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Drawing on Vygotsky’s psychology, we examine the “development” of the child, understood not as the deployment of possibilities according to an inner purpose that is always present, but as an articulation between two forms of power in action, that of the educated and that of the educator. For Vygotsky, the child is the one whose present is rich not only in a current level of development, but also in a zone of proximal development, which indicates what he is capable of with the help of others. Vygotsky thus helps us to think of the child’s present not only as becoming, as full and dynamic actuality, but also as an event, as a crucial cognitive and emotional experience: the child’s present can thus be conceived both as development and transformation.