Jean Piaget can be regarded as an interloper into the field of psychology. He never studied psychology but took deep interest in it.His interest saw him breaking great bounds in that field especially on cognition and intellectual development of children.Today ,his works are appreciated by educators. Initially,his interest was set in nature .He enjoyed watching birds ,fish and animals in thier natural habitat.At early age of ten Piaget published his first article was published by a natuaral history magazine.In that publication he described an albino sparrow seen in the park. The director of the natural museum of Neuchatel (Piaget home town in Swizerland) forsaw his potential and invited him to come assist in the classification of the museum's zoology collection. As a teenager, most of his time, he spent with his godfather , Samuel Cornut ,a Swiss Scholar, who impacted greatly on his intellectual development.
Intuitively, Cornut felt that Piaget thinking was limited to the biogical science so he decided to expose him to philosophy even religion and logic later.These subject brought him closer to epistemology i.e the study of knowledge . He curiosity gained momentum and questions about the discipline such as :"What is knowlegde ? How is is acquired ?Can one gain an objective understanding of external reality or is one's knowledgeof the world coloured and distorted by internal factors ?
He completed his undergraduate programme after which he decided to explore psychology.He believed that a full understanding of human knowledge could be gained through the study of its formation and evolution in childhood.His journey of the study of the child understanding of reality began.As early as 1923, in The language and Thought of the Child,Piaget laid his developmental theory, stating three stages of mental life, the autistic (the first eighteen months) in which the child is ruled by his immediate needs, the egocentric(from eighteen 7 or eight years in which he recognises the existense of others but no need to comply or bargain with them and the social(from about eight to sixteen) in which he manifest self criticism and social conformity. Successively, others works like Language and Thought of the Child, Judgement and reason, The Child's concept of the World and Moral Judgement of the World.
Throughout his research Piaget became increasingly concious of differences between the child and the adult thought processes.He realised that the child thought less effeciently than the adult.So, Piaget concluded that it was necessary to conceive of "intellectual development in terms of an evolution through qualitatively different stages of thought."
The child in short, travels "the long road of decentralization. He extends his knowledge by forming patterns based on his experiences, and his ability to do so develop in stages-sensory-motor(0-2),the pre-conceptual(2 to 4 or 5),the intuitive(4 or 5 to 7),the concrete operational(7to 11) and the formal operational(11 to 16).The most important single factor in growth of cognitive power is his development of ability to symbolise.
Teachers of the very young would ever be grateful to Piaget for concept of motive force for learning in young one-readinnes which is found in the child. Teachers for example in stimulating and promoting development of cognitve growth know that it is not just perception but action: the child learns by doing!
Piaget major critcism was his inabilty to give sufficient attention to measurement,for which observation,however meticulous, cannot be a total subtitute.
His critics still acknowlegde him as one the giants in the history of psychology.As Jerome Bruner , founder of the Harvard center for cognitive studies said of him"[He is]one of the towering figure of 20th century psychology".
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