955.

In 1951 Zankov moved to the Research Institute for Pedagogical Theory and History, under the Russian Academy of Science. He concentrated on research into general pedagogy, bringing with him his extensive knowledge of children, and his expert perspective on psychological and pedagogical research and appropriate teaching methods. At the Institute Zankov led the Laboratory for Experimental Didactics, later renamed the Laboratory for Upbringing and Development, subsequently the Laboratory for Education and Development.

What made this laboratory so suitable was the range of fields from which its researchers were drawn. There were experts in didactics, methodology, psychology, physiology, and special needs education. This collaboration made it possible to study the underlying processes happening within children during education. The particular needs of each individual student can be more easily identified, allowing for pedagogical intervention while leaving space for the child to develop strong personality traits unharmed.

In 1957 Zankov and his team of researchers began the psychological/pedagogical study “Learning and Development”. He devoted the last 20 years of his life to this project, and his students and followers have continued his work since his death.

The relationship between learning and development is nothing new within the fields of psychology or pedagogy. It was Vygotsky whose theories theoretically justified the teacher’s leading role in their students’ development, while we have Zankov to thank when it comes to our understanding of the relationship between learning and development, with his work and experiments having provided a solid body of evidence in that area.

This was a pedagogical experiment that had covered the whole learning process, rather than just individual elements of it. The unique nature of Zankov’s research can also be seen via the integration of experimentation, theory and practise, where the goal of his research was to progress from an experiment to the practical realisation of the results. It is precisely this sort of research that is now preferred in numerous scientific fields. The research is characterised by its links to various fields concerned with children: pedagogy, psychology, and physiology among them. It has made it possible to closely study students from the beginning of their education across a broad front, and to develop an education that allows the development of logic, rationality, and intuition. The methodology begun in 1957 is equally suitable to the demands of our own time, and the fruits of its research can be used to investigate the conditions necessary for the development of each individual child.

The trials were initially carried out in the laboratory, then through narrow pedagogical experiments in various different schools, then as a comprehensive three-stage experiment over a period of several years encompassing over a thousand sample classes. The teachers and classes used for the experiment were selected randomly, in

both rural and urban areas and in single- and multilingual schools, enhancing the reliability of the research.

Over the course of the research a new system for primary education has emerged, one that has proven highly effective for the general development of pupils at a primary school level. Between 1963-1967 several books were published, describing the theoretical and practical methodology of this new form of education. A system was established to assess learning efficiency in terms of the acquisition of knowledge and of the pupils’ general development.

Zankov died in 1977, whereupon his laboratory was immediately shut down and all test classes closed. What has later become known as the “period of stagnation” affected the status and practice of pedagogy.

It was not until 1993 that the Russian Ministry of Education established the “Zankov federal scientific and methodological centre”, the core of which was formed by Zankov’s followers. This group has continued with research and practical work exploring children’s development in accordance with the demands of a modern school. The experience gained from this work has formed the basis for the development of a continuing educational and methodological approach. Over 500 works have been published since the centre was founded.

During the time this system has existed, it has proven effective at the junior level in many different types of school. The system seems to work universally when it comes to general development across a wide range of conditions.