# data[].attributes.body
Paulo Freire was a Brazilian educator and philosopher, known for his revolutionary approach to education. His most important work, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970), advocated for a student-centered, conversational approach to learning. Freire stressed education as a tool for social change. He developed the concept of "conscientization," which refers to the process of developing a critical awareness of one's social reality through education. His ideas influenced the global literacy movement and laid the foundation for critical pedagogy, a movement that continues to influence educators focused on justice, equality, and inclusivity.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Paulo Freire’s Philosophy of Education: Key Concepts

# data[].attributes.body
Howard Gardner, a developmental psychologist, revolutionized educational thought with his theory of multiple intelligences, introduced in 1983. He posits that individuals possess diverse intelligences shaped by genetics and experiences. Gardner defines intelligence as a means of processing information to solve problems, which come in many forms. His influential ideas impact workplace training and personal growth, promoting a more holistic, human-centered perspective on intelligence. It has helped people today by demonstrating how children and adults learn in different ways and how to help them.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences

# data[].attributes.body
W.E.B. Dubois was the first Black American to earn a PhD from Harvard & an important key figure of the Civil Rights Movement. Along with this, he later co-founded the NAACP. Dubois advocated for higher education, not just for jobs but to further intellectual ideas. Along with this, advocating for equal education. Something that Dubois was passionate about was that students should have critical thinking skills, which would help challenge social & economic ideas. Without this, there wouldn't be continuous development in society.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
W.E.B. Du Bois: Activist Leader in Niagara Movement & Co-Founder of the NAACP | Biography

# data[].attributes.body
Maria Montessori was an Italian educator, woman's rights activist, and doctor. From a young age she loved school but hated the way it was taught, according to Maria it was boring and repetitive. She decided at age 12 that she wanted to be an engineer however, due to the time period it was unacceptable for her to be an engineer. However, she ended up with the help of her mother and father being able to attend a technical school in Rome passing her final with 138 out of 150. After technical school she decided she wanted to be a doctor, everyone except her mother disapproved but with letters of recommendation she ended up in medical school graduating in 1896. However, she decided to become a teacher after visiting an asylum for mentally disabled children. This is longer then 7 sentences, and I could go on and on about everything I learned from this video. But I will cut myself off here and let you all watch the video and hopefully you find it as interesting as I did.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Teacher of the Unteachable: The life and method of Maria Montessori

# data[].attributes.body
Gloria Jean Watkins (best known for her pen name, bell hooks) was an American educator, author, and social critic from Kentucky. She focused a lot of her writing on feminism, race, and class. She played a huge role in our education system today, and ensured that classrooms were liberated and a place for critical thinking. She advocated for education to be a "practice of freedom." She challenged others with her emphasis on collective listening and community within the classroom. She aimed to get rid of the power imbalance between students and teachers, for an environment where we could learn from each other in an open atmosphere. As stated above, hook was huge on community and multicultural representation. Her work brought a sense of belonging for certain students, especially women of color. In today's society in education, we continue her legacy with inclusive classrooms, promoting critical thinking, and trying to fully understand students stories and experiences in order to help them academically. Bell hooks provided a greater way of thinking, and her legacy still influences the American school system to this day.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Who Was: bell hooks | Encyclopaedia Britannica

# data[].attributes.body
Linda Darling-Hammond, the President of the Learning Policy Institute and Professor of Education Emeritus at Stanford University, has shaped education through her policy-making and drive for changes in classrooms across the US. She has created policies to help provide more equality to students, while also working countrywide to address this issue. Linda works to provide research-based programs for teachers and expand educational opportunities so that these policies for equality are more accepted. She has supported the path to making things fair for teachers and students, while also contributing to the general educational growth that we are seeing today. I learned a lot more about the LPI (Learning Policy Institute) than I knew before, while also learning about the significant fight for equality that it entails for students from diverse backgrounds or those with low incomes.

Included is a video featuring information from the website, allowing you to see Linda Darling-Hammond speak about her career.

https://youtu.be/Teu3ii6G8zI?si=qis_Sr3yEypjoLOW

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Yidan Prize Foundation is a global philanthropic foundation. Through its prize and network of changemakers, it supports ideas and practices in education — specifically, ones with the power to positively change lives, systems, and society.

# data[].attributes.body
Diane Ravitch is an important education historian and policy analyst. She is well known for her work on American education reform. She was the Assistant Secretary of Education under George H.W. Bush. Diane has held various academic positions. Originally, Diane Ravitch supported standardized testing but then she changed her approach to education. She wanted a more equitable education system. Not to mention, Diane has written several books that challenge certain narratives around education reform. She is a strong advocate for teacher support and the involvement of the community in schools.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Diane Ravitch is a Research Professor of Education at New York University and a historian of education. She is the Founder and President of the Network for Public Education (NPE).

