Sociocultural theorists point out that much development occurs through direct interaction between children and other people, such as parents, teachers, siblings, and so on. Lev Vygotsky (1934) argued that this interaction helps children acquire the skills and knowledge valued by their culture. Children are active learners, building knowledge, skills and attitudes, they don't just mirror the world around them. In essence, the history and culture of the society in which a child grows up and the events that make up a child's personal history determine much more than what that child knows or likes. It also determines what mental tools the child will learn and how these tools will shape the child's mind. Like Piaget, Vygotsky asserted that children are born with basic abilities for intellectual development. These are called elementary mental functions and include processes such as attention, sensation, perception and memory. As children develop within the socio-cultural environment, they develop more sophisticated and effective mental processes, also called Higher Mental Functions. For example, culture can determine our perception and how we see things. An example would be tribal cultures; they could help children understand that plants are living beings, just as animals are. This understanding may come from daily exposure and interaction with nature. Children raised in cities, on the other hand, may not have the same interaction with nature, and their understanding that plants are living things may come later. Vygotsky therefore sees cognitive functions as influenced by our beliefs, values, and intellectual adaptation tools of culture theory since he died at a young age. Despite this, his theory was considered very relevant to child development and therefore applied in educational contexts. However, there are still things that need improvement, such as trying to involve children more in interactions with each other and with teachers, so that children are not spoon fed but are able to build their own knowledge based on interactions with others. According to Vygotsky, the overall goal of education is to generate and guide development that is the result of social learning through the internalization of culture and social relationships. Past experience and prior knowledge are important for a child so that he or she may be able to make sense of new situations and experiences. He said all that knowledge is heavily influenced by each student's culture in which he or she grew up.