Philosophy of Education - Normative

Educational Philosophies - Perennialism

Perennialism

Main article: Educational perennialism

Perennialists believe that one should teach the things that one deems to be of everlasting importance
to all people everywhere. They believe that the most important topics develop a person. Since details
of fact change constantly, these cannot be the most important. Therefore, one should teach principles,
not facts. Since people are human, one should teach first about humans, not machines or techniques.
Since people are people first, and workers second if at all, one should teach liberal topics first, not
vocational topics. The focus is primarily on teaching reasoning and wisdom rather than facts, the
liberal arts rather than vocational training.

Philosophy of Education - Normative

Educational Philosophies
Normative Educational Philosophies

"Normative philosophies or theories of education may make use of the results of and of factual
inquiries about human beings and the psychology of learning, but in any case they propound views
about what education should be, what dispositions it should cultivate, why it ought to cultivate them,
how and in whom it should do so, and what forms it should take. In a full-fledged philosophical
normative theory of education, besides analysis of the sorts described, there will normally be
propositions of the following kinds: 1. Basic normative premises about what is good or right; 2. Basic
factual premises about humanity and the world; 3. Conclusions, based on these two kinds of premises,
about the dispositions education should foster; 4. Further factual premises about such things as the
psychology of learning and methods of teaching; and 5. Further conclusions about such things as the
methods that education should use."

Philosophy of Education
Philosophy of education can refer to either the academic field of applied philosophy or to one of any
educational philosophies that promote a specific type or vision of education, and/or which examine the
definition, goals and meaning of education.

As an academic field, philosophy of education is "the philosophical study of education and its

problems...its central subject matter is education, and its methods are those of philosophy". "The
philosophy of education may be either the philosophy of the process of education or the philosophy of
the discipline of education. That is, it may be part of the discipline in the sense of being concerned
with the aims, forms, methods, or results of the process of educating or being educated; or it may be
metadisciplinary in the sense of being concerned with the concepts, aims, and methods of
the discipline." As such, it is both part of the field of education and a field of applied philosophy,
drawing from fields of metaphysics, epistemology, axiology and the philosophical approaches
(speculative, prescriptive, and/or analytic) to address questions in and about pedagogy, education
policy, and curriculum, as well as the process of learning, to name a few. For example, it might study
what constitutes upbringing and education, the values and norms revealed through upbringing and
educational practices, the limits and legitimization of education as an academic discipline, and the
relation between educational theory and practice.

Instead of being taught in philosophy departments, philosophy of education is usually housed in

departments or colleges of education, similar to how philosophy of law is generally taught in law
schools. The multiple ways of conceiving education coupled with the multiple fields and approaches of
philosophy make philosophy of education not only a very diverse field but also one that is not easily
defined. Although there is overlap, philosophy of education should not be conflated with educational
theory, which is not defined specifically by the application of philosophy to questions in education.
Philosophy of education also should not be confused with philosophy education, the practice of
teaching and learning the subject of philosophy.

Philosophy of education can also be understood not as an academic discipline but as a normative
educational theory that unifies pedagogy, curriculum, learning theory, and the purpose of education
and is grounded in specific metaphysical, epistemological, and axiological assumptions. These theories
are also called educational philosophies. For example, a teacher might be said to follow a perennialist
educational philosophy or to follow a perennialist philosophy of education.

Allan Bloom
Education in our times must try to 
find whatever there is in students 
that might yearn for completion, 
and to reconstruct the learning that 
would enable them autonomously 
to seek that completion.

Allan David Bloom was born on September 14, 1930 in Indianapolis. He was
educated in Indianapolis public schools until the age of sixteen when his family
moved to Chicago. He then enrolled in the University of Chicago where he earned his
B.A. degree in 1949, his M.A. degree in 1953, and his Ph.D. from the Committee on
Social Thought in 1955. He also studied and taught abroad in Paris from 1953 �
1955 and in Heidelberg in 1957. He taught at the Universities of Chicago, Yale,
Cornell, and the University of Toronto. After returning from Toronto he went back to
Chicago where he remained his death as a professor in the Committee on Social
Thought. Bloom was a professor of social thought and a noted translator of Plato and
Rousseau. Bloom believed that a liberal education with a judicious use of great texts
was the essential element of education. Bloom believed that the Great Books were the
vehicles of the best of 2500 years of reflection on the most permanent and important
questions one can face as an individual and as society. Bloom firmly believed that a
person could not truly examine life except through serious sustained study and
thought on these texts. He so strongly believed this, that he attained the mastery of
classical Greek and French, and then used them both for his own learning and that of
his future students by translating Rousseau�s Emile and Plato�s Republic. He
authored and translated many works during his lifetime. A list of these works follows
in best selling order: 
1. The Closing of the American Mind 
2. Plato�s The Republic (Bloom translation) 
3. Emile: Or on education (Bloom translation) 
4. Shakespeare on Love and Friendship 
5. Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phemenology  of Spirit 
6. Shakespeare�s Politics (with Jaffa) 
7. Politics and the Arts (Bloom translator) 
8. Xenophon�s Socrates (with Leo Strauss)

His book, The Closing of the American Mind, is essential reading in order to
understand Bloom�s thought and the decay of the modern university. It was with
this 
publication in1987 that Bloom argues that the social and political crisis of twentieth
century America is really an intellectual crisis. Bloom blamed high technology, the 
sexual revolution, and the introduction of cultural diversity into the curriculum at the
expense of the classics, which in turn produced students without wisdom or values.
According to Bloom, American democracy has unwittingly played host to vulgarized
continental ideas of nihilism and despair, and of relativism disguised as tolerance.
Bloom makes a convincing case for the proposition that reading old books about the
permanent questions could help reestablish reason and restore the soul.

The book can easily be divided into three parts. The first part characterizes the moral
and intellectual state of modern university students. He stated  that �students these
days are in general nice. I choose the word carefully. They are not particularly moral
or noble.� He attributes these feelings to moral relativism, instant 
gratification, and the poverty of the students� education. The second part of the book
traces the roots of modern intellectual and relativism. The last section of the book is a
discussion of the proper relationships between the student, university, and society.
Allan Bloom was a �psychologist� in the classical sense, thus a perennialist. He
sought to deepen souls while educating sentiments, to give his students contact with
greatness, and to make everyone aware of the transcendent. Aristophanes, Plato,
Shakespeare, and Rousseau are needed to help students think, and to teach them how
to lead their lives. Bloom puts himself at the center of this by the sheer force of his
observations. He lays the blame for the closing of the American mind on the current
value of openness. The American mind is closed because in advocating the value
relativism, people are open to anything and everything, a move which enslaves us to
the particular.  An example of this would be Plato�s simile of a cave. A cave seems
from the outside to be a great opening, something everyone wants to have. However,
the cave-dweller can only look at and appreciate other people�s caves while
abandoning the quest for the sun. Thus, what has been advertised as a great opening is
in fact a great closing.  Bloom was and is important to education because of his
intellect, allowing him to translate famous works to be shared by many. He also
proved with his theory of �openness� in America today that there is a need for a
reinvention of the universities in America. He referred to �openness� as a
relativism that declares that all endeavors are of 
equal value � the study of Shakespeare is equal to the study of basketweaving. He
believed that universities chose whatever was popular and easy to understand in
society currently as the curriculum for the university. Bloom also referred to an
openness to study historical and cultural texts and materials in their original form, and
be open to develop one�s own thoughts from them rather than accepting them at first
glance with the opinions of so-called experts in the field of their textbooks. He
suggested that in order to re-invigorate college and university curriculum the
universities must return to the use of original texts and materials. For example, one
should study Dante�s Inferno rather than a synopsis of classical poems.