Diane Ravitch's Blog is dianeravitch.net and has received more than 36 million hits.

From 1991 to 1993, she was Assistant Secretary of Education and Counselor to Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander in the administration of President George H.W. Bush. She was responsible for the Office of Educational Research and Improvement in the U.S. Department of Education. As Assistant Secretary, she led the federal effort to promote the creation of voluntary state and national academic standards.

From 1997 to 2004, she was a member of the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the federal testing program. She was appointed by the Clinton administration's Secretary of Education Richard Riley in 1997 and reappointed by him in 2001. From 1995 until 2005, she held the Brown Chair in Education Studies at the Brookings Institution and edited Brookings Papers on Education Policy. Before entering government service, she was an Adjunct Professor of History and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Diane made the list of "Thinkers, Doers, and Dreamers" in Politico Magazine, for Standing up for Teachers, not Tests: Politico Magazine's Top 50.

During the 1980s and 1990s and into the early years of the twenty-first century-as a writer, professor, assistant secretary of education under George H.W. Bush, and member of prestigious conservative think tanks, such as the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation and the Koret task force at the hoover institution-Diane Ravitch was a leading advocate of conservative ideas for fixing America's education system, including charter schools, standards, accountability, and high-stakes standardized testing. But about 2006-07, she began to realize that these policies were not working. She began to criticize them and to criticize the federal law called "No child left behind." with the publication of the death and life of the great American school system: how testing and choice are undermining education, she became one of the most outspoken critics of ideas she once championed.

She is the author of:

Slaying Goliath (2020).

The Wisdom and Wit of Diane Ravitch (2019).

Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools (2014)

The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education (2010)

Edspeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon (2007)

The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn (2003)

Left Back: A Century of Battles Over School Reform (2000)

National Standards in American Education: A Citizen's Guide (1995)

What Do Our 17-Year-Olds Know? (with Chester Finn, Jr.) [1987]

The Schools We Deserve (1985)

The Troubled Crusade: American Education, 1945-1980 (1983)

The Revisionists Revised (1978)

The Great School Wars: New York City, 1805-1973 (1974)

In addition, she has edited fourteen books, including The American Reader (1991); The English Reader (with Michael Ravitch) [2006]; The Democracy Reader (with Abigail Thernstrom) [1992];Forgotten Heroes of American Education (with Wesley Null) [2007]; Learning from the Past (with Maris Vinovskis) [1995]; and New Schools for a New Century (with Joseph Viteritti) [1997]. She has written more than 500 articles and reviews for scholarly and popular publications.

She has lectured in Poland, the former Czechoslovakia, the Czech Republic, Romania, the former Soviet Union, Hungary, the former Yugoslavia, Germany, Japan, Nicaragua, and throughout the United States. Her lectures on democracy and civic education have been translated by the USIA into many languages, including Polish, Spanish, Lithuanian, Latvian, Russian, Belarussian, and Ukrainian. Her books have been translated into many languages, including Chinese, Arabic, Spanish, Swedish, and Japanese.

She is an honorary life trustee of the New York Public Library and a former Guggenheim Fellow. She was a member of the Koret Task Force at the Hoover Institution (Stanford University) from 1999 to 2009. She was a member of the board of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation from 1996 to 2009.

In 1989, she advised Teachers Solidarity and the Ministry of Education in Poland. In 1991, the Polish Government awarded her a medal for her work on behalf of Solidarity.

She was elected to membership in the National Academy of Education (1979); the Society of American Historians (1984); the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1985); and as the Eleanor Roosevelt Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences (2002). She was selected as a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar in 1984-85, the first person chosen from the field of education studies. She was awarded the Henry Allen Moe prize in the humanities by the American Philosophical Society in 1986. In 1988, she was designated an "honorary citizen of the state of California" by the State Legislature in recognition of her contributions to the state's history curriculum and its human rights curriculum. In 1989, she received the Wellesley College Alumnae Achievement Award. She was honored as a Literary Lion by the New York Public Library in 1992. The Library of Congress invited her to deliver lectures in 1993 in honor of the 250th birthday of Thomas Jefferson. She received the Leadership Award of the Klingenstein Institute at Teachers College in 1994 and the Horace Kidger Award of the New England History Teachers Association in 1998.

In 2004, she received the Leadership Award of the New York City Council of Supervisors and Administrators. In 2005, she received the John Dewey award from the United Federation of Teachers of New York City; the Gaudium Award of the Breukelein Institute; and the Uncommon Book Award from the Hoover Institution. In 2006, the Kenneth J. Bialkin/Citigroup Public Service Award was conferred on her.

