DUFFEY ON: JEAN PIAGET

Jean Piaget: The Man Behind the Lab Coat
EDP. 380h, Dr. Sherman
Kerry Duffy
Dec. 13, 1996


Introduction:


Jean Piaget's legacy is one that has affected a wide disparity of disciplines. Commonly acknowledged as one of the foremost psychologists of the 20th century, certainly the premiere child developmental psychologist, Piaget preferred to be referred to as a genetic epistemologist. This is because he identified child psychology as being limited to merely the study of the child, whereas his main focus was the study of the origins, characteristics, and limitations of knowledge, usually as seen in the development in children. It has been said of him that "he approached questions up until then exclusively philosophical, in a resolutely empirical manner, and made epistemology (the study of knowledge), into a science separate from philosophy, but related to all of the human sciences." (Gruber and Voneche, 18)

Developmental psychology is what his renown is based upon, yet Piaget's interests were much more widespread. He is characterized as a "zoologist by training, an epistemologist by vocation, and a logician by method." (Munari, 311) This is in part due to the fact that before achieving prominence in the field of child psychology, Piaget immersed himself in various other fields, such as philosophy, logic, politics, and the sciences. He was very much an interdisciplinary thinker, utilizing what he learned in one arena, in the others. Unlike many of the other prototypes of Howard Gardener's (1993) model, Piaget was able to achieve a respectable level of success in these endeavors, publishing various novels and research papers. Although it is uncertain whether he would have been able to achieve "genius" level in any of these undertakings, it seems to demonstrate his multi-talented personality.

Childhood and Family Background:


Jean Piaget was born August 9, 1896 in the small town of Neuchatel, Switzerland. Although this only marginally places him in the 19th century, he was greatly influenced by the great thinkers of that period, especially their views on evolutionary development. Because of them, Piaget was very interested in the mechanisms of biological adaption, and in the analysis of another form of adaption-- scientific thought. It is important though to remember that at that time, the field of psychology was strongly related to the areas of philosophy, physics, physiology, and religion. Psychology itself was less than a century old when Piaget began his studies of it in 1921, which meant that psychology was still in a state of enormous change.

Jean Piaget was the oldest of three children, and the only boy. He grew up in an environment conductive to learning, because although the city of Neuchatel was not very large, during his youth it experienced a sudden surge in educational institutions. Among these, was his future university. Piaget came from a middle-class family, with parents that were considered rather unconventional. His father was a highly respected historian, whose opinions at times were thought to be controversial. Piaget was greatly influenced by him, especially by his belief in the value of systematic work, even in the small matters. His relationship with his mother was more difficult. In many ways she was a warm person, with strong convictions, and an interest in social reform. It is inferred however that she had a rather neurotic temperament, something which had a detrimental affect upon the childhood of the three Piaget children. Although Piaget never states this outright, it appears that he early on found an escape for himself in the reliable hobby of science. From the age of ten, he worked after hours as an assistant for Paul Godet, the director of the Neuchatel Museum of Natural History. It was here that he was first introduced to the process of scientific study; specifically, the classification of land and fresh water mollusks. This is what initially sparked his interest toward the study of zoology.

Adolescence:


As an adolescent Piaget was a member of the Club of the Friends of Nature, in which exploration of nature, both physically and intellectually, was strongly encouraged. They wrote papers, and published them in their magazine, as well as having many well-known scientists give speeches to their club. Piaget published his first official scientific paper on the subject of the albino sparrow, a remarkable feat considering that he was only fifteen at the time. Gradually, he became convinced that the scientific approach was the only valid means of gaining access to knowledge, of which he remained a firm believer throughout his life.

During Piaget's adolescence, he went through a period of philosophical and spiritual crisis. He had difficulty separating religion from science, as the two were strongly linked according to the custom of the day. However, one can not consider this period of searching a waste, as it was productive in its own rights, and laid a basis for much of his later work. By 1918, at the age of 22, Piaget received his doctorate of science from the university of Neuchatel. By that point, he had published scores of articles on malacological taxonomy, several essays on social reform, and his autobiographical and philosophical novel "Recherche".