Bloom died October 7, 1992 while being hospitalized for peptic ulcer bleeding
complicated by liver failure. At the time of his death he was co-director of the John
M. Olin Center for Inquiry into the Theory and Practice of Democracy.

References

 Barnes and Nobles. July5, 2000. Barnes and Nobles.com-Book Search. 

http://shop.barnesand�.05&match=exact&options=and&anotherlevel=Y&keyword=
bloom+alla

 Biographical Dictionary of Modern American Educators. Frederick Ohles, Shirley M.

Ohles, and John G. Ramsey. Westport, CT. Greenwood Press, 1997.

 Creative Quotations from Allan Bloom. July 5, 2000.

http://www.bemorecreative.com/one/1785.htm

 Cassimatis, Nicholas. July 5, 2000. Upstream: Upstream: Hmm Allan Bloom

Obituary. http://cycad.com/cgi-bin/Upstream/Reading/albloom-obituary.html 
 
Cyber Nation International. July5, 2000. TPCN � Great Quotations (Quotes) By
Allan Bloom to Inspire and Motivate You To Achieve. http://www.cyber-
nation.com/victory/quotations/authors/quotes_bloom_allan.html

 The Closing of the American Mind. Allan Bloom. New York. Simon and Schuster.
1987.

 Weinstein, Kenneth. 2000. The Real Allan Bloom. The Weekly Standard Magazine,
5, 32.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/magazine/mag_5_32_00/weinstein_bkar_5_32_0.ht
ml 
 

Report Prepared by: 

Lisa H.Tanner 
  
  
  
 

Philosophy of Education - Normative

Educational Philosophies
Normative Educational Philosophies

"Normative philosophies or theories of education may make use of the results of and of factual
inquiries about human beings and the psychology of learning, but in any case they propound views
about what education should be, what dispositions it should cultivate, why it ought to cultivate them,
how and in whom it should do so, and what forms it should take. In a full-fledged philosophical
normative theory of education, besides analysis of the sorts described, there will normally be
propositions of the following kinds: 1. Basic normative premises about what is good or right; 2. Basic
factual premises about humanity and the world; 3. Conclusions, based on these two kinds of premises,
about the dispositions education should foster; 4. Further factual premises about such things as the
psychology of learning and methods of teaching; and 5. Further conclusions about such things as the
methods that education should use."

Read more about this topic:  Philosophy Of Education

 Philosophy of Education - Normative
Educational Philosophies - Progressivism - Jean
Piaget
Jean Piaget

Main article: Jean Piaget

Date: 1896-1980

Jean Piaget was a Swiss developmental psychologist known for his epistemological studies with
children. His theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are together called "genetic
epistemology". Piaget placed great importance on the education of children. As the Director of the
International Bureau of Education, he declared in 1934 that "only education is capable of saving our
societies from possible collapse, whether violent, or gradual." Piaget created the International Centre
for Genetic Epistemology in Geneva in 1955 and directed it until 1980. According to Ernst von
Glasersfeld, Jean Piaget is "the great pioneer of the constructivist theory of knowing."

Jean Piaget described himself as an epistemologist, interested in the process of the qualitative
development of knowledge. As he says in the introduction of his book "Genetic Epistemology" (ISBN
978-0-393-00596-7): "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."
 Philosophy of Education - Normative
Educational Philosophies - Progressivism
Progressivism

Main article: Educational Progressivism

Educational progressivism is the belief that education must be based on the principle that humans are
social animals who learn best in real-life activities with other people. Progressivists, like proponents of
most educational theories, claim to rely on the best available scientific theories of learning. Most
progressive educators believe that children learn as if they were scientists, following a process similar
to John Dewey's model of learning: 1) Become aware of the problem. 2) Define the problem. 3)
Propose hypotheses to solve it. 4) Evaluate the consequences of the hypotheses from one's past
experience. 5) Test the likeliest solution.

Template:Progressivism Progressive education is a pedagogical movement that began in the late

nineteenth century and has persisted in various forms to the present. More recently, it has been
viewed as an alternative to the test-oriented instruction legislated by the No Child Left
Behind educational funding act.[1]
The term "progressive" was engaged to distinguish this education from the traditional curriculum of
the 19th century, which was rooted in classical preparation for the university and strongly
differentiated by socioeconomic level. By contrast, progressive education finds its roots in
present experience. Most progressive education programs have these qualities in common:

 Emphasis on learning by doing – hands-on projects, expeditionary learning, experiential learning

 Integrated curriculum focused on thematic units
 Integration of entrepreneurship in to education
 Strong emphasis on problem solving and critical thinking
 Group work and development of social skills
 Understanding and action as the goals of learning as opposed to rote knowledge
 Collaborative and cooperative learning projects
 Education for social responsibility and democracy
 Highly personalized education accounting for each individual's personal goals
 Integration of community service and service learning projects into the daily curriculum
 Selection of subject content by looking forward to ask what skills will be needed in future society
 De-emphasis on textbooks in favor of varied learning resources
 Emphasis on lifelong learning and social skills
 Assessment by evaluation of child’s projects and productions
Jean Piaget

Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was one of the

forerunners of cognitive psychology. He examined the development of the cognitive
functions in children, and gave us more insight into the world of children. Knowledge
systems evolve not only through their own inherent logic, but also through a
psychological process of maturation. Piaget called this theory “genetic epistemology.”
 Biography
 Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
 Sensorimotor (0-18 months)
o Preoperational (18 months-age 7)
o Concrete Operations (age 7-12)
o Formal Operations (age 12 and up)
 Short Film about Piaget:
Biography
(Quoted from the Piaget Society Website.)
“Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was born in Neuchâtel (Switzerland) on August 9, 1896. He
died in Geneva on September 16, 1980. He was the oldest child of Arthur Piaget,
professor of medieval literature at the University, and of Rebecca Jackson. At age 11,
while he was a pupil at Neuchâtel Latin high school, he wrote a short notice on an albino
sparrow. This short paper is generally considered as the start of a brilliant scientific career
made of over sixty books and several hundred articles.
His interest for mollusks was developed during his late adolescence to the point that he
became a well-known malacologist by finishing school. He published many papers in the
field that remained of interest for him all along his life.

After high school graduation, he studied natural sciences at the University of Neuchâtel
where he obtained a Ph.D. During this period, he published two philosophical essays
which he considered as “adolescence work” but were important for the general
orientation of his thinking.

After a semester spent at the University of Zürich where he developed an interest for
psychoanalysis, he left Switzerland for France. He spent one year working at the Ecole de
la rue de la Grange-aux-Belles a boys’ institution created by Alfred Binet and then
directed by De Simon who had developed with Binet a test for the measurement of
intelligence. There, he standardized Burt’s test of intelligence and did his first
experimental studies of the growing mind.

In 1921, he became director of studies at the J.-J. Rousseau Institute in Geneva at the
request of Sir Ed. Claparède and P. Bovet.

In 1923, he and Valentine Châtenay were married. The couple had three children,
Jacqueline, Lucienne and Laurent whose intellectual development from infancy to
language was studied by Piaget.

Successively or simultaneously, Piaget occupied several chairs: psychology, sociology

and history of science at Neuchâtel from 1925 to 1929; history of scientific thinking at
Geneva from 1929 to 1939; the International Bureau of Education from 1929 to 1967;
psychology and sociology at Lausanne from 1938 to 1951; sociology at Geneva from
1939 to 1952, then genetic and experimental psychology from 1940 to 1971. He was,
reportedly, the only Swiss to be invited at the Sorbonne from 1952 to 1963. In 1955, he
created and directed until his death the International Center for Genetic Epistemology.