In 2010, the National Education Association selected her as its "Friend of Education" for the year, and the New England Association of Schools and Colleges conferred its Charles W. Eliot Award on her. In 2011, she was honored with the Outstanding Friend of Education Award from the Horace Mann League; the American Education Award from the American Association of School Administrators; the National Association of Secondary School Principals' Distinguished Service Award; and the Distinguished Alumni Award from Teachers College at Columbia University. In June of 2011, she received the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Prize of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. In 2014, she received the Grawemeyer Award from the University of Louisville for the death and life of the great American school system.

She was awarded an honorary degree, Doctor of Humane Letters, by the following institutions: Williams College; Reed College; Amherst College; the State University of New York; Ramapo College; St. Joseph's College of New York; Siena College; Middlebury College Language Schools; Columbia College Chicago; Queens College, City University of New York; Manhattanville College; and Union College.

A native of Houston, she is a graduate of the Houston public schools. She received a B.A. from Wellesley College in 1960 and a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 1975.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Diane Ravitch is a Research Professor of Education at New York University and a historian of education. She is the Founder and President of the Network for Public Education (NPE). Diane Ravitch's Blog is dianeravitch.net and has received more than 36 million hits.

# data[].attributes.body
Sal Khan began in education by simply tutoring his cousins in free time. He started posting his videos of his tutoring sessions and his ideas on mastery learning online which ended up getting nationwide attention. He then went on to open his own non-profit called Khan Academy. Khan Academy is a free online tutoring platform that is designed to help students learn at a pace that is meant specifically for them instead of trying to force them to keep up with their peers even when they don't understand what they are learning. He has influenced American education by providing accessible and affordable tutoring for students who may not have the resources to pay for tutoring. This has also helped teachers be able to track their students progress and help them make personalized lesson plans. Sal Khan's main point was that help in education should be available to anyone that needs it.

# data[].attributes.body
Horace Mann, a politician, had a goal to establish free, universal, equal education. Mann was a lawyer and had a key art in the Common School Movement. He believed education was essential and worked towards an education system with equal opportunities for all students. Mann was known as "The Father of American Education" due to his advocacy for public education and work to shape modern schooling. He emphasized the difficulty of teaching, and believed teachers needed to be trained to teach.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Horace Mann - The Father Of American Education

# data[].attributes.body
Noah Webster (1758-1843) was a key figure in shaping American education and setting standards for English in the United States. After graduating from Yale and studying law, he turned his attention to improving education. Webster encouraged the use of textbooks that reflected American values rather than following British models. In 1783, he published The American Spelling Book, which helped people learn to read and set American rules for spelling and pronunciation. Later, he wrote An American Dictionary of the English Language, which recorded American words and spelling, helping to create a unique national identity. Webster believed that education should build moral character and civic responsibility, not just literacy. His impact is still seen today, as American spelling is taught in schools and Webster’s Dictionary remains a trusted resource.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Noah Webster, and the first American dictionary.

# data[].attributes.body
Jean Piaget was a Swiss psychologist of early childhood development. He first started his career by writing a paper about an albino sparrow. Later, he went into psychology and observed his three children and created the Cognitive Development Theory. As he continued his work, he became known as the second most influential psychologist. In 1955, he founded the International Center for Genetic Epistemology. Today, many psychologists still use his theory and still teach it to students in the psychology field. It also influenced other psychologists, too. Like Howard Gardner and Robert Sternberg. Without Piaget, people wouldn't understand why children think so differently or how their brains develop as they grow or continue with school.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Jean Piaget was a Swiss psychologist and genetic epistemologist. You may have heard of Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development, for which he is famous. This theory looks at how children develop intellectually throughout the course of childhood.

At a Glance

Overview of Piaget's Life and Work

Prior to Piaget's theory, children were often thought of simply as mini-adults. Instead, Piaget suggested that the way children think is fundamentally different from the way that adults think.

Piaget's theory had a tremendous influence on the emergence of developmental psychology as a distinctive subfield within psychology and contributed greatly to the field of education. He is also credited as a pioneer of the constructivist theory, which suggests that people actively construct their knowledge of the world based on the interaction between their ideas and experiences.

In a 2002 survey of 1,725 American Psychological Society members, Piaget was named the second most influential psychologist of the 20th century.

Biography of Piaget's Life

Jean Piaget was born in Switzerland on August 9, 1896, and began showing an interest in the natural sciences at a very early age.

By the time he was 11, Piaget had already started his career as a researcher by writing a short paper on an albino sparrow.

