A Brief Introduction to Piaget

Nathan Isaacs

2015 api. · Algora Publishing

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THE GREAT IMPORTANCE of the work of Professor Jean Piaget for child psychology, and thus for education, has only in recent years been fully recognized. This work has gone on for some thirty-five years, but the sequence of books translated between 1927 and 1932, though very stimulating, seemed open to a good many doubts. However, the volumes published in English during the last decade, and others still untranslated, have shown beyond question how much Pro­fessor Piaget can help us to understand children’s intellectual growth. We owe to him a striking fresh picture of the child himself as the architect of this growth. Piaget’s interest lies chiefly in the building-up of the basic framework of thought, which later the child, and we, mostly take for granted; but that is what makes the new picture so illuminating. And from the angle of Infant School teachers it is noteworthy that the period from 4-5 years to 7-8 years turns out to be a specially important one, anyway for the average run of children. For their biggest step forward in the building of that framework usually falls within this period. The present essay will offer a thumbnail sketch of the whole story, as Piaget presents it, and will then dwell more fully on the happenings of the Infant School phase.