His researches in developmental psychology and genetic epistemology had one unique
goal: how does knowledge grow? His answer is that the growth of knowledge is a
progressive construction of logically embedded structures superseding one another by a
process of inclusion of lower less powerful logical means into higher and more powerful
ones up to adulthood. Therefore, children’s logic and modes of thinking are initially
entirely different from those of adults.

Piaget’s oeuvre is known all over the world and is still an inspiration in fields like
psychology, sociology, education, epistemology, economics and law as witnessed in the
annual catalogues of the Jean Piaget Archives. He was awarded numerous prizes and
honorary degrees all over the world.”
Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development

Sensorimotor (0-18 months)
Six substages:
1.   reflexes (0-1 month) that gradually become more efficient: sucking, grasping, kicking.
2.   primary circular reactions (1-4 months) repetition for own sake without any intention.
3.   secondary circular reactions (4-6 months) repeated actions to produce effects that seem
interesting.
4.   coordination of secondary reactions (7-10 months) mastery of responses that child
uses to create specific desired effects.
5.   tertiary circular reactions (11-18 months) active trial and error experimentation.
6.   internal mental inventions (18 months) invention of new means of affecting self and
world through internal mental combinations.
Preoperational (18 months-age 7)
Characterized by the development and use of language; understanding the meanings of
objects; and events are manipulated; as well as overt actions.  Treat objects
as symbolic of other things.  Notnecessarily committed to fine articulated rules and
concepts.
Concrete Operations (age 7-12)
 Now can make a mental representation of an entire sequence of
events; Conservation of volume; Relational terms distinguishable (which is darker?
between two light objects);  Class inclusionunderstood (more yellow or more candles); 
Still present centered.
Formal Operations (age 12 and up)
Can consider all alternatives to solve problems; Is deductive; Can do hypothetical
thinking; can useabstract rules to solve a whole class of problems; rational and
systematic; self-conscious and highly reflective; is more future
oriented and remote.

Jean Piaget
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 The principal 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; men and women who are creative,
inventive and discoverers, who can be critical and verify, and not accept, everything they are offered.

Jean Piaget (9 August 1896 – 16 September 1980) was a Swiss developmental psychologist,

famous for his work with children and his theory of cognitive development.

Contents

 1Quotes
o 1.1The Moral Judgment of the Child (1932)
 2Quotes about Jean Piaget
 3External links

Quotes[edit]

For me, education means making creators... You have to make inventors, innovators, not conformists.

The true solipsist feels at one with the universe, and so very identical to it that he does not even feel the need
for two terms.
The true solipsist has no idea of self. There is no self: there is the world.

 If children fail to understand one another, it is because they think they understand one
another. The explainer believes from the start that the reproducer will grasp everything, will
almost know beforehand all that should be known, and will interpret every subtlety. Children are
perpetually surrounded by adults who not only know much more than they do, but who also do
everything in their power to understand them, who even anticipate their thoughts and desires.
Children, therefore... are perpetually under the impression that people can read their thoughts,
and in extreme cases, can steal their thoughts away. It is obviously owing to this mentality that
children do not take the trouble to express themselves clearly... This mentality does not
contradict ego-centric mentality. Both arise from the belief of the child, the belief that he is the
centre of the universe. These habits of thought account... for the remarkable lack of precision in
the childish style.
o The Language and Thought of the Child (1923) Tr. Marjorie and Ruth Gabain (1926)

 There are no really solipsistic philosophers, and those who think they are deceive
themselves. The true solipsist feels at one with the universe, and so very identical to it
that he does not even feel the need for two terms. The true solipsist projects all his states of
mind onto things. The true solipsist is entirely alone in the world, that is, he has no notion of
anything exterior to himself. In other words the true solipsist has no idea of self. There is no
self: there is the world. It is in this sense it is reasonable to call a baby a solipsist: the feelings
and desires of a baby know no limits since they are a part of everything he sees, touches, and
perceives. 
Babies are, then, obviously narcissistic, but not in the way adults are, not even Spinoza's
God, and I am a little afraid that Freud sometimes forgets that the narcissistic baby has
no sense of self. 
Given this definition of solipsism, egocentrism in children clearly appears to be a simple
continuation of solipsism in infants.. Egocentrism, as we have seen, is not an intentional or even
a conscious process. A child has no idea that he is egocentric. He believes everybody thinks the
way he does, and this false universality is due simply to an absence of the sense of limits on his
individuality. In this light, egocentrism and solipsism are quite comparable: both stem from
the absence or the weakness of the sense of self.
o The First Year of Life of the Child (1927), "The Egocentrism of the Child and the Solipsism
of the Baby", as translated by Howard E. Gruber and J. Jacques Vonèche

 If a baby really has no awareness of himself and is totally thing-directed and at the same time all
his states of mind are projected onto things, our second paradox makes sense: on the one hand,
thought in babies can be viewed as pure accommodation or exploratory movements, but on the
other this very same thought is only one, long, completely autistic waking dream.
o The First Year of Life of the Child (1927), "The Egocentrism of the Child and the Solipsism
of the Baby", as translated by Howard E. Gruber and J. Jacques Vonèche
 Every acquisition of accommodation becomes material for assimilation, but assimilation
always resists new accommodations.
o Conclusion: "The Elaboration of the Universe" in The Construction of Reality in the
Child (1955)

 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.
o Genetic Epistemology (1968) – First lecture

 I am convinced that there is no sort of boundary between the living and the mental or between
the biological and the psychological. From the moment an organism takes account of a previous
experience and adapts to a new situation, that very much resembles psychology.
o Interview with Jean Claude Bringuier (1969)

 As you know, Bergson pointed out that there is no such thing as disorder but rather two sorts of
order, geometric and living. Mine is clearly living. The folders I need are within reach, in the
order of frequency with which I use them. True, it gets tricky to locate a folder in the lower levels.
But if you have to find it, you look for it. That takes less time than putting them away every day.
o Conversations with Jean Piaget (1980) by Jean Claude Bringuier

 Education, for most people, means trying to lead the child to resemble the typical adult of
his society... But for me, education means making creators... You have to make inventors,
innovators, not conformists.
o Conversations with Jean Piaget (1980) by Jean Claude Bringuier

 The principal 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;
men and women who are creative, inventive and discoverers, who can be critical and
verify, and not accept, everything they are offered.
o As quoted in Education for Democracy, Proceedings from the Cambridge School
Conference on Progressive Education (1988) edited by Kathe Jervis and Arthur Tobier

 The essential functions of the mind consist in understanding and in inventing, in other words, in
building up structures by structuring reality.
o Piaget (1971, p.27) cited in: Ernst von Glasersfeld "Homage to Jean Piaget (1896–1980)".
In: Irish Journal of Psychology, 18, pp. 293–306
The Moral Judgment of the Child (1932)[edit]
Using primarily the translation by Marjorie Gabain (1932)
Since play is still purely individual, one can only talk of motor rules and not of truly collective rules…

Children of this stage, even when they are playing together, play each one "on his own " (everyone can
win at once) and without regard for any codification of rules.
Before games are played in common, no rules in the proper sense can come into existence.

We shall see eventually that cooperation between equals not only brings about a gradual change in the
child's practical attitude, but that it also does away with the mystical feeling towards authority.

Between the various types of rules which we shall give there will therefore be at once continuity of function
and difference of structure.

Here again, one must beware of laying down the law: for things are motor, individual and social all at once.
Not every habit will give rise to the knowledge of a rule. The habit must first be frustrated, and the ensuing
conflict must lead to an active search for the habitual.

Every observer has noted that the younger the child, the less sense he has of his own ego.