Marginality:


Piaget was rather uncertain where he wanted to go from there. Zoology no longer satisfied him, and in fact, after receiving his doctorate he never again wrote a paper on mollusks. Piaget is usually identified with the city of Geneva, as that is where he lived for most of his adult life, and yet in actuality he first spent a few years in Paris. This was instrumental in guiding him towards his later path in life, and as such, to a certain extent satisfies the definition of marginality as given by Gardener. It was only when he travelled to another country, that through these new experiences he was able to discover his own interest in the question of how people go about learning.

The Learning Period:


While in Paris, Piaget worked as an assistant to Binet while the latter was developing his intelligence test. He spent considerable time with children in hospitals, where he conducted various tests measuring intelligence. Instead of merely noting the responses given by the children to the test, Piaget became interested in the how and why of the answers. More specifically, he was fascinated by the thought processes revealed by the children in attempting to solve the test problems.

The children favored being tested by Piaget in preference to anyone else, because he had an easy and informal manner, and really seemed interested in their responses. His behavior was a big change from the standard testing methods of that time, in which the answers were the only thing of importance. I believe that Piaget had strong inter-personal skills, as he was able to interact well with others and put them at ease. In fact, throughout his life he was known for his collaborative efforts in research projects and papers, and really seemed to enjoy working with others. Often, people who go into research do so because they have difficulty dealing with others, thus finding a more solitary existence preferable. I do not see this being the case with Piaget.

The Growth of His Theories:


Epistemology only gradually became Piaget's primary concern, as he became more and more involved in the studies he was doing. Gradually he began forming his own theories concerning the subject. In this he was influenced both by Kant's doctrine of mental categories and Bergson's metaphysics. Although he was a contemporary of Freud, he really didn't share his interest in the subconscious, in conflicts, and behavioral dynamics. Instead, he preferred to examine the rational side of human development, and emphasized thought processes and the structure of intelligence. However, it is true that Piaget's later concept of "egocentrism", which basically dealt with the young child's identification of self in relation to other things, as seen through their language, thought , and morality, can in certain ways be compared to the wants and needs associated with Freud's concept of "id". Throughout his life Piaget was an inveterate writer of almost everything that he thought about, and in fact published nearly everything that he wrote. His time in Paris was certainly no exception to this. A pivotal work for him was "The Language and Thought of the Child" (1923), in which he examined language from the viewpoint of the subject, instead of using that of an objective observer. This created a lot of attention, as it contrasted sharply with the methods commonly used by child psychologists of that time. Piaget demonstrated strong linguistic and verbal skills, as can be seem by his enormous out-put of writings. I thought that it was interesting though, that so many different sources expressed the common opinion that his writings are rather difficult to understand. Piaget tended to use abstract and technical language, which sometimes obscured the point he was making. During his sixty odd years of active research, Piaget wrote over fifty books and monographs. While many have been translated to English, there still remains those that are only available in the original language, French.

Return to Switzerland:


In 1921 Piaget moved to Geneva, where he was able to study children in a more "normal" school setting. He was especially involved with the Maison des Petits of the Jean- Jacques Rousseau Intstitute, a leading center for modern education. It was over the course of the next few years, that he formulated and strengthened his theories of development. During this time, he also worked briefly as an university teacher, and eventually was made co-director of the Jean-Jacques Rousseau Institute.

In many ways Piaget had a privileged life-style, in that he was able to support himself, while at the same time pursuing his love of research. Like anyone else, he felt a need for recognition from his colleagues as to the validity of his work. Many of those in Gardner's model worked best when they had the support and advice of friends and colleagues. It seemed to satisfy a need in them, as well as encouraging them to continue on with their work. Piaget accepted the post of Director of the International Bureau of Education in 1929. This surprised many, as he was well-known for his dislike of anything that took him away from his research related work. He admitted that it was a bit of a gamble, but obviously one that paid off, as he remained as Director until 1968, for a total of nearly four decades. It was within this tightly knit society that he was able to interact with colleagues, receiving the support and feedback necessary for the formulation of his ideas.

