Proceeding with our analysis of the psychological content of age, we return to the question posed by Daniil Elkonin: “Is the tendency toward independence, toward emancipation from the adult, not an essential precondition and a reciprocal side to the building of a new system of relationships between the child and the adult?” (D.B. El'konin, 1984, p. 402). We could rephrase this question thus: “Is the building of a new system of relationships between the child and the adult not the essential precondition and the flip side of the tendency toward emancipation?” In fact, how is the movement toward the new relationship between the child and the reality around him related to the destruction of old connections? Is the new necessarily built in place of the old, rather than alongside it? As we recall, Vygotsky's basic constructions assume the possibility of critical transformation of the relationship between the child and the environment. We shall attempt to show not only the possibility, but the necessity of crisis, based on the fact that crisis is the kind of developmental moment, the kind of transition from stage to stage or from level to level, that necessarily requires destroying or overcoming the old system (of relationships, of actions, of connections.)
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