Sabrina Moore

March 20th, 2014

Theorist Paper: Jean Piaget
Introduction to Early Childhood Education

Early childhood education is becoming more relevant each and every day. As years pass,
scientists, specialists and researchers are discovering how important early childhood education is
not only to the children themselves, but also to society as a whole. Children who receive early
education are better prepared later on in their educational career and also, early childhood
education also gives the child a better overall foundation to grow on, causing them to be more
beneficial in society later on in their lives. However early childhood education is not a new idea,
it has been around for hundreds of years, names such as Martin Luther (1483-1546), John Locke
(1632-1704), Maria Monessori (1870-1952) and Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934) are all widely
known for their contributions to early childhood education, yet one name is often referred to
more often than the rest, Jean Piaget.
Jean Piaget was born on August 9th, 1896 in Neuchatel (Switzerland) (Schumaker 1996)
and began to show ambition and success at an early age. When he was 10, he published a
scientific article on an albino sparrow. He published articles on mollusks at 15. He received a
doctors degree in the natural sciences in 1918 and then studied psychology (WorldBook 1991).
Piaget held numerous academic posts in Switzerland and France after he received his Doctorate
in 1918 (Schumaker 1996). By 1916, he had published twenty papers on molluscs. These
papers were valuable enough to bring him into consideration for a curators position at the
Museum of Natural History in Geneva (Schumaker 1996). Piaget was a very intelligent man
and used his knowledge to try and help understand the way in which children learn.
Piagets theory is about cognitive development; it explains how children think,
understand, and learn (Morrison 2012). The way in which Piaget viewed his cognitive theory is
that active involvement is key to the learning processes. Through direct experiences with the
physical world, children develop intelligence (Morrison 2012).In Piagetian theory, the material

world should be the starting point for learning (Gredler & Green 2002). What these two
different sources are showing to us is that it is crucial for a child to have an active involvement in
their educational process. While a childs active involvement in their education is very important
in Piagets theory, some other key concepts are adaptation, schemes, assimilation and
accommodation. Adaptation is important both mentally and physically. For a child to be able to
learn and feel safe and secure in their environment, they must be able to adapt, physically, to the
space that they are in, and mentally to the situation that they are entering. While adaptation does
take time to occur, if a child is unable to adapt to their environment, it will disrupt their
intelligence. Schemes is another key concept in Piagets theory. Schemes refer to organized
units of knowledge that children develop through the adaption process (Morrison 2012). Finally
we have assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation is being able to use your senses to take
in new experiences and incorporating them into your knowledge, while accommodation is the
way in which a child changes their way of acting (thinking, behavior, believing) to make it fit
more into their reality. All of these concepts, along with developmentally appropriate practice, fit
together to outline Piagets theory. Developmentally appropriate practice is the process of giving
children tasks and activities that matches the child on their mental or physical level but also
knowing to challenge them when they are ready.
To foster cognitive development, according to Piaget, the teacher must (a) create and
organize classroom experiences that challenge students' thinking, (b) become attuned to
the spontaneous mental activity of learners as they address these situations, and (c)
provide examples and probing questions that lead students to rethink their hastily
developed ideas. Piaget (1973) noted the difficulty of this process for the teacher, but

argued that intellectual development depends on the constructive activity of learners with
all its errors and all the extra time it seems to consume (Gredler & Green 2002)
Now while Piaget did not come up with this idea, his theory, along with many others that exist
today, center on this idea.
Piaget, realizing that children need activities that meet them on the stage that they are at,
created different stages to help others understand where these children are developmentally.
These stages consist of:
I.
II.
III.

The Sensorimotor Stage (Birth 2 years)

The Preoperational Stage (2-7 years)
The Concrete Operations Stage (7-17 years)

The sensorimotor stage is the first of these three stages. Within this stage, children use
their senses to obtain knowledge of the world. The sensorimotor period has these major
characteristics, Dependence on and use of innate reflexive actions, initial development of object
permanency, egocentricity, dependence on concrete representations, near the end of the stage,
less reliance on sensorimotor reflexive actions and a beginning use of symbols for things that are
not present (Morrison 2012).
The second stage is The Preoperational Stage. The three key points that are within the
preoperational stage are representation, egocentrism, and conservation. Representation is when
you can an image or symbol in place of something that is not currently there. During this stage,
children begin to realize that a picture of a person, stands for a person in the real world. Children
begin to see the connections between objects. The next concept in this stage is egocentrism.
Children in this stage believe that everyone things just like they do. This is why children at this
age have such a difficult time being empathetic towards one another. The finial concept is

conservation. Within this stage, it is impossible for children to conserve, to realize that just
because an object changes shape or formation, does not mean that the quantity of the object
necessarily changes. For example, if you have a ball of play-dough and then smash it flat into a
pancake and as a preoperational child if there is still the same amount of play-dough, they would
respond with no because it not appears that there is less than there was before when it was in the
shape of a ball. In addition, preoperational children believe and act as though everything
happens for a specific reason or purpose, this explains childrens constant and recurring
questions about why things happen and how things work (Morrison 2012).
The final stage in Piagets three steps is the concrete operational stage. Children at this
stage quickly being to understand then when the physical appearance of an object changes, that
does not necessarily mean the quality or the quantity of that object changes. During this stage
they also begin to reverse thought processes. Other mental operations at this stage include, oneto-one correspondence, classification of objects, evens and time according to certain
characteristics, classification involving multiple properties, and also class inclusive operations
(Morrison 2012). While Piagets different stages are available to help educate others and give
them an insight to the developmental stages of children, No simple sets of exercise will cause
children to move up the developmental ladder. Rather, ongoing developmentally appropriate
activates lead to conceptual understanding (book).
Piagets theory has impacted so many people and programs throughout the years. With
his developments in early childhood education, more people are able to identify with children
and the stages that they are in and what is developmentally appropriate for them to be working
with at that time. Piagets stages and concepts have helped me in my classroom because it allows
me to take a greater look at what my children should be able to do and what I can give them that

will push them to use their abilities and still be developmentally appropriate for them at that
stage in their development. More people dealing with early childhood education should look into
Piagets concepts and theorys so that they can feel as comfortable working with their children as
I do working with mine.

Resources

Gredler, Margaret E., and Susan K. Green. "A review and analysis of constructivism for schoolbased practice." School Psychology Review Winter 2002: 53+. Academic OneFile. Web. 19 Mar.
2014.
Morrison, George S. Early Childhood Education Today. Twelfth ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson
Educatiion, 2012. 129-34. Print.
"Piaget, Jean." 15. The World Book Encyclopedia. 1991th ed. 1991. 449. Print.
Schumaker, Richard. "A foundational thinker." UNESCO Courier Nov. 1996: 48+. Academic
OneFile. Web. 19 Mar. 2014.