Many different people in all sorts of situations have influenced us throughout our lives. Some of these influences where at times when we cannot remember, and some as recent as five minutes ago. Not only do we not remember all of our influences, but we also do not recognize all of our influences because many factors in our lives affect us subconsciously. In this paper I am relating some of the major influences of my life to some of the ideas expressed by Vygotsky. As I understand it, scaffolding is one of the major ideas. Just like a construction scaffold is a temporary means of support, Vygotsky’s idea is a way of influencing someone, especially a child, by temporarily showing the person the idea and then allowing them to do the work. It is a way to support someone in their learning process but not holding them up.Throughout my early ages it is really hard to determine who influenced me. Looking at myself as a young adult, I can definitely look at myself as being influenced tremendously by my father. However, when I was really young (until about age 10) my dad was really into the restaurant business as a General Manager of Prime ‘n Wine. Because of this he was never home during the normal hours of a day, so I am not too sure when I gathered this influence. So, I think my next biggest influence during that time, which I can remember well, was my grandfather and Uncle Dave who I would call to come play ball with me at any time of day and they would come (lived very close). Like my father, I also see some of my major characteristics (some of the not too good ones) from my mom’s side of the family (Grandpa and Uncle Dave). These characteristics would be my short temper, my quick irritation, and my punctuality. Even still, it is hard to point these characteristics out as from that side of the family because my father is also short tempered and “quick to lash his tongue”. He can be agitated easi...