Piaget continued to study the natural sciences and received his doctorate in zoology from the University of Neuchâtel in 1918. During this time, he published two essays that provided a foundation for his future thoughts and theories.

While his early career consisted of work in the natural sciences, during the 1920s he began to move toward work as a psychologist.

Personal Life

Piaget married Valentine Châtenay in 1923 and the couple went on to have three children. Piaget's observations of his own children served as the basis for many of his later theories.

Later Years

In 1925, Piaget returned to the University of Neuchâtel as a professor of psychology, sociology, and philosophy. From 1929 to 1967, he served as the Director of the International Bureau of Education in Geneva. He also taught at the University of Geneva.

Piaget founded the International Center for Genetic Epistemology in 1955. He died in 1980 and was buried in Geneva.

Piaget Biographies

Piaget's Career and Theories

Piaget had several ideas or theories about cognitive development throughout his career.

Intellectual Development

Piaget developed an interest in psychoanalysis and spent a year working at a boys' institution created by Alfred Binet. Binet is known as the developer of the world's first intelligence test, and Piaget took part in scoring these assessments.

Roots of Knowledge

Piaget identified himself as a genetic epistemologist. In his paper Genetic Epistemology, Piaget explained, "What the genetic epistemology proposes is discovering the roots of the different varieties of knowledge, since its elementary forms, following to the next levels, including also the scientific knowledge."

His early work with Binet's intelligence tests led Piaget to conclude that children think differently than adults. While this is a widely accepted notion today, it was considered revolutionary at the time. It was this observation that inspired his interest in understanding how knowledge grows throughout childhood.

Piaget suggested that children sort the knowledge they acquire through their experiences and interactions into groupings known as schemas. When new information is acquired, it can either be assimilated into existing schemas or accommodated through revising an existing schema or creating an entirely new category of information.

Stages of Cognitive Development

Today, Jean Piaget is best known for his research on children's cognitive development. Piaget studied the intellectual development of his own three children and created a theory that described the stages that children pass through in the development of intelligence and formal thought processes.

The four stages of Piaget's theory are as follows:

Sensorimotor stage: The first stage of development lasts from birth to approximately age 2. At this point in development, children know the world primarily through their senses and movements.

Preoperational stage: The second stage of development lasts from the ages of 2 to 7 and is characterized by the development of language and the emergence of symbolic play.

Concrete operational stage: The third stage of cognitive development lasts from the age of 7 to approximately age 11. At this point, logical thought emerges, but children still struggle with abstract and theoretical thinking.

Formal operational stage: In the fourth and final stage of cognitive development, lasting from age 12 and into adulthood, children become much more adept at abstract thought and deductive reasoning.

Additional Reading

Piaget's Contributions to Psychology

Piaget contributed to psychology in various ways. He provided support for the idea that children think differently than adults and his research identified several important milestones in the mental development of children. His work also generated interest in cognitive and developmental psychology.

Piaget's theories are widely studied today by students of both psychology and education. In the case of the latter, he once said, "The principle goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done."

Piaget's Influence on Psychology

Piaget's theories continue to be studied in the areas of psychology, sociology, education, and genetics. His work contributed to our understanding of the cognitive development of children. Piaget helped demonstrate that childhood is a unique and important period of human development.

In their 2005 text, "The Science of False Memory," authors C.J. Brainerd and V.F. Reyna wrote of Piaget's influence: "In the course of a long and hugely prolific career, he contributed important scholarly work to fields as diverse as the philosophy of science, linguistics, education, sociology, and evolutionary biology. Above all, however, he was the developmental psychologist of the 20th century.

For two decades, from the early 1960s to the early 1980s, Piagetian theory and Piaget's research findings dominated developmental psychology worldwide, much as Freud's ideas had dominated abnormal psychology a generation before. Almost single-handedly, he shifted the focus of developmental research away from its traditional concerns with social and emotional development and toward cognitive development."

Influence on Psychologists

Piaget's work influenced other notable psychologists including Howard Gardner and Robert Sternberg.

Howard Gardner: Gardner developed the theory of multiple intelligences in the 1970s and 1980s. Unlike Piaget, Gardner believed that there are various types of intelligence vs. a single type of intelligence of which people have greater or lesser amounts. Gardner cited Piaget as greatly influencing his work, as he sought to prove Piaget's theory wrong.

Robert Sternberg: Similar to Gardner, Sternberg's work uses classical theories of intelligence like Piaget's, but contradicts them. Sternberg is best-known for his triarchic theory of intelligence in which he posits there are three types of intelligence: practical, creative, and analytical. According to Sternberg, IQ tests only measure analytic intelligence, which doesn't give a complete picture of someone's intelligence.

