Memory in the Learning Activity of the Schoolchild.

Abstract

This article proposes one possible approach to the development of concepts regarding human memory, based on the results of studying it during the educational process from the standpoint of an activity-based framework, whose internal logic required a shift to the study of memory in the context of real-life learning activity. The focus here was on memory's link not to the psychological structure of an action but to the processes of the subject's self-regulation. Since it is reflexive in nature, goal-setting engenders mnemic processes of a corresponding type. Therefore, the author contends, the main function of memory turns out to be not simply the retention or the selection and interpretation of experience, but its reflexive organization directly in the process of accumulation. The theoretical validity and practical potential of this interpretation of memory are confirmed by the material the author obtained from experimental and mass-scale education aimed at developing the schoolchild as a subject of learning activity.