Piaget's Proposal for Cognitive Development:


Piaget's interest lay chiefly in the build-up of a basic framework of thought about knowledge. His whole psychological theory of development rested upon the principle of continuous interaction between the child and the world around him. Previously, sensory perception, or other such passive outside influences, was considered to be the vital key to developmental growth. Piaget believed however that it was the child's own actions that was the crux of the matter. Part of the reason Piaget became interested in the growth of logical thought, was the realization that as children grow, their thinking becomes ever more logical and effective in solving problems. He believed that he would better be able to understand the adult mind, especially its capacity for objective reasoning, by investigating how this developed from a child's more restricted abilities. Thus it is that his early work emphasized cognitive development in infancy and childhood.

Using the results from his studies of school children and his own children, Piaget proposed that the mind develops as a whole, but that within that whole children develop through a series of four mental stages. Each of the stages are qualitatively different from one another, and progressively more advanced. In addition, each stage produces a distinct way of thinking about oneself and the world, that is different for each stage. It is necessary to complete one level before continuing to the next one, and there is no guarantee that one will "graduate" to all four stages. Although there are general approximate ages for the progression to each stage, the rate of children can be highly individualistic. When Piaget's first child was born, he immediately started a series of careful and highly original observations about her mental development. In fact, he used all three of his children as "test subjects" in a variety of experiments that checked their development. In this manner his theory of cognitive development was to a large extent based upon observations of his own children. I was unable to find information as to how this affected his relationship with his children. Obviously, his work necessitated that he spend an enormous amount of time with them. However, I do not know if this brought them together in a warm, close relationship, or whether the fact that he was analyzing their behavior led to stress between them. If the case were the latter situation, it might possibly have led to a Faustian Bargain in relationship to his family. However, based upon his other relationships in life, and his strong inter-personal skills, I would assume that he had strong family bonds that could have overcome this possible cause of tension.

The Four Steps of Cognitive Development:


Piaget observed among his children, that as infants they all manipulated objects as a way in which to gain knowledge about them. By touching, looking, and sucking on objects, they were able to learn about them. He called this the sensorimotor stage of intellectual development, lasting from birth to two years old, because intelligence at that time is measured largely by the infant's deliberate motor actions, and the immediate sensory feedback they receive from those actions. The primary limitation of this stage is the infant's inability to understand that even when he can no longer see a person or an object, that it still exists. This is why babies have such a fascination with games like peek-a-boo, because when they can not see you, for them you are no longer there. This explains their delight when you suddenly "reappear" again.

Piaget characterized the years from two to seven, as belonging to the period of preoperational thought. Children can now think about absent objects, and often make up new symbols or objects to represent others, such as a stick of wood being transformed into a ray gun. They can understand the stable, identifying features of an object, but have trouble comprehending when that same object is in some manner transformed. For instance, a ball of clay that is rolled out flat is still the same clay, even though its shape has been transformed. This causes children trouble because they judge it by its appearance rather than using logic. Likewise, when asked about the lengths of the following lines: 

                               A                                                                              B
         ____________________                                                     ____________________
         ____________________                                ____________________
children believe that the lines under choice B are not the same length as those under choice A.

According to Piaget, when children are about seven or eight years old they develop the ability to understand reversible actions called "operations". This means that they understand that if you roll a ball of clay into a sausage shape, you can reverse this action and turn it back into a ball of clay. Although the child is becoming capable of increasingly logical thought, he or she still has trouble dealing with abstract ideas. By about the age of twelve the child should be entering the last stage, known as the period of formal-operational thought. Now the child can apply operational thinking even to actions that are not reversible in actuality, but in theory. Such can be the case with an egg, because although in reality one can not unbeat an egg, in theory one can restore it to its original shape. I realize that my summarization of the four levels of intellectual growth merely skims the surface of what Piaget discovered in the different stages, but I believe that it helped to somewhat clarify and define the various stages. If the reader is interested in a more in-depth look at Piaget's work, the listings of books and Journal articles in my bibliography would be a good place to start. I think that Piaget's theory of cognitive development, and the way he went about developing this theory, demonstrate his high ability in three of Gardner's categories of multiple intelligence.