Influence on Education

Piaget's work continues to influence education. He advocated for the following principles, which are still often used in classrooms:

Discovery learning: This emphasizes the idea that children should be given the freedom to explore and discover new information on their own. A learning environment should also provide courses such as music, dance, and art.

Problem-solving: Piaget believed that children should be taught by solving problems; in addition, teachers should pay attention to how a child arrives at a correct answer.

Stage-based teaching: Since each child falls into a different stage of cognitive development (and children progress through the stages in their own time), Piaget believed it was important that the learning environment reflects which stage a child is in.

Jean Piaget Quotes

Here is a selection of some of Jean Piaget's most famous quotes.

On Genetic Epistemology

"What the genetic epistemology proposes is discovering the roots of the different varieties of knowledge, since its elementary forms, following to the next levels, including also the scientific knowledge."

"The fundamental hypothesis of genetic epistemology is that there is a parallelism between the progress made in the logical and rational organization of knowledge and the corresponding formative psychological processes. With that hypothesis, the most fruitful, most obvious field of study would be the reconstituting of human history-the history of human thinking in prehistoric man. Unfortunately, we are not very well informed in the psychology of primitive man, but there are children all around us, and it is in studying children that we have the best chance of studying the development of logical knowledge, physical knowledge, and so forth."

On Cognitive Development

"Knowing reality means constructing systems of transformations that correspond, more or less adequately, to reality. They are more or less isomorphic to transformations of reality. The transformational structures of which knowledge consists are not copies of the transformations in reality; they are simply possible isomorphic models among which experience can enable us to choose. Knowledge, then, is a system of transformations that become progressively adequate."

On Education

"Children have real understanding only of that which they invent themselves, and each time that we try to teach them something too quickly, we keep them from reinventing it themselves."

On Intelligence

"Furthermore, intelligence itself does not consist of an isolated and sharply differentiated class of cognitive processes. It is not, properly speaking, one form of structuring among others; it is the form of equilibrium towards which all the structures arise out of perception, habit and elementary sensorimotor mechanisms tend."

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Piaget known for?

Piaget is known for his theory of cognitive development that first introduced the notion that children think differently than adults, which was a new way of thinking at the time. He is also known for creating the term "genetic epistemology," which refers to the study of knowledge development.

According to Jean Piaget, in what stage do children begin to use language?

Children begin to develop language during the preoperational stage, according to Piaget's theory. This is the second stage of development and begins when the child is around 2 years of age and lasts until they are roughly 7.

How did Jean Piaget define egocentrism?

Piaget defined egocentrism as a mindset that "vivifies the external world and materialises the internal world." Put simply, it is having a greater focus on one's own thoughts and feelings than on the thoughts and feelings of others.

Piaget theorized that egocentrism developed between the stages of autistic thought (thought that is undirected and symbolic) and scientific thought (thought that is more logical and socialized)-which is roughly between the ages of 3 and 7.

Why is Jean Piaget important?

Piaget's cognitive development theory changed the way we look at child development-namely, that children have different thought processes than adults. His contributions greatly influenced future developmental theories within the psychology field while also impacting other fields as well, such as education, sociology, and genetics.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Jean Piaget's Life and Contributions to Psychology

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Jean Piaget is a psychologist who developed a theory of cognitive development focused on intellectual development of children. Learn about Piaget and his theories.

# data[].attributes.body
Jean Piaget was a Swiss psychologist. He started his work at age 11 when he was studying an albino sparrow. As he continued his work, he started to observe his children and came up with the cognitive development theory. The Cognitive Development theory is the study of how children think, learn, and develop skills over time. As he continued his career, he became known as the second most influential psychologist. In 1955, he founded the International Center of Epistemology. After his passing, many psychologists still use his theory and are influenced by his discovery. His work influenced education and helped psychologists get a better understanding of how children develop and think.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Jean Piaget was a Swiss psychologist and genetic epistemologist. You may have heard of Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development, for which he is famous. This theory looks at how children develop intellectually throughout the course of childhood.

At a Glance

Overview of Piaget's Life and Work

Prior to Piaget's theory, children were often thought of simply as mini-adults. Instead, Piaget suggested that the way children think is fundamentally different from the way that adults think.

Piaget's theory had a tremendous influence on the emergence of developmental psychology as a distinctive subfield within psychology and contributed greatly to the field of education. He is also credited as a pioneer of the constructivist theory, which suggests that people actively construct their knowledge of the world based on the interaction between their ideas and experiences.

In a 2002 survey of 1,725 American Psychological Society members, Piaget was named the second most influential psychologist of the 20th century.

