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Standard 5: Using Content Knowledge to Build Meaningful Curriculum
Artifact: Theorist Paper
Rational Statement:
Doing this theorist paper in my earlier classes, it really opened my eyes to the way I
function around my daycare. I noticed that a lot of things that which the theorist I choose came
up on a day to day bases. It opened my mind into apply the knowledge I have gained and putting
in an effort which to share it. It really brought an understanding on content knowledge which I
had never known before.
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Melissa Ledgerwood
ECE 1404
Meagan Lynch
19 March 2014
A Complicated Mind
When younger, I wasn't sure what I wanted to be when I grew up. After taking a
psychology class in the eleventh grade, I decided I wanted to go into psychology. After taking an
advanced placement class and the test, I realized that I liked the theorist and the theories that
went along with the class. I soon realized that I loved kids and that all I really wanted to do with
my life was to work with kids. I was excited to write this paper because it included two of my
favorite things and I can see how they connect and how they work. While taking lots of
psychology classes, I kept hearing one theorist name that kept popping out. Ever since eleventh
grade, I always knew that Jean Piaget.
Piaget was born August 9, 1896 in Switzerland. At a young age, Piaget showed a strong
interest in the natural science of everything that was around him. At the young age of eleven, he
had already started his career by writing a paper about the albino sparrow. He grow up to earn
his degree from Neuchâtel in 1918 in the studies of Zoology. Piaget thought of himself as a
genetic epistemologist. An epistemologist is a person who pursues that nature, origin, extent, and
the human limits that have to go along with a branch of philology. He was interested in
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everything that has to do with the way the human thinks and why we act the way that we do from
birth until our last dying breath.
Piaget influenced phycology in lots of ways. His work is still used on a day to day bases
in classes throughout the world. His works contributed to the way humans are abler to grasp the
concepts of cognitive development in young children. In older days, adults like to think of
children as smaller versions of what they were, but Piaget helped them realize that children
weren't there miniatures and was their own person that needed to be treated differently than you
would treat another person of higher age. His earlier work was focused more on the natural
sciences of things. It wasn't until the 1920's that he began to really show what he is known for.
According to Piaget, children grow and learn in four main stages of their life. Piaget viewed
children as little scientist that had a mind that was very complex and hard to understand. At the
age 22, he began doing research and impacting the world with the knowledge that he had. It was
during observations that he began to see that children were growing up in four stages throughout
their life. He began to think that children weren't as smart as adults, but the way their brain
works and the way the see life is different than adults. Paget's theory describes the cognitive
development that children go through while growing up. There are four different stages that each
child goes through.
The first stage the child goes through is the Sensory Motor Stage which normally last
from birth until somewhere around the age of two. In this stage, Piaget believed that children