Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky was a Russian Marxist educational philosopher and psychologist who was born in 1896 and died of tuberculosis under Stalin's repressive regime in 1934. During this short life he was exceptionally productive in his research into how children learn and develop. His ideas are extremely relevant today, as testing dominates education, with governments demanding higher standards from schools and teachers, but having little understanding of how children learn. This book is an attempt to show the background and development of his ideas, and to explain them accessibly.