Biography of Piaget's Life

Jean Piaget was born in Switzerland on August 9, 1896, and began showing an interest in the natural sciences at a very early age.

By the time he was 11, Piaget had already started his career as a researcher by writing a short paper on an albino sparrow.

Piaget continued to study the natural sciences and received his doctorate in zoology from the University of Neuchâtel in 1918. During this time, he published two essays that provided a foundation for his future thoughts and theories.

While his early career consisted of work in the natural sciences, during the 1920s he began to move toward work as a psychologist.

Personal Life

Piaget married Valentine Châtenay in 1923 and the couple went on to have three children. Piaget's observations of his own children served as the basis for many of his later theories.

Later Years

In 1925, Piaget returned to the University of Neuchâtel as a professor of psychology, sociology, and philosophy. From 1929 to 1967, he served as the Director of the International Bureau of Education in Geneva. He also taught at the University of Geneva.

Piaget founded the International Center for Genetic Epistemology in 1955. He died in 1980 and was buried in Geneva.

Piaget Biographies

Piaget's Career and Theories

Piaget had several ideas or theories about cognitive development throughout his career.

Intellectual Development

Piaget developed an interest in psychoanalysis and spent a year working at a boys' institution created by Alfred Binet. Binet is known as the developer of the world's first intelligence test, and Piaget took part in scoring these assessments.

Roots of Knowledge

Piaget identified himself as a genetic epistemologist. In his paper Genetic Epistemology, Piaget explained, "What the genetic epistemology proposes is discovering the roots of the different varieties of knowledge, since its elementary forms, following to the next levels, including also the scientific knowledge."

His early work with Binet's intelligence tests led Piaget to conclude that children think differently than adults. While this is a widely accepted notion today, it was considered revolutionary at the time. It was this observation that inspired his interest in understanding how knowledge grows throughout childhood.

Piaget suggested that children sort the knowledge they acquire through their experiences and interactions into groupings known as schemas. When new information is acquired, it can either be assimilated into existing schemas or accommodated through revising an existing schema or creating an entirely new category of information.

Stages of Cognitive Development

Today, Jean Piaget is best known for his research on children's cognitive development. Piaget studied the intellectual development of his own three children and created a theory that described the stages that children pass through in the development of intelligence and formal thought processes.

The four stages of Piaget's theory are as follows:

Sensorimotor stage: The first stage of development lasts from birth to approximately age 2. At this point in development, children know the world primarily through their senses and movements.

Preoperational stage: The second stage of development lasts from the ages of 2 to 7 and is characterized by the development of language and the emergence of symbolic play.

Concrete operational stage: The third stage of cognitive development lasts from the age of 7 to approximately age 11. At this point, logical thought emerges, but children still struggle with abstract and theoretical thinking.

Formal operational stage: In the fourth and final stage of cognitive development, lasting from age 12 and into adulthood, children become much more adept at abstract thought and deductive reasoning.

Additional Reading

Piaget's Contributions to Psychology

Piaget contributed to psychology in various ways. He provided support for the idea that children think differently than adults and his research identified several important milestones in the mental development of children. His work also generated interest in cognitive and developmental psychology.

Piaget's theories are widely studied today by students of both psychology and education. In the case of the latter, he once said, "The principle goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done."

Piaget's Influence on Psychology

Piaget's theories continue to be studied in the areas of psychology, sociology, education, and genetics. His work contributed to our understanding of the cognitive development of children. Piaget helped demonstrate that childhood is a unique and important period of human development.

In their 2005 text, "The Science of False Memory," authors C.J. Brainerd and V.F. Reyna wrote of Piaget's influence: "In the course of a long and hugely prolific career, he contributed important scholarly work to fields as diverse as the philosophy of science, linguistics, education, sociology, and evolutionary biology. Above all, however, he was the developmental psychologist of the 20th century.

For two decades, from the early 1960s to the early 1980s, Piagetian theory and Piaget's research findings dominated developmental psychology worldwide, much as Freud's ideas had dominated abnormal psychology a generation before. Almost single-handedly, he shifted the focus of developmental research away from its traditional concerns with social and emotional development and toward cognitive development."

Influence on Psychologists

Piaget's work influenced other notable psychologists including Howard Gardner and Robert Sternberg.

Howard Gardner: Gardner developed the theory of multiple intelligences in the 1970s and 1980s. Unlike Piaget, Gardner believed that there are various types of intelligence vs. a single type of intelligence of which people have greater or lesser amounts. Gardner cited Piaget as greatly influencing his work, as he sought to prove Piaget's theory wrong.

