Jean Piaget

Jean William Fritz Piaget
Born	9th August 1896 Neuchâtel, Switzerland
Died	16th September 1980 Geneva, Switzerland

Jean Piaget, or Jean William Fritz Piaget, was a Swiss psychologist born in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. As a teenager, he spent much of his time publishing articles on zoology, though he began to take an interest in psychology while he was in either Zurich or Paris during his study of the concept of intelligence.

Piaget is best known for his theory of cognitive development, which is a framework of how children go through stages in acquiring knowledge and intelligence. This shifted the scientific consensus during his time, as scientists believed children were less competent, miniature adults. Piaget's main argument was that children's development occurred through their own construction, and through a combination of internal biological maturation and their hands-on experiences with their external environment.

Similar to other psychologists, Piaget establishes interaction with objects and the environment for cognitive development but makes no connection between social relations, class position, and schooling and how they shape cognitive development.

''The psychology of society is always expedient in relation to its economy, always corresponds to it, is always determined by it.'' - Georgi Plekhanov, The Development of the Monist View of History

Psychology

Preface

Piaget's neglect of political economy affecting education, individualism, and Eurocentrism are all limitations when it pertains to his psychology.

Piaget's theory is taken advantage of globally by the bourgeoisie in order to indoctrinate, experiment on, and privatize children's education, which is why public education is constantly restructured, specifically in the United States and the United Kingdom, into a new anti-play culture despite Piaget being opposed the anti-play culture. This damages children's cognitive development in favor of starting children on formal academic study earlier.

Piaget's theories also do not apply globally, as they overlook the unequal material conditions of the world alongside their cultural-historical variation, as the theory was based on Swiss conditions which cannot be universalized to all countries.

Genetic Epistomology

Piaget's primary field is genetic epistemology, which can be described as the study of origins combined with the study of knowledge. He viewed intelligence not as an innate feature but rather as a complex, continuous structure that can be built, and children construct their own intelligence and development.

Cognitive Development

Piaget's largest contribution is his stage theory, which states that children progress through four different stages of cognitive development.

• First Stage 0 - 2: Cognitive development is based on physical interactions and sensory experiences; intelligence is developed and expressed by the child using physical activity and motor activity. During the first stage, through this interaction with the physical world, they develop object permanence (objects existing despite not being seen).

• Second Stage 2 - 7: Children remain non-logical and egocentric but start to develop memory and imagination alongside language.

• Third Stage 7 - 11: Children's egocentrism begins to fade, logic starts to develop, and they begin to understand that the physical properties of objects remain constant despite changes in appearance.

• Fourth Stage 11 - 12+: Children are able to understand abstract concepts through symbols, while they develop their deductive reasoning skills and ability to plan.

Mechanism of Growth

• Schemas: These are the building blocks of knowledge, as they are the templates that we project upon things. For example, when a child sees a dog, because they already have the dog schema in their head, they apply it to the new dog despite the difference in appearance.

• Assimilation: This is the integration of new information into a schema, integrating the new dog into the dog schema. This leads to a database of what one perceives as a dog in their schema database.

• Accommodation: Whenever new information cannot be assimilated into your schemas, new schemas get created or existing schemas alter to integrate the new information; it changes the cognitive structure to fit the new experience.

• Equilibration: This is the thing holding the balance between assimilation and accommodation; this is responsible for driving the learning process when one's current schemas are challenged.