In order to become conscious of one's ego, it is necessary to liberate oneself from the thought and will of
others.
There is little mysticism without an element of transcendence, and conversely, there is no transcendence
without a certain degree of egocentrism.

In this way the child will find himself in the presence, not of a system of commands requiring ritualistic and
external obedience, but of a system of social relations such that everyone does his best to obey the same
obligations, and does so out of mutual respect.
When the child comes to draw things as he sees them, it will be precisely because he has given up taking
isolated objects in and for themselves and has begun to construct real systems of relations which take
account of the true perspective in which things are connected.

There are in existence two distinct ideas of justice. We say that an award is unjust when it penalizes the
innocent, rewards the guilty, or when, in general, it fails to be meted out in exact proportion to the merit or
guilt in question.

 From the point of view of the practice or application of rules four successive stages
can be distinguished. 
A first stage of a purely motor and individual character, during which the child handles the
marbles at the dictation of his desires and motor habits. This leads to the formation of more
or less ritualized schemas, but since play is still purely individual, one can only talk of
motor rules and not of truly collective rules. 
The second may be called egocentric for the following reasons. This stage begins at the
moment when the child receives from outside the example of codified rules, that is to say,
some time between the ages of two and five. But though the child imitates this example, he
continues to play either by himself without bothering to find play-fellows, or with others, but
without trying to win, and therefore without attempting to unify the different ways of playing.
In other words, children of this stage, even when they are playing together, play each
one "on his own " (everyone can win at once) and without regard for any codification
of rules. This dual character, combining imitation of others with a purely individual use of
the examples received, we have designated by the term Egocentrism. 
A third stage appears between 7 and 8, which we shall call the stage of
incipient cooperation. Each player now tries to win, and all, therefore, begin to concern
themselves with the question of mutual control and of unification of the rules. But while a
certain agreement may be reached in the course of one game, ideas about the rules in
general are still rather vague. In other words, children of 7-8, who belong to the same
class at school and are therefore constantly playing with each other, give, when they are
questioned separately, disparate and often entirely contradictory accounts of the rules
observed in playing marbles. 
Finally, between the years of 11 and 12, appears a fourth stage, which is that of
the codification of rules. Not only is every detail of procedure in the game fixed, but the
 actual code of rules to be observed is known to the whole society. There is remarkable
concordance in the information given by children of 10-12 belonging to the same class at
school, when they are questioned on the rules of the game and their possible variations.
o Ch. 1 : The Rules of the Game

 Genetically speaking, the explanation both of rites and of symbols would seem to lie in the
conditions of preverbal motor intelligence. When it is presented with any new thing, a baby
of 5 to 8 months will respond with a dual reaction; it will accommodate itself to the new
object and it will assimilate the object to earlier motor schemas. Give the baby a marble, and
it will explore its surface and consistency, but will at the same time use it as something to
grasp, to suck, to rub against the sides of its cradle, and so on. This assimilation of every
fresh object to already existing motor schemas may be conceived of as the starting
point of ritual acts and symbols, at any rate from the moment
that assimilation becomes stronger than actual accommodation itself.
o Ch. 1 : The Rules of the Game

 Before games are played in common, no rules in the proper sense can come into
existence. Regularities and ritualized schemas are already there, but these rites,
being the work of the individual, cannot call forth that submission to something
superior to the self which characterizes the appearance of any rule.
o Ch. 1 : The Rules of the Game

 Alongside of the rare cases of true conversation where there is a genuine interchange of
opinions or commands, one can observe in children between 2 and 6 a characteristic type of
pseudo-conversation or "collective monologue", during which the children speak only for
themselves, although they wish to be in the presence of interlocutors who will serve as a
stimulus. Now here again, each feels himself to be in communion with the group
because he is inwardly addressing the Adult who knows and understands everything,
but here again, each is only concerned with himself, for lack of having dissociated the
"ego" from the "socius".
o Ch. 1 : The Rules of the Game

 Considering that the square game is only one of the five or ten varieties of the game of
marbles, it is almost alarming in face of the complexity of rules and procedure in the square
game, to think of what a child of twelve has to store away in his memory. These rules, with
their overlapping and their exceptions, are at least as complex as the current rules of
spelling. It is somewhat humiliating, in this connection, to see how heavily traditional
education sets about the task of making spelling enter into brains that assimilate with
such ease the mnemonic contents of the game of marbles. But then, memory is
dependent upon activity, and a real activity presupposes interest.
o Ch. 1 : The Rules of the Game

 As far as the game of marbles is concerned, there is therefore no contradiction between the
egocentric practice of games and the mystical respect entertained for rules. This respect is
the mark of a mentality fashioned, not by free cooperation between equals, but by adult
constraint.
o Ch. 1 : The Rules of the Game

 When the child imitates the rules practiced by his older companions he feels that he is
submitting to an unalterable law, due, therefore, to his parents themselves. Thus the
pressure exercised by older on younger children is assimilated here, as so often, to adult
 pressure. This action of the older children is still constraint, for cooperation can only arise
between equals. Nor does the submission of the younger children to the rules of the older
ones lead to any sort of cooperation in action; it simply produces a sort of mysticism, a
diffused feeling of collective participation, which, as in the case of many mystics, fits in
perfectly well with egocentrism. For we shall see eventually that cooperation between
equals not only brings about a gradual change in the child's practical attitude, but
that it also does away with the mystical feeling towards authority.
o Ch. 1 : The Rules of the Game

 In certain circumstances where he experiments in new types of conduct by cooperating with

his equals, the child is already an adult. There is an adult in every child and a child in
every adult. … There exist in the child certain attitudes and beliefs which intellectual
development will more and more tend to eliminate: there are others which will acquire more
and more importance. The later are not derived from the former but are partly
antagonistic to them.
o Ch. 1 : The Rules of the Game, § 8 : Conclusions : Motor Rules and the Two Kinds of
Respect

 Between the various types of rules which we shall give there will therefore be at once
continuity of function and difference of structure. This renders arbitrary any attempt to
cut mental reality up into stages. The matter is further complicated by the "Law of conscious
realization" and the resulting time-lag. The appearance of a new type of rule on the practical
plane does not necessarily mean that this rule will come into the subject's consciousness,
for each mental operation has to be relearned on the different planes of action and of
thought.
o Ch. 1 : The Rules of the Game, § 8 : Conclusions : Motor Rules and the Two Kinds of
Respect

 A second prefatory question faces us: that of society and the individual. We have
sought to contrast the child and the civilized adult on the ground of their respective social
attitudes. The baby (at the stage of motor intelligence) is asocial, the egocentric child is
subject to external constraint but has little capacity for cooperation, the civilized adult of to-
day presents the essential character of cooperation between differentiated personalities who
regard each other as equals. 
There are therefore three types of behavior: motor behavior, egocentric behavior
(with external constraint), and cooperation. And to these three types of social behavior
there correspond three types of rules: motor rules, rules due to unilateral respect, and rules
due to mutual respect. 
But here again, one must beware of laying down the law: for things are motor,
individual and social all at once. As we shall have occasion to show, rules of
cooperation are in some respects the outcome of the rules of coercion and of the
motor rules. On the other hand, coercion is applied during the first days of an infant's life,
and the earliest social relations contain the germs of cooperation. Here again, it is not so
much
Progressive education