Robert Sternberg: Similar to Gardner, Sternberg's work uses classical theories of intelligence like Piaget's, but contradicts them. Sternberg is best-known for his triarchic theory of intelligence in which he posits there are three types of intelligence: practical, creative, and analytical. According to Sternberg, IQ tests only measure analytic intelligence, which doesn't give a complete picture of someone's intelligence.

Influence on Education

Piaget's work continues to influence education. He advocated for the following principles, which are still often used in classrooms:

Discovery learning: This emphasizes the idea that children should be given the freedom to explore and discover new information on their own. A learning environment should also provide courses such as music, dance, and art.

Problem-solving: Piaget believed that children should be taught by solving problems; in addition, teachers should pay attention to how a child arrives at a correct answer.

Stage-based teaching: Since each child falls into a different stage of cognitive development (and children progress through the stages in their own time), Piaget believed it was important that the learning environment reflects which stage a child is in.

Jean Piaget Quotes

Here is a selection of some of Jean Piaget's most famous quotes.

On Genetic Epistemology

"What the genetic epistemology proposes is discovering the roots of the different varieties of knowledge, since its elementary forms, following to the next levels, including also the scientific knowledge."

"The fundamental hypothesis of genetic epistemology is that there is a parallelism between the progress made in the logical and rational organization of knowledge and the corresponding formative psychological processes. With that hypothesis, the most fruitful, most obvious field of study would be the reconstituting of human history-the history of human thinking in prehistoric man. Unfortunately, we are not very well informed in the psychology of primitive man, but there are children all around us, and it is in studying children that we have the best chance of studying the development of logical knowledge, physical knowledge, and so forth."

On Cognitive Development

"Knowing reality means constructing systems of transformations that correspond, more or less adequately, to reality. They are more or less isomorphic to transformations of reality. The transformational structures of which knowledge consists are not copies of the transformations in reality; they are simply possible isomorphic models among which experience can enable us to choose. Knowledge, then, is a system of transformations that become progressively adequate."

On Education

"Children have real understanding only of that which they invent themselves, and each time that we try to teach them something too quickly, we keep them from reinventing it themselves."

On Intelligence

"Furthermore, intelligence itself does not consist of an isolated and sharply differentiated class of cognitive processes. It is not, properly speaking, one form of structuring among others; it is the form of equilibrium towards which all the structures arise out of perception, habit and elementary sensorimotor mechanisms tend."

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Piaget known for?

Piaget is known for his theory of cognitive development that first introduced the notion that children think differently than adults, which was a new way of thinking at the time. He is also known for creating the term "genetic epistemology," which refers to the study of knowledge development.

According to Jean Piaget, in what stage do children begin to use language?

Children begin to develop language during the preoperational stage, according to Piaget's theory. This is the second stage of development and begins when the child is around 2 years of age and lasts until they are roughly 7.

How did Jean Piaget define egocentrism?

Piaget defined egocentrism as a mindset that "vivifies the external world and materialises the internal world." Put simply, it is having a greater focus on one's own thoughts and feelings than on the thoughts and feelings of others.

Piaget theorized that egocentrism developed between the stages of autistic thought (thought that is undirected and symbolic) and scientific thought (thought that is more logical and socialized)-which is roughly between the ages of 3 and 7.

Why is Jean Piaget important?

Piaget's cognitive development theory changed the way we look at child development-namely, that children have different thought processes than adults. His contributions greatly influenced future developmental theories within the psychology field while also impacting other fields as well, such as education, sociology, and genetics.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Jean Piaget's Life and Contributions to Psychology

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Jean Piaget is a psychologist who developed a theory of cognitive development focused on intellectual development of children. Learn about Piaget and his theories.

# data[].attributes.body
Booker T. Washington was born a slave in 1856. He worked as a slave until the age of 9 when he was freed. After becoming freed Washington worked in a mine. He heard about this school that allowed for former black slaves to attend this school. He was 16 when he went to Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute. He graduated with honors and was given the chance to be principal at Tuskegee Institute which is now a college. Booker T. Washington worked hard at this institute and built it up, by hard work. They made building and sold bricks in order to keep this institute alive. His belief was that "If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else." He served at the Tuskegee institute from 1881-1915 and made it big. He helped create a curriculum that focused on providing African Americans with practical skills in agriculture, trades, and other vocations to promote economic self-sufficiency. And he worked hard to make the institution go from very few buildings and students to over 100 buildings and 1,000 students and 200 staff members by the time he passed away. During this time he wrote around 40 books that talk about slavery, education, and character building. He was asked to speak on the opening day of the Atlanta Exhibition in 1895 which talked about the economic progress since the civil war. He was invited by President Theodor Roosevelt to dine in the White House in 1901. He was the first black person to do this. He was counseled to many U.S. Presidents after this. Booker T. Washington became ill in November, and on November 12, 1915 he was asked to be taken back to Tuskegee institute, because that is where his heart longed and he dies 2 days later on November 14th 1915.

