Patricia Thatcher EN 721: Research Methodology & Design in Rhetoric & Linguistics Dr. Michael M.

Williamson July 31, 2000 Jean Piaget, 1896-1980 Life, Works, Influence, and Criticism Early years: Piaget, a Swiss biologist, began observing molluscs while he was still in high school. He received his Ph. D. in biology at the age of 21. His interest in the natural behaviour of organisms parallels his interest in epistemology, causing him to formulate the following questions: 1) What is knowledge? 2) How is it acquired? 3) Can one gain an objective understanding of external reality, or is ones knowledge of the world colored and distorted by internal factors? (Ginsberg and Opper 1969) He realized that solutions cannot be provided solely by philosophy, because it is too speculative, or science, because it is too factual. Therefore, he turned to psychology. Gardner (1972) reported that prior to receiving his doctorate, Piaget spent a year in the Swiss Alps recovering from an "identity crisis." It was during this time that he wrote a novelRecherche (Search). This was his first work on the subject of equilibrium (to be discussed later). Piaget worked in Geneva and Paris after 1920. During this early period, Piaget studied psychoanalysis and the work of Freud and Jung and worked in a hospital in Paris where he studied abnormal children. He found this experience to be inadequate since abnormal children had deficient verbal abilities. Ginsberg and Opper (1969) commented, that although Piagets early works were influenced by Freud. His later works were totally devoid of Freud.

In 1920, Piaget joined the famous Binet Laboratory in Paris and began administering the Stanford-Binet intelligence test. Although Piaget was not enthused with his work, he began to observe and question the children and soon realized that he was fascinated with the number of incorrect answers and the frequency with which the same incorrect answers occurred at certain stages of childhood. This experience caused him to want to discover different methods of thought of children of different ages. In 1921, Piaget returned to Geneva and became the Director of Research at the Jean-Jacques Rousseau Institute. The result of this work produced his first five books on children, which he called his "adolescent books" (Ginsberg and Opper 1969). Most of these observations were of his three children.

-Language and thought in the child. 1923 (1926) (naturalistic and experimental observations on the childs use of language)

-Judgment and reasoning in the child. 1924 (1926) (changes in certain types of reasoning from early to late childhood) -The childs conception of the world. 1926 (1929) (a childs view of the world around him) -The childs conception of physical causality. 1927 (1960) (childs conception of causes of natural phenomena)

-The moral judgment of the child. 1932 (1932) (moral behavior and judgment)

During this early period, Piaget also became a professor at Geneva University; subsequently, he became the Director of the Jean-Jacques Rousseau Institute. Ginsberg and Opper (1969) noted that Piaget was somewhat startled by his instant fame. He felt that his studies were only preliminary and were quite deficient. His works, however, were already becoming well received in the United States during the 1920s and 1930s.

1940s and 1950s: The period between 1940 and the mid-1950s saw a decrease in Piagets popularity in the United States, but publication of later books caused a renewed interest. During this time he published a series of lectures (Psychology of intelligence 1947/1950) that he had delivered to the College of France in Paris. These lectures were based on his theory of mental development. He also published The growth of logical thinking from childhood to adolescence 1955 (1958). This work offered a logical comparison of the thought processes of the adolescent with those of the younger child. This same period saw the beginning of Piagets work in epistemology and the formation of the Center of Genetic Epistemology at Geneva University. (Ginsberg and Opper 1969)

Later years: Travers (1982) concluded that Piaget developed an epistemological approach (between 1960 and 1980) that was more philosophical, mathematical, and offered a modern version of Aristotelian logic. Piagets early studies had reflected a functional approach of a psychologist studying patterns of thought. The 1970s saw Piagets work being noticed in other parts of the world. During this period, Gardner (1972) reported that Piagets trip to the United States in 1967 to speak at Clark University reflected a desire to become as influential as Freud who also spoke at Clark in 1909. "Piaget affirmed again his central position among the psychologists of today and his claim to the mantle of Freud" (Gardner, p. 110).

Piaget basics: Piaget borrowed from John Locke and Immanuel Kant but differed from Kant in his assumptions. Kant assumed that the infant was born with a basic understanding of the fundamental characteristics of the universe. Piaget assumed much less about the newborn: "Nothing can be assumed to be innate unless it can be demonstrated to be so" (Travers 1982).

Piaget explained the causes of the intellectual evolution of the child as a social phenomena of language when the child is in contact with his parents and peers. He later de-emphasized social factors and stressed action as the source of thought. (Ginsberg and Opper 1969) Piagets primary goals include: 1. the study of the childs gradual attainment of increasingly effective intellectual structures; 2. the study of the childs mental activity as he interacts with the world; 3. the description of the optimum capability of thought at a given period of development; 4. the discovery of what actually constitutes intelligence, which he later notes as--a) biological achievement which allows the individual to interact effectively with the environment at a psychological level; b) a form of equilibrium toward all cognitive structures; c) system of living and acting operations (Ginsberg and Opper 1969).

