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Theorist Review: Jean Piaget

Pamela Walters
Ivy Tech Community College
September 17, 2015

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Jean Piaget is considered the first person to study and identify how children learn
(World of Biology, 2006). His work on the subject has given us a look at how children learn and
a better way to teach them. This in turn has changed the way the education system and teachers
can teach students. It is through his research and theories that we learn about the mind of a child
and how it works.
Jean Piaget was born on August 9, 1896 in Neuchtel Switzerland. He was the eldest
child of Arthur Piaget and Rebecca Jackson. As a child, Piaget showed more of an interest in
science than he did in psychology. He had such an interest in mollusks that by the time he
finished high school, he had become well-known in the field of malacology. After he graduated
from high school, he went to the University of Neuchtel where he earned a PH.D in the field of
natural science. It was when he spent a semester at the University of Zurich that his interest in
the field of psychoanalysis began to develop (Smith, 1997) It is that field where Jean Piaget
would find his true calling and where even to this day he is most known.
When Piaget left Switzerland for France, he worked at the Ecole de la rue de la Grangeaux-Belles, a boys' institution. That lasted for a year, but it was then that he began his first
studies into the growing minds of adolescents. In October of 1920, Piaget joined the Swiss
Psychoanalytic Society and shortly after in 1921, he would be hired by the Institut Jean Jacques
Rousseau in Geneva, where he was the director of studies. In the span of ten years, he would go
from director of studies to assistant director to co-director of the institute. It was also during this
time that he began to create reading tests for children. Piaget took what he had learned from this
study and combined it with findings from a study that involved one hundred elementary aged
students and created his theory on cognitive development.

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This theory is known simply as Piagets Cognitive Developmental Theory. In this theory
Piaget believed that children did not learn by being rewarded, but by just exploring the world
around them, that they build their own knowledge through their own experiences. Piaget stated
that as a child encounters more experiences during the development of the brain, they would then
begin to move through the four stages of cognitive development. Those stages are sensorimotor,
preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational (Smith, 1997).
The sensorimotor stage is from birth to two years of age. In this stage Piaget believed that
an infant could think with the use of their hands, eyes, ears, and mouth. That by relying on the
senses that they could solve problems that involved the use of that sense. An example of this
would be if you put a toy under a blanket the child would seek it out. It would show that the child
had a mental picture of the object and knew what they were looking for even though the toy was
hidden.
The preoperational stage is from two to seven years of age. In this stage Piaget believed
that children of the preschool age could use symbols to explain what they had learned in the
sensorimotor stage. They could use language or some type of visual aide such as a drawing to
show you what they mean. Piaget thought that if the child could focus on one thing at a time,
then they could be decipher it. It would be like showing the child a picture of an apple and telling
them over and over that it is an apple. The child would eventually see the picture and know that
it was an apple
The concrete operational stage is from seven to eleven years of age. In this stage Piaget
believed that this stage was a turning point in the thought process. He believed that this is the
stage where a child begins to use logical and operational thought, but only to physical objects.
For instance, they could look at an object and know the by adding to it the object itself would get

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bigger. They are able to solve problems in a somewhat logical way but they are still unable to
think in a hypothetical way.
The last stage is the formal operational stage and it is from eleven years of age on. Piaget
believed that this stage was where the ability to think in a more abstract way began. That we also
gain the ability to combine items and to classify them in a way that was more advanced than
before. He proved this by asking some adolescent aged children if they had a third eye where
would they put it and why. He asked this question of eight to eleven year olds. The eight year
olds said that they would put it on their forehead and did not explain why they would do so. The
eleven year olds put thought into the answer and said they would put it in the palm of their hand
so they could see around corners (Mcleod, 2010).
Piagets theory has had a tremendous impact on how education is practiced today. It has
helped put the focus on the developmental learning of the individual student and not just the
classroom as a whole. Through Piaget, the educational system is about changing the instruction
to meet the students level of learning instead of the student being forced to learn in manor that
may not suit their learning style. There are many strategic ways that Piagets theory has been
implicated into classrooms. One is through the use of visual aids. If a student sees the alphabet
everyday within the classroom, it will help them to remember. Another way is to put a student
into a group with other students with similar learning abilities. This will enhance the skills that
the students already have and encourage them to learn in other ways.
In comparison to Lev Vygotskys cognitive theory, Piagets theory is more widely used in
the educational system. There are several similarities, but those similarities also have major
differences. For instance, Vygotsky believed that children learn from the world around them as
did Piaget. The thing that made them different is the how of it. Vygotsky believed that what a

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child learned was a direct cause of who they were around. He believed that if someone was
around a person with a high IQ then they had a better chance of having a high IQ. As where
Piaget was more about the child learning from the environment that surrounded them and less
with who was around them. Another similarity that had a major difference is that Piaget believed
that development declined with age, as where Vygotsky believed that childhood had an increase
in development and then it declined.
As a child in school, I remember being broken up into different reading groups. I never
thought about it then, but it was a way of grouping us with other students who read at the same
level. It was a way to enhance what are reading abilities were and to better help our reading
needs. When I sit and think about it this type a learning went well into high school. The students
were put into different types of Math and English classes that had students on the same level. It
gave each group the advantage they needed to better learn what they need to become functioning
adults.
In conclusion Jean Piaget dedicated his lifes work to finding out how the mind of a child
develops into the mind of an adult. Up until his death in 1980, he continued to work and ask
himself one question how does knowledge grow (Smith, 1997). Although he accomplished
many things in his life, I think that his theory on cognitive development was what he will be
forever known for. It has helped shape the education system into what it is today and still
continues to change with the times.
I think I would like to implement this type of learning into my classroom when I become
a teacher. I want all my students to excel and achieve goals that they set for themselves with my
help. I want to make an impact and show them that just because they learn differently from
another student it does not make them different, it makes them unique. What learned from this

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project is that in order to be a good teacher, you must recognize the needs of your students and
proceed accordingly. That it is not about just about the student getting the right answer, it is
about how they got that answer.

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Works Cited
Mcleod, S. (2010). Formal Operational Stage. Retrieved from Simply Psychology:
http://www.simplypsychology.org/formal-operational.html
Smith, L. (1997). A Brief Biography of Jean Piaget. Retrieved from Jean Piaget
Society: http://www.piaget.org/aboutPiaget.html
World of Biology. (2006). Jean Piaget. Retrieved from Gale Biogrophy in Context:
http://ic.galegroup.com.fortwayne.libproxy.ivytech.edu.allstate.libproxy.ivytec
h.edu/ic/bic1/BiographiesDetailsPage/BiographiesDetailsWindow?
failOverType=&query=&prodId