The progressive education movement was part and parcel of a broader social

and political reform called the Progressive movement, which dated to the last
decades of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th. Elementary
education had spread throughout the Western world, largely doing away with
illiteracy and raising the level of social understanding. Yet, despite this
progress, the schools had failed to keep pace with the tremendous social
changes that had been going on.
Dissatisfaction with existing schools led several educational reformers who
wished to put their ideas into practice to establish experimental schools during
the last decade of the 19th century and in the early 20th century. The principal
experimental schools in America until 1914 were the University of Chicago
Laboratory School, founded in 1896 and directed by John Dewey; the Francis
W. Parker School, founded in 1901 in Chicago; the School of Organic
Education at Fairhope, Ala., founded by Marietta Johnson in 1907; and the
experimental elementary school at the University of Missouri (Columbia),
founded in 1904 by Junius L. Meriam. The common goal of all was to
eliminate the school’s traditional stiffness and to break down hard and fast
subject-matter lines. Three main traits characterized these schools: each
school adopted an activity program; each school operated on the assumption
that education was something that should not be imposed upon the child from
the outside but should instead draw forth the latent possibilities from within the
child; and each school believed in the democratic concept of individual worth.
Dewey, whose writings and lectures influenced educators throughout the
world, laid the foundations of a new philosophy that affected the whole
structure of education, particularly at the elementary level. His theories were
expounded in School and Society (1899), The Child and the
Curriculum (1902), and Democracy and Education (1916). For Dewey,
philosophy and education render service to each other. Education becomes
the laboratory of philosophy. Society should be interpreted to the child through
daily living in the classroom, which acts as a miniature society. Education
leads to no final end; it is something continuous, “a reconstruction of
accumulated experience,” which must be directed toward social efficiency.
Education is life, not merely a preparation for life.
The influence of progressive education advanced slowly during the first
decades of the 20th century. Nevertheless, a number of progressive schools
were established, including the Play School and the Walden School in New
York City; the Shady Hill School in Cambridge, Mass.; the Elementary School
of the University of Iowa; and the Oak Lane Day School in Philadelphia. Helen
Parkhurst’s Dalton Plan, introduced in 1920 at Dalton, Mass., pioneered
individually paced learning of broad topics. Carleton Washburne’s Winnetka
Plan, instituted in 1919 at Winnetka, Ill., viewed learning as a continuous
process guided by the child’s own goals and capabilities. The Gary Plan,
developed in 1908 at Gary, Ind., by William Wirt, established a “complete
school,” embracing work, study, and play for all grades on a full-year basis.
The spread of progressive education became more rapid from the 1920s on
and was not confined to any particular country. In the United States the
Progressive Education Association (PEA) was formed in 1919. The PEA did
much to further the cause of progressive education until it ended, as an
organization, in 1955. In 1921 Europe’s leading progressives formed the New
Education Fellowship, later renamed the World Education Fellowship.
The notions expressed by progressive education influenced public school
systems everywhere. Some of the movement’s lasting effects were seen in
activity programs, imaginative writing and reading classes, projects linked to
the community, flexible classroom space, dramatics and informal activities,
discovery methods of learning, self-assessment systems, and programs for
the development of citizenship and responsibility.
Child-centred education

Proponents of the child-centred approach to education typically argued that

the school should be fitted to the needs of the child and not the child to the
school. These ideas, first explored in Europe, notably in Jean-Jacques
Rousseau’s Émile (1762) and in Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi’s How Gertrude
Teaches Her Children (1801), were implemented in American systems by
pioneering educators such as Francis W. Parker. Parker became
superintendent of schools in Quincy, Mass., in 1875. He assailed the
mechanical, assembly-line methods of traditional schools and stressed
“quality teaching,” by which he meant strategies such as activity, creative self-
expression, excursions, understanding the individual, and the development of
personality.
 Francis ParkerCourtesy of Chicago Historical Society

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A different approach to child-centred education arose as a result of the study

and care of the physically and mentally handicapped. Teachers had to invent
their own methods to meet the needs of such children, because the ordinary
schools did not supply them. When these methods proved successful with
handicapped children, there arose the question of whether they might not
yield even better results with nonhandicapped children. During the first
decade of the 20th century, the educationists Maria Montessori of Rome
and Ovide Decroly of Brussels both successfully applied their educational
inventions in schools for ordinary boys and girls.
The Montessori method’s underlying assumption was the child’s need to
escape from the domination of parent and teacher. According to Montessori,
children, who are the unhappy victims of adult suppression, have been
compelled to adopt defensive measures foreign to their real nature in the
struggle to hold their own. The first move toward the reform of education,
therefore, should be directed toward educators:
to enlighten their consciences, to remove their perceptions of superiority, and
to make them humble and passive in their attitudes toward the young. The
next move should be to provide a new environment in which the child has a
chance to live a life of his own. In the Montessori method, the senses are
separately trained by means of apparatuses calculated to enlist spontaneous
interest at the successive stages of mental growth. By similar self-educative
devices, the child is led to individual mastery of the basic skills of everyday life
and then to schoolwork in arithmetic and grammar.
The Decroly method was essentially a program of work based on centres of
interest and educative games. Its basic feature was the workshop-classroom,
in which children freely went about their own occupations. Behind the complex
of individual activities was a carefully organized scheme of work based on an
analysis of the fundamental needs of the child. The principle of giving priority
to wholes rather than to parts was emphasized in teaching children to read,
write, and count, and care was taken to reach a comprehensive view of the
experiences of life. The Montessori and the Decroly methods spread
throughout the world and widely influenced attitudes and practices of
educating young children.
Pestalozzian principles also encouraged the introduction of music education
into early childhood programs. Research showed that music has an
undeniable effect on the development of the young child, especially in such
areas as movement, temper, and speech and listening patterns. The four
most common methods of early childhood music education were those
developed by Émile Jaques-Dalcroze, Carl Orff, and Zoltán Kodály, as well as
the Comprehensive Musicianship approach. The Dalcroze method
emphasized movement; Orff, dramatization; Kodály, singing games; and
Comprehensive Musicianship, exploration and discovery. Another popular
method, developed by the Japanese violinist Shinichi Suzuki, was based on
the theory that young children learn music in the same way that they learn
their first language.
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Scientific-realist education
The scientific-realist education movement began in 1900 when Édouard
Claparède, then a doctor at the Psychological Laboratory of the University of
Geneva, responded to an appeal from the women in charge of special schools
for “backward” and “abnormal” children in Geneva. The experience allowed
him to realize some of the defects of ordinary schools. Not as much thought
was given, he argued, to the minds of children as was given to their feet. Their
shoes were of different sizes and shapes, made to fit their feet. When would
there be schools to measure? The psychological principles needed to adapt
education to individual children were expounded in his Psychologie de l’enfant
et pédagogie experimentale (1905; Experimental Pedagogy and the
Psychology of the Child). Later Claparède took a leading part in the creation
of the J.-J. Rousseau Institute in Geneva, a school of educational sciences to
which came students from all over the world.
Theorists such as Claparède hoped to provide a scientific basis for education,
an aim that was furthered by the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget, who studied
in a philosophical and psychological manner the intellectual development of
children. Piaget argued, on the basis of his observations, that development
of intelligence exhibits four chief stages and that the sequence is everywhere
the same, although the ages in the stages of development may vary
from culture to culture.
The first stage takes place during infancy, when children, even before they
learn to speak, put objects together (addition) and then separate them
(subtraction), perceiving them as collections, rings, networks, and groups. By
the age of two or three, a basis has been laid. The children have developed
kinetic muscular intelligence to some degree—they can think with their
fingers, their hands, and their bodies. Aided by language, the capacity for
symbolic thinking slowly develops, constituting the second stage. Up to the
age of seven or eight, some of the fundamental categories of adult thinking
are still absent; there is seldom any notion, for instance, of cause-and-effect
relationships.
The third stage is that of concrete operation. The child has begun to know
how to deal with mental symbols and acquires abstract notions, such as
“responsibility.” But the child operates only when in the presence of concrete
objects that can be manipulated. Pure abstract thinking is still too difficult.
Teaching at this stage must be exceedingly concrete and active; purely verbal
teaching is out of place. Only after about 12 years of age, with the onset
of adolescence, do children develop the power to deal with formal mental
operations not immediately attached to objects. Only then do theories begin to
acquire real significance, and only then can purely verbal teaching be used.
The child’s total development, particularly emotional and social growth, also
concerned educational reformers. They pointed out the error in assuming that
incentives to mental effort are the same for adults and children. The English
philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, in his doctrine of the “Cycle of Interests,”
put forward a theory in line with the ideas of the reformers. Romance,
precision, and generalization, said Whitehead, are the stages through which,
rhythmically, mental growth proceeds.
Education should consist in a continual repetition of such cycles. Each lesson in
a minor way should form an eddy cycle issuing in its own subordinate process.
Whitehead believed that any scheme of education must be judged by the
extent to which it stimulates a child to think. From the beginning of education,
children should experience the joy of discovery.