The Intelligences:


I believe that Piaget demonstrated a very high intrapersonal intelligence. Before he could think of asking how other people go about learning, it was necessary for him to analyze himself and his capabilities. This can be a very difficult thing to do, because so much of what we do is for the most part an unconscious process. We don't stop to think about the actual procedures that go into our thinking. It was necessary for Piaget to step back from himself, and examine how his thought processes differed from children's, before he could begin formulating theories about how children think. As he was for the most part successful in this attempt, it demonstrated that he was able to utilize his own knowledge of self, and then adapt it in order to explain the behavior of others.

Piaget was always interested in logic. Indeed, when he was in his philosophical phase, the study of logic was a key part of his interest. Because of that, he went about designing unorthodox experiments in a very logical manner. Indeed, many of his experiments dealt with the ability to identify patterns, and to be able to utilize abstract symbols such as numbers and geometric shapes, which is part of what describes the logical and mathematical intelligence as defined by Howard Gardner in his book "Frames of Minds". Gardner also said that a key factor to this intelligence is being able to see the links between distinct bits of information, and to be able to formulate a relationship between them. As the basis for Piaget's life-long work was the creation of rational explanations about developmental growth, using a multitude of widely disparate and at times conflicting information on the topic, I can only believe that he had a high mathematical and logical intelligence.

Piaget's studies relied strongly on his visual and spatial intelligence, as it was necessary for him to create experiments that tested these abilities in children. Many of his more well known experiments had children look at objects from different angles and perspectives, and determine if they were alike or dissimilar, as with the line experiment described earlier. In this way, through Piaget's experiments one can actually determine at what age children demonstrate aspects of the visual and spatial intelligence.

Piagetian Influences on Education:


There is no specific Piagetian method when it comes to education, yet many educators have been influenced by his theories in their methods of teaching, and in fact have expanded upon the educational implications of his work. Certainly, Piaget himself did not consider himself an educator, although he had strong opinions upon the matter. As he put it, "The ideal of education is not to teach the maximum, to maximize the results, but above all to learn to learn, to learn to develop, and to learn to continue to develop after leaving school." (Neufeld, 1) He disagreed strongly with many of the education systems of his day, feeling that coercion and authoritative teaching methods were among the worst of the problems. He felt that student's needed to take a much more active participation in the schools. Ideally, they would "learn by a process of trial and error, working actively and independently, that is, without restriction and with ample time at their disposal." (Munari, 315)

It is through this active process of discovery learning, that Piaget thought that students would be most capable of integrating what they learned into their store of knowledge, and actually be able to understand and utilize it. Discovering the answers for themselves, rather than having them force-fed to them, would cause the students to question, and to explore new concepts. He also suggested that teachers take into consideration the level of intellectual growth attained by the student. By adjusting their manner of teaching to a more suitable level for the student, they would achieve better results. For instance, he believed that a failure to understand mathematics was not a result of lack of ability in the child, but rather a lack of the right teaching methods. A child who had not attained the fourth level of intellectual development, the formal operation, would learn better using a more hands on approach than the more customary intuitive one.

In many ways Piaget's theories are related to the suggested use of Howard Gardner's model, in which schools would incorporate the seven intelligences into the classroom teaching methods. Gardner is more specific about making sure that all of the intelligences are given an equal chance of being utilized, whereas Piaget was more concerned with making education an interactive, rather than a one-sided relationship. Other educational systems, such as Montessori, Freinet, Decroly, and Claparede, have in the past supported the use of Piaget's methods, incorporating them with their own ideas. I can see how Gardner's model, in relationship to education, goes to a certain degree one step further than Piaget. I would not be at all surprised however, to learn that Gardner was influenced by Piaget in the construction of his ideas concerning the educational uses of his model of the intelligences.

Conclusion:


Jean Piaget's accomplished a vast number of psychological investigations during his lifetime. Through these, he demonstrated the childhood origins of human knowledge in areas such as logic, mathematics, perception, science, language, time, and much more. Something which is not so well known about Piaget, was his strong interest in morality. He wrote several books on the subject, and created a series of experiments dealing with moral judgement, in which he investigated children's point of view on the subject. Overall, his theories were derived from several disciplines, and yet he was able to combine these disparate ideas into a comprehensive theory that could be applied to many different areas.

