Vygotsky's Sociocultural Development In 'The Blindside'

The Blindside is a film that deals with the life of Michael Oher as he grew up in a rough neighborhood and got adopted by a more affluent family. Michael goes throw many emotional turmoil and has a hard time fitting in at school and at home as his life with his new family is nothing he has ever encountered. The film shows the progression of Michael Oher throughout his senior year as he becomes one of the more attractive football prospects in the country and opens doors for him to have a future. He goes through high school with a new purpose and ends with signing with Ole Miss, where his new adopted family attended. This movie is based on true events and shows the progression of an adolescent into an adult with its up and down themes and impactful …show more content…
His theory is shown in “The Blindside” most specifically the movie shows Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development. The zone of proximal development is defined as “…the area of problem solving where an individual cannot succeed alone but can succeed and learn with appropriate support” (Wertsch & Tulviste, 1992). The zone of proximal is shown with Michael when he is in an environment at home with his tutor. His tutor Miss sue creates an environment where she creates processes for Michael to learn by connecting his life to academic subjects. This is evident in a specific scene where Michael needs to write a final English paper worth one third of his grade to finish his senior year with a high enough GPA to play football in college. This scene depicts Miss Sue trying to give Michael a subject to write about for his paper when she connects the story of Death Valley to a football story that is explained to him as men having courage and honor to fight, even when they know they probably will fail. This environment created by Miss Sue helped Michael connect this subject to his life and gave him the appropriate support to help him think how to write a paper to get his high …show more content…
Depending where I teach I might have to guide a student who has been passed through the school system or a student from a bad background. The knowledge of how important a positive environment has on a student both cognitively and social shows me that it is important to know your students and help them become better people. My future class will probably have students like Michael Oher, this provides a challenge to me as an educator and I what I learned from this character in will give me some background knowledge on how to reach out to this type of student and hopefully propel them to become better citizens like the Tuohy family