piaget and science education

david elkind -- s&c -- nov 1972 -- p9

i hope i don't offend anyone if i say that teachers, including college professors like
myself, simply talk too much

The publications of Jean Jacques Rousseau's Emile in 1762 introduced a revolutionary

idea into educational philosophy, namely, that sound pedagogy should be based upon
knowledge of child development. This idea has now become a fundamental principle
of educational practice and pedagogical styles often follow new discoveries or
theories in the field of child development. A case in point is the influence which
Freudian psychology had upon progressive education in the 1920's, '30's, and '40's.
While educational styles are probably dictated by many other sociocultural factors,
such styles clearly owe a good deal to contemporary innovations in the psychology of
the child.

It is in the context of this historical relationship between pedagogy and child

development, that the current interest in the work of Jean Piaget must be seen and
evaluated. No one doubts any longer that Piaget is to developmental psychology what
Freud is to psychiatry, namely, the giant in the field. Indeed, it will take decades for us
to assimilate and apply the vast body of information he and his colleagues have
gathered in close to fifty years of studying the development of children's thinking.
And here lies the danger and the reason I began my remarks with an historical
allusion. Piaget's work adds to but does not supplant the insights of other child
development workers. In trying to adapt educational practice according to the
contributions provided by Piaget, we must not forget the lessons that innovators such
as Montessori, Dewey, and Freud had to teach. Our zeal to be modern should not
blind us to all that is valuable from the past.

With these few historical and cautionary remarks out of the way we can turn to the
issue at hand; namely, some implications of Piaget's work and theory for science
education. As I said, it will take decades to digest all of Piaget's contributions, so that
all I can do here is illustrate some of the new paths along which Piaget's work will
take us.

These new paths lead in the directions of:

a) the sequencing of science activities,

b) the methods of science instruction, and 
c) the contents of science teaching.

Let us now take up each of these problems in turn with the reservation that I am
suggesting directions only and that we have only begun to tap the wealth that lies in
Piaget's books and articles.

a) Sequencing Science Activities

One of the dominant themes of Piaget's developmental psychology of intelligence is

that the mind develops in a sequence of stages that is related to age. While the
sequence remains the same for all children, the rate at which particular children pass
through the stages will depend upon genetic endowment as well as socio-cultural
circumstances. Piaget has described four major stages each of which, for heuristic
purposes, can be described with regard to the major cognitive task it poses for the
child.

The first, or sensori-motor stage, lasts from birth to about the age of two. During this
period the infant's principal task is to construct a world of permanent objectives so as
to arrive at a conception of things which continue to exist even when they are not
present to his senses. This stage might be described as dominated by a "search for
conservation."

At the next stage -- pre-operations ) -- usually ages 2 to 6 or 7, the child's major task
is to master the symbolic or representational function. It is during this period that the
child acquires language, discovers symbolic play, and experiences his first dreams. At
this stage the child might be said to be involved in "a search for representation."

At about the age of 6 or 7, the child enters the concrete operational stage, which

lasts until about the age of 11 or 12. During this period the younger person has to
master the interrelationship of classes, relations, and members, and he does this with
respect to things and with the aid of syllogistic reasoning. The concrete operational;
stage is, therefore, one in which the young person is engaged in "search for
relations."

During the final stage -- formal operations -- (usually ages 12 to 15) the young
adolescent's major task is to conquer thought. Formal operational structures enable
him to take his own thinking as an object and think about thought, about contrary fact
conditions, and about ideal situations. In a word it makes possible theoretical and
philosophical speculations and might be called the stage in which the young person is
engaged in a "search for comprehension. "

major tasks --

 sensori-motor stage: is to construct a world of permanent objects

 pre-operational stage, is to master the symbolic or representational function.
 concrete operational stage is a search for relations
 final operational stage is a search for comprehension

It is during concrete operational stage, which lasts until about the age of 11 or 12.
During this period the younger person has to master the interrelationship of classes,
relations, and members, and he does this with respect to things and with the aid of
syllogistic reasoning. The concrete operational; stage is, therefore, one in which the
young person is engaged in "search for relations."

What have these stages to teach us about the sequencing of science activities for
children?

A great deal, it seems to me.

First of all, these stages nicely parallel the stages that characterize the development of
any science, namely:

observation ( sensory-motor period or the search for conservation );

naming and labeling (pre-operational period or the search for representation);

formal classification and quantification ( concrete operational period or the search for
relations ) and

controlled experimentation and theory building ( formal operational period or the

search for comprehension ). While it is not necessary true that children will learn
science best if it is taught on the model of the growth of thought and of science, it is at
least a possibility worth exploring.

It seems to me that Piaget's work implies that science education ought to begin
with teaching children the fine art of observation.
Actually children are often far better at this than we are because our concepts blind us
to concrete realities. Or repeated experience has for adults taken much of the interest
and curiosity out of many of natureÕs mysteries. It is not enough, however, simply to
have animals in the room, or to have children look at leaves andsquirrels on nature
walks. What children need to be taught is how to focus their observation, how to look
for similarities and differences among natural elements, among leaves, animals,
grasses, sounds, and smells.

Instruction in observation cannot be hurried and a year or two of science

teaching ought to be devoted to instruction in observation.

Thereafter children might proceed to collect specimens that they can sort, label,
and classify. The nature of physical and biological classification might well be
described and discussed. My impression is that we often take the child's ability to
classify for granted and do not spend enough time talking about the criteria of
classification, multiple classification of a single specimen, and so
on. Quantification can be introduced at the same time as children weigh, measure,
and sort the specimens that they work with. In general the wider the range of materials
children have to work with, the more interested they will be, and the more solid will
be their grounding in the rudiments of science.

From the standpoint of mental development, instruction in controlled experimentation

probably should generally not be introduced until adolescence when young people can
deal with multiple simultaneous variations. By and large the concrete operations of
children are not sufficient to grasp the intricacies of multiple variable experiments.
Obviously this is not a hard and fast rule; bright children may be able to appreciate
experimental procedures by the age of ten. For the average child, however,
experimental science might well be delayed until adolescence when the young
person's mental abilities are sufficiently mature to cope with holding some factors
constant while others are systematically varied.

Perhaps it is unnecessary to stress to science teachers the importance of training

children in observation and classification before they are introduced to
experimentation. At the college level, however, I am impressed at how few
students are trained to be good observers before they are trained to be good
experimenters. Experimentation is a precision tool, but its effectiveness depends
upon the skill, experience, and openness of the experimenter. If a youngster is so set
on the experimental variables that he misses some of the novel and significant side
effects of his experiment, then he is not a good experimenter in the best and most
general sense of the term.

b) Methods of Science Instruction

I have probably stepped on some people's toes by now and I am probably about to
step on some more. That is inevitable, I suppose, when one presumes to discuss
subjects outside his own field of expertise. What I have to say about methods of
science instruction may therefore sound quite naive! My only defense is that
sometimes naivetŽ can be refreshing and strike at a problem that the experts have
been bypassing as too touchy and sensitive. Let me plunge in again.