Developmental stages: (from Ginsberg and Opper 1969 and Travers 1982) 1) Sensorimotor (0-2 years) The origins of intelligence in the child. 1936 (1952) and Construction of reality in the child. 1936 (1954) During this stage, the child assimilates the external environment from his own activity that is self-centered and egocentric. He continuously elaborates the external universe. First, he begins to react to objects by sucking, looking, and grasping. He continues by using the object as something to displace, set in motion, or utilize. As his reactions become more complex, relationships begin, and other subjects are assimilated. Interdependence with the universe begins. Thus begins the formation of the world and spatial relationships. (from Construction of reality in the child, p. xiii) a) stage 1 (1 month): reflexes and modification recognition

b) stage 2 (2-4 months): circular reactions, motor coordination, anticipation, curiosity

c) stage 3 (4-10) months: contact with external environmentimitation, classification, search

d) stage 4 (10-12 months): systematic and organized

e) stage 5 (11-18 months): discovery and experimentation

f) stage 6 (18-24 months): solving problems through internal activities 2) Preoperational (2-7 years) Play, dreams, and initiation. 1946 (1951): child thinks in terms of self; oriented to the present; intuitive rather than logical; speech is repeated or participation is through monologues

3) Concrete operations (7-11 years) The early growth and logic in the child. 1959 (1964): begins to understand numbers, space, and classification, and to apply logical operations to concrete problems; symbolism emerges

4) Formal operations (11-15 years): able to think abstractly, hypothesize, generalize, reason and form different standpoints, develop ideas, and draw conclusions Biological and epistemological approaches: Piaget defines intelligence in terms of growth, stages or development, adaptation, and equilibriumthe balance that is organized into coherent and stable patterns. The epistemological approach is based on an empirical investigation of the childs understanding of space, time, and causality. (Ginsberg and Opper 1969)

Focus on structure and function: 1) Response to the environment and stimuli such as sucking or crying does not require teaching.

2) Structure is more important than behavior.

3) Function is adaptation with the environment.

a) the child assimilates external reality to his own psychological structures. b) the child accommodates by modifying psychological structures to meet the environment (Ginsberg and Opper 1969) "We are taught by Piaget that all learning is an assimilation to some schema and that every assimilation requiressomewhere in the temporal orderan accommodation" (Noddings, 1984, p. 81).

Piaget and education: (from Ginsberg and Opper 1969) The principal goal of education is to create men who are capable of doing things, not simply of repeating what other generations have done men who are creative, inventive, and discoverers. The second goal of education is to form minds which can be critical, can verify, and not accept everything they are offered. The great danger today is of slogans, collective opinions, readymade trends of thoughts. We have to be able to resist individually, to criticize, to distinguish between what is proven and what is not. So we need pupils who are active, who learn early to find out by themselves, partly by their own spontaneous activity and partly through material we set up for them; who learn early to tell what is verifiable and what is simply the first idea to come to them. (Piaget rediscovered, p. 5) Piaget and Chomsky: Piaget criticized Chomsky for his belief in innate ideas, but Gardner (1972) saw Chomsky in mental agreement on central issues: "Indeed, Chomskys assertions that language reflects the unique logic of the human mind and that ordinary language use is permeated by creativeness may portend the imminence of a meaningful synthesis of the major structural approaches to cognition" (Gardner, 1972, p. 243).

Piaget and Vgotsky: At the Third Annual UAP Conference on Piaget and the Helping ProfessionsFebruary 16, 1973University of Southern California, a dialogue between Piaget and Vgotsky was contrived. This imaginary dialogue noted the following similarities between Piaget and Vgotsky:

1) Both begin with the premise that consciousness with all its psychological functions and physiological processes plays a crucial role in determining behavior.

2) The starting point for their discussion is not an ideological rift that places them in either camp of modern socialism or capitalism, but is one of mutual respect for each others intellectual ability. (Piaget did argue, however, that Vgotsky was too optimistic.)

The Jean Piaget Society: Society for the Study of Knowledge and Development: 1) established in 1970

2) provides an open forum

3) annual meetings The 31st Annual Meeting of The Jean Piaget Society Berkley, California May 31-June 2, 2001 Biology and Knowledge Revisited: From Embryogenesis to Psychogenesis http://www.piaget.org

General Criticism of Piaget: (from Travers 1982) 1) Piagets theory does not allow for individual differences. 2) Piagets theory is overelaborate. 3) Piagets theory is not clear in the relationship between thought and language. 4) Piagets takes the position that the individual will operate at the maximum level of

logical development that he has attained. Most individuals operate at all intellectual levels and may operate only at the highest level on certain occasions.

5) Most critics do not dispute the basic facts; they just call for modification of his original theorizing. Bibliography Gardner, H. (1972). Piaget. In The quest for the mind. NY: Vintage Books. Ginsberg, H. and S. Opper. (1969). Piagets theory of intellectual development: An introduction. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc. Travers, R. M. W. (1982). Development as learning: The Piaget model and alternatives. In Essentials of learning: The new cognitive learning for students of education (pp. 160-218). NY: Macmillan. Zender, B. F. A commentary on an unusual dialogue between Jean Piaget and Lev S. Vgotsky. UAP Conference on Piaget. February 16, 1973.

Supplemental Bibliography Gruber, H. E. and J. J. Voneche (Eds.), (1996). The essential Piaget. Noddings, N. and P. J. Shore. (1984). Awakening the inner eye: Intuition in education (p. 79). NY: Teachers College Press. Piaget, J. (1954). The construction of reality in the child. NY: Ballentine. Piaget, J. (1970). Genetic epistemology. NY: Columbia University Press. Vygotsky, L. (1962). Piagets theory of the childs speech and thought (pp. 12 57). Language and thought. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (Originally published in 1934). Translated by Michael Cole.