This is not to say that all of Piaget's work has been equally accepted. His major focus throughout his career was the study of the qualitative changes in children's thought processes. While this led to many psychological insights, as well as innovative experiments, and theoretical speculation, the lack of statistical analysis of his data caused frequent criticism. There is also some disagreement over the fact that Piaget's theories did not provide for variability of behavior or individual difference, as seen by the lack of consideration of such variables as sex, IQ, and economic and family background. Another problem, is that he would usually use different groups of children in his experiments for the various topics that he was studying, which made it much more difficult to examine the developmental changes that were occurring in them over time. His primary interest was not in studying the individual variation, but in finding some sort of "norm" among the children. In order to attain this norm, it was necessary for him to merge the results of different experiments in order to get an overall picture of the growth of knowledge. The composite that he achieved could not be applied to an actual child, but could only demonstrate a rather idealized growth process, which is why he referred to the whole process as genetic epistomology rather than psychology. Despite these criticisms of him, Piaget's work is still greatly admired by most developmental psychologists. His methods of collecting data about children's thought, stimulated other scientists into conducting new research and developing new ideas about intelligence. Certainly, knowledge of Piaget's theory has given educators new insights into the limitations and abilities of children at their various stages of cognitive development, allowing them to adjust their teaching methods accordingly. Although not everyone agrees with his theory that the child experiences a stage-like sequence of mental changes, nevertheless, it did describe the order in which a child's ability to reason seems to develop.

Can Piaget therefore be characterized as a creative genius? I believe that he can. His observations have revolutionized our thinking about children, including our views of what they are capable of, as well as why they act as they do. Because of him, human learning received world wide attention, at a time when no one else was dealing with it in a similar manner. Could someone else have come up with the same ideas as Piaget? I have to say that I really don't know. Like many other people that fit Gardner's model, Piaget seemed fortunate with the period that he was born into. The time was right for new advances to be made in the young field of developmental psychology.

One can question though whether it was the time, or the man himself, that led to his discoveries. If Piaget had instead been born today, would he have achieved prominence in psychology or some other field, or would he have remained in obscurity? Based upon my knowledge of his high degree of talent in five of the seven intelligences, I believe that his intermixture of these abilities would have caused him to do well no matter what. Unfortunately I really do not have enough information to determine his level of ability in the remaining categories. I do know that Piaget enjoyed hiking and going for long walks, so I must presume that he had at the very least an average amount of kinestetic ability. On the following page I have created a chart of Howard Gardner's (1993) seven intelligences, showing a profile of how I assume Piaget's intelligences would look like.

Jean Piaget died on September 16, 1980, at the ripe age of 84. Unfortunately, I have only been able to skim the surface of his ideas and theories, as to go more in depth would be to go beyond my knowledge of the matter, and also would take up far too much space. Needless to say though, Piaget established a unique integrative approach to the study of fundamental problems of human knowledge. To my mind, he would have been just as good of a choice as Freud, for Gardner's book "Creative Minds". While Freud's achievements are the more obvious, and certainly more widely known by the general public, I believe that as time passes Piaget's accomplishments, especially in the area of education, will achieve greater prominence than they do today. As such, I think that Piaget has the right to be called a creative genius, and indeed to take a stand next to the fellow genius's of his day.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Athey, I. J., & Rubadeau, D. O. (Eds.). (1970) Educational Implications of Piaget's Theory. Waltham: Gin-Blaisdell.

Brown, G., Modgil, C., & Modgil, S. (Eds.). (1983). Jean Piaget: An Interdisciplinary Critique. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Gardner, H. (1993). Creating Minds. New York, NY: Basics Books.

Gruber, H. E., & Voneche, J. J. (Eds.). (1977) The Essential Piaget. New York: Basic Book, Inc.

Isaacs, N. (1960) A Brief Introduction To Piaget. New York: Agathon Press, Inc.

Kitchener, R. F. (1986) Piaget's Theory of Knowledge. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

Munari, A. (1994) "Jean Piaget (1896-1980)", Prospects (Paris, France), 24, 311-327

Neufeld, E. M., (1976) The Philosophy of Jean Piaget and Its Educational Implications. New Jersey: General Learning Press.

Vidal, F. (1994) Piaget Before Piaget. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.