What impresses me about American education, at all levels, is its extreme verbalism.

Enter any classroom above the kindergarten level and most of what you see
are books and more books. Our national preoccupation with reading, currently
embodied in the Office of Education's right to read program, practically amounts to an
obsession.

So, preoccupied are we with reading that any youngster who has a reading
problem soon develops an emotional problem about it which ends up being far
worse than the reading handicap itself.
Now while I do not wish to down-play the importance of language arts in grade
school, I do want to say that I believe language has been given exaggerated
importance in the elementary school curriculum. Young people who are successful in
our schools are remarkably adept at the verbal level and become increasingly so as
they move through high school and college. The problem is that their language facility
is often divorced from their reality and experience, and often amounts to empty
verbalism. I would not be surprised if at least some of out problems with young
people today derive from the discrepancy between their language sophistication and
their experiential naivetŽ.

In this connection Piaget's work suggests that language and thought are different
systems that develop at different rates.

Leyden note: 
parents get goofy over their kids' vocabulary and reading speed. That has nothing to
do with thinking.
The linguistics system appears to be relatively complete by the age of seven or eight
when all the major elements of generative grammar are present. Growth in language
thereafter appears largely in vocabulary and proficiency in such skills as reading,
writing, and spelling. Thought, on the other hand, is much more gradual in its
development, as I described earlier, and the mental systems for thinking are not
complete until the middle of adolescence when mental ability at last catches up with
verbal facility.

From an educational standpoint it seems to me that these considerations support

Dewey's contention that there should be more emphasis on doing and less on
talking during the elementary school years, particularly in the teaching of science. I
hope I don't offend anyone if I say that teachers, including college professors like
myself, simply talk too much. If we spent less time talking and more time showing
children how to observe, classify, measure, then young people would get more out of
it. We also put too much reliance on books and published materials and too little faith
on our own resources and in our own ingenuity.

Leyden note: 
see ??? my "soapbox" statements all say that teachers have to have HUGE inventories
of unique experiences with LIFE. You can't be an exciting teacher if you are not living
an exciting life. Take the teachers' guide away from the teachers and say -- "teach
only on the basis of your life experiences." What would happen ? We teachers are
very, very vanilla.

Science can be taught with such a wide variety of readily available materials that we
really don't need prepackaged programs in order to teach science well. Science is first
and foremost an attitude of curiosity and that is what the use of everyday materials
promotes. Packaged materials lead children to believe that science always comes
Christmas wrapped.

Please understand, I am not pooh-poohing all pre-packaged science programs. I am,

for example, particularly impressed with the work of Robert Karplus at Berkeley (the
Science Curriculum Improvement Study = SCIS was the origin of The Learning
Cycle teaching model) who is trying to get away from the empty verbalism that is
present in so much of our teaching. Many of the Karplus programs are first rate.
Leyden note:
Karplus - a theoretical physicist at Berkeley - was my teacher in a one week
workshop. Unfortunately -- Karplus died about 1985.

The problem with the packaged programs, as I see it, is that they often make for
rigidity and hamper the teacher's initiative. On the other hand, if teachers are given the
freedom to use the materials in their own way, then packaged programs can be useful.
They are even more useful if supplanted with everyday living materials.

Now I suppose I should say something about the so-called discovery method. To the
extent that the discovery method suggests that children should be active in learning,
then certainly one can endorse it. If it means that a child must discover by himself that
which others have discovered for him, it may be a futile and unrewarding enterprise.
The whole point of discoveries is that once they are made everyone can share in them
without having to repeat the process of discovery. Life is too short for each child to
rediscover all of science.

Likewise, to argue that children should be active does not mean that they should be active
all the time.

Leyden note:
just having "exploration Learning Cycle lessons makes you an entertainer. You have
to stop and have Concept Introduction lessons roll up your sleeves to do homework.
Then you are an educator.

Some science facts have to be learned by rote and without complete

understanding. Learning things that we are not inclined to learn is an important
part of education as it is an important part of life. Unfortunately, not everything
we need to learn is especially interesting and children and teachers must accept that
fact.

c) Educational Content One of the domains in which Piaget's work is likely to have

its greatest impact is in the domain of he content of science and mathematics teaching.
This is true because Piaget's work often reveals a previously unknown and complex
substructure to concepts that were previously taught simply or even taken completely
fro granted. To illustrate the implications of some of Piaget's findings for teaching
particular concepts I have selected Piaget's work on number and upon identity. The
work on identity should be of particular interest to those concerned with teaching in
the biological sciences.
First, with respect to number, Piaget undertook his investigations in order to resolve a
long-standing controversy between mathematicians and logicians.

As you know, the mathematicians, following Peano, argued that mathematics was

built upon several simple postulates which were relational in character. The whole
number system could, in Peano's view, be derived from the notions of a number and
its successor (n+1). Logicians, following Russell and Whitehead, argued thatnumber
was not derived from a relation but rather that it constituted a class, namely, the class
of all classes. The number six, for example, is the class of all classes of things taken
six at a time.

Piaget sought to resolve this controversy by determining how number concepts are
arrived at by children. He undertook a series of novel investigations into children's
ideas about number, classes, and relations. What he discovered wasthe child's
understanding of classes, of relations, and of numbers all appear at the same time.
Indeed, Piaget found that it was the childÕs ability to coordinate the idea of classes
with the idea of relations that led to a true conception of number.

To make Piaget's discovery concrete let me describe two of the studies concerned

with classification and with seriation. In the classification study, Piaget presented
children (aged 4-7) with a box in which there were 20 white and 7 brown wooden
beads. He asked the child whether there were more white beads and then whether
there were more white than wooden beads. It was not until the age of six or seven that
most children could solve the latter problem and could recognize that there were more
wooden beads because only some of the beads were white while all of the beads were
wooden.

In the domain of relations, Piaget presented 4 to 7 year-old children with a set of size

graded sticks. The child's task was to arrange the set to form a sort of staircase with
the shortest to the longest stick arranged in a regular order. Piaget found that many
five-year-old children could construct such a series. When, however, he presented the
children with a second set of sticks, intermediary in size to the first, and asked the
children to insert this new set into the staircase formed with the other set, children of
five years for the most part could not solve the problem. It was only at the age of 6-7
that children could place the second set correctly within the ready-made series; i. e. ,
place an element 'b' between A which was smaller and B which was bigger than 'b'.

In both the class and the relation studies, the crucial task for the child was the
discovery that one and the same element could be in two classes or in two relations at
once. In the class concept study the children had to discover that a particular bead
could be both white and wooden at the same time. Likewise in theseriation task, the
solution rested upon the child's discovery that a particular element could, at one and
the same time, be both longer and shorter than the elements on wither side of it. In
both instances the child resolved the problems by moving to a new level of abstraction
wherein one and the same element could be doubly represented without conflict.

In Piaget's view, this is just what is required to attain the adult or true conception of
number. The true conception of number is founded upon the concept of a unit. Now
the unit concept is one which presupposes that the unit is both like every other unit
and different from every other unit in its order of enumeration. Every penny in a row
of six is like every other as they are interchangeable. Their difference lies in the order
in which they are counted or enumerated. In short, for the child, the concept of a unit
or a number presupposes the same mental ability as that required to nest classes or to
seriate relationships, namely, the ability to grasp that one and the same element can be
represented in two different ways at the same time.