Quotes of Booker T. Washington.

"Success always leaves footprints."

"Nothing ever comes to me that is worth having, except as the result of hard work."

"Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacle's which he has overcome."

# data[].attributes.body
Carol Dweck is known for her views on "growth mindset" and how effective they can be for students. In this video she talks about schools in Chicago that experimented with using the "not yet" grading system. The not yet grading system showed that students can develop a more confident outlook on grades and their abilities. Carol Dweck believes that students can be taught a growth mindset by praising effort instead of the correct answers. She has influenced many teachers and educators to teach a growth mindset and further the students confidence in learning.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The power of believing that you can improve

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Carol Dweck researches “growth mindset” — the idea that we can grow our brain’s capacity to learn and to solve problems. In this talk, she describes two ways to think about a problem that’s slightly too hard for you to solve. Are you not smart enough to solve it … or have you just not solved it yet? A great introduction to this influential field.

# data[].attributes.body
Sylvia Mendez is a civil right activist whose childhood experience became an essential moment in the fight against educational segregation in the United States. In 1944, she was eight when she was denied entry to a school in, Westminster California, that was only for white people because she was Mexican. Instead she got sent to a segregated school for Mexican Americans. Her parents Gonzalo and Felicitas Mendez filed a lawsuit challenging the segregation which led to the famous federal court "MendeZ vs. Westminster" in 1946 which ruled that segregating Mexican American children was again very unconstitutional. This case influenced a lot in the Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954, which this declared racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. Sylvia later on dedicated herself sharing her story and advocating for civil rights. She earned the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011 for her contribution in providing equality in education.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Sylvia Mendez and the Struggle for Mexican American Civil Rights

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
What inspired me is that my parents fought for me when I was very young. . . . They wanted me to know that I was an individual . . . that we’re all individuals, that we’re all human beings and that we’re all connected together and that we all have the same rights; the same freedom.

# data[].attributes.body
John Dewey was an influential American philosopher, psychologist, and educator often referred to as the "Father of Progressive Education." He believed children learn better if it is engaging, such as planting seeds. Students will learn through experiences and discussions at the end of the lesson. Dewey viewed school as a social communities that help children learn how to be active participants in democracy. His approach encourages teachers to guide students' interests rather than strictly follow textbooks. Education should connect to life and foster critical thinking.

# data[].attributes.body
Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass was an man born as a slave in Maryland and became a free man at 20 years old when he escaped to New York City. Before his freedom, Douglass had already gained literacy and recognized that literacy and education were a path to freedom, and began to share that opportunity with those on his birth plantation when given the chances. Before the Civil War, Douglass had written an autobiography, a second memoir, and started a newspaper The North Star. After the war, Douglass became an appointed business man and politician. Using his newfound power, Douglass pressed out the importance of literacy and education, and how the ability to read starts a person's path toward their own freedom. He used his own home and property to educate others who wished to come by and learn. Douglass opened his doors for all working people to learn from him and his life experiences.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Frederick Douglass Collector Educator Anacostia - Teachers (U.S. National Park Service)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Grade Level:
Middle School: Sixth Grade through Eighth Grade

# data[].attributes.body
Lev Vygotsky was a Russian psychologist who focused on how children learn through other people, and his ideas are still used in American classrooms today. From the video, I learned about his idea called the Zone of Proximal Development, which is basically the space between what a student can do by itself and what they can do with help from a teacher or peer. He also talked about scaffolding, meaning the teacher gives support at first and then slowly steps back when the student is ready. Vygotsky believed that learning is shaped by communication, culture, and the environment around us, not just what we can do on our own. Because of his work, teachers now use more group activities, discussions, and help students learn by talking and working together. His ideas have made learning feel more connected, social, and supportive so students can grow and reach higher goals.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Vygotsky's Theory of Cognitive Development in Social Relationships

# data[].attributes.body
Sonia Nieto is a well known professor, writer, researcher, and mentor who advocates for language, literacy, and culture. In this video she talks about her book, Affirming Diversity, in which she describes the significance of diversity in the education system and for society. She talks about her experiences as someone whose first language was not English. She cares for diversity and how teachers should learn to teach students of diverse backgrounds. In her work she is always advocating for equality and equity in education for multicultural communities. Her work has influenced people to find joy teaching students of different and adhere to those values.