From and educational perspective this finding has important implications. It means

that the understanding of number develops hand-in-hand with the understanding of
classification and seriation. Accordingly, practice in classification and
in seriation might play a more dominant role than heretofore in children's preparation
for instruction in mathematics. This is already being done in some nursery schools and
kindergartens but much more could be done if the materials for classification and
seriation were available in greater quantity and in greater variety.

A second example of how Piaget's work might influence educational content comes

from Piaget's work on identity. Actually, some of Piaget's earliest studies dealt with
this issue, to which he has recently returned after some forty years of concern with
other matters. In the original studies Piaget had children arrange a series of pictures
(which resemble a set of frames from a comic strip) into the right order so that they
would tell a story. Piaget found that young children had great difficulty with this task.
One of the reasons was that they did not seem to recognize that it was the same
character in each successive frame. The child's failure to understand the continuity of
a sequence thus seemed to reflect his inability to detect the identity of the characters
who participated in the sequence.

In more recent years Piaget has pursued this issue with material related to growth and
aging. He and his colleagues ( notably Gilbert Voyat ) presented children with
photographs of a plant at various stages of growth. Although the children could
recognize that adjacent photos were of the same plant they had trouble believing that
the early photos in the series were of the same plant as that depicted in the last photos
in the series. Again, the child's concept of growth was affected by his difficulty in
grasping the notion of the plantÕs identity across transformations. Clearly this finding
has implications for biology teaching and suggests that, as a bare minimum, we know
whether or not children understand the identity of plants or organisms across various
transformations before we proceed to more complex topics.

These are but two fairly simple examples of the significance of Piaget's research for
the content science teaching. Many more could be easily cited. As in the case of
sequencing and methods discussed earlier, these are merely examples of the treasures
Piaget has uncovered for us. Much of the treasure remains to be mined.

Conclusion In concluding this brief discussion of Piaget and science education, I

want to reiterate the caution with which I began. The value of Piaget's work should
not blind us to the value of the work of his predecessors. Too great an emphasis on
cognitive development, simulated by the heady richness of Piaget's work, will lead to
an inevitable counter reaction that could prevent us from fully assimilating and
benefiting from Piaget's work. In looking at children's minds through the new lenses
of Piaget has ground for us, we must nor forget that children still have physical needs
and are social beings. Lasting educational advances will be made only when our
concern for the growth of the childÕs intellect is tempered with consideration for his
body and concern for his sense of self-esteem.

6/18s/95
11 / 12sn / 95
Compare and contrast the contributions to
progressive educational thought of Sigmund
Freudand Jean Piaget.
Extracts from this document...

Introduction
Compare and contrast the contributions to progressive educational thought of Sigmund Freud and Jean Piaget.
During most of the twentieth century, the term "progressive education" has been used to describe ideas and practices
that aim to make schools more effective agencies of a democratic society. Emerging from the progressive politics of
the twentieth century United States, the new breed of educators emphasized that they did not "enforce" education,
and that each student was as instrumental in their own development as the teacher they rely on. Although there are
differences of style and emphasis among progressive educators, they share the conviction that democracy means
active participation by all citizens in social, political and economic decisions that will affect their lives, including
their own education. The education of engaged citizens, according to this perspective, involves two essential
elements: Respect for diversity, meaning that the development of critical, socially engaged intelligence, which
enables individuals to understand and participate effectively in the affairs of their community in a collaborative
effort to achieve a common good, and each individual should be recognized for his or her own abilities, interests,
ideas, needs, and cultural identity.1 These elements of progressive education have been termed "social re-
constructionist" and "child-centered". Both of these elements share an interest in the individual which enabled
educationalists to progress beyond the notion of children as ciphers and automatons. Children were no longer
machines into which education could be simply inputted, and the influence of educationalists such as Freud and
Piaget helped contribute in humanizing education, resulting in progressive education centers such as AS Neill's
Summerhill School which aims: to allow children freedom to grow emotionally; to give children power over their
own lives; to give children the time to develop naturally; to create a happier childhood by removing fear and
coercion by adults.2 The notion of "child-centeredness" owes a lot to Piaget, who studied learning processes in
children and concluded that teachers should not be transmitters of knowledge but should act as guides to a child's
own discovery of the world. ...read more.

Middle
In his condemnation of repression Freud urges equilibrium between the pleasure and reality principle, and claims
that they are complementary, and he therefore encourages the pleasure principle which facilitates both imagination
and subsequently creativity, which becomes important in Piaget's teachings, which I explore below. The task of
education, according to Freud, is therefore not to prohibit or frustrate, but to discover a sort of balance between the
search for pleasure that continues to govern physical equilibrium after the process of socialization has been
completed and the constraints that the natural and social realities impose upon our primitive instincts. The main aim
of all education is to teach the child to control its instincts. It is indeed impossible to allow it total freedom...without
constraint. Education must therefore inhibit, forbid and repress, and it is to this task that it has at all times applied
itself to in full. However, analysis has shown us that it is in fact such repression that causes neuroses. Education
must therefore navigate its way between the Scylla of the laissez-faire approach and the Charybdis of prohibition.8
Education was defined by Piaget as a two termed relation linking "on the one hand the growing individual and one
the other hand the social, intellectual and moral values into which the educator is charged with initiating that
individual"9 Piaget believed that individuals develop from birth onwards, and in-part this development is causal for
psycho-social investigation. He believed that children, by exploring their environment, create their own cognitive, or
intellectual, conceptions of reality. This train of thought led him to consider himself a "genetic epistemologist"
rather than an educationalist. Epistemology is the philosophical discipline concerning the nature of knowledge, and
Piaget concluded that what distinguishes human beings from animals, epistemologically speaking, is our ability to
carry out "abstract symbolic meaning". He subsequently became interested in how a child develops mentally in
order to accomplish this, and named his particular process "maturation". ...read more.

Conclusion
Obedience as an act of reason, however, requires greater thought. This results in more "minds in action", cognitively
developing, as individuals take charge of their learning by converting the reasons for their responses into good
reason, even if this ultimately results in rational disobedience to what is taught. Freud emphasized the psychosexual
development which, in turn, draws attention to the personality development dynamics, structures and stages. Piaget,
on the other hand, focused on cognitive development dynamics, structures and stages. Each underline different part
of the causes of behaviour, and thus they have different interpretations of said behaviour, and of what, during
development, gives rise to it. However both saw a human's development as stage-by-stage and both recognized that
an individual adopts assimilation and accommodation strategies to sustain equilibrium. Perhaps the most interesting
contrast is the nature of instinct. Piaget believed in cognitive structures forming through assimilation and
accommodation during his four cognitive stages. Education, in his eyes, further assisted this. Via the curriculum,
educators must plan a developmentally appropriate course, that enhances their student's logical and conceptual
growth. In instruction, teachers must emphasise the critical role that experiences play in student learning, for
example the role that fundamental concepts, such as object permanence, play in establishing cognitive structures.
Education acts as an assistor to natural development. Freud, on the other hand, accused education of repressing
natural instinct in an attempt to socialize children, by making them culturally suitably to be integrated into the
social-collective, for example parents forbidding the physical expression of their child's psychosexual stages. Freud
himself, although critical of this approach, and fully aware of the potential risks in terms of a suitable sexual
development in later life, realized the importance of minimal repression in order to achieve equilibrium. For Piaget,
progressive education must passively promote a child's natural cognitive development through the encouragement of
experience, creativity and accommodation. For Freud education must actively encourage the notion of "delayed
gratification", stemming the free-reign of the pleasure principle, though never totally repressing it or punishing it,
and increase its own awareness of its role in an individual's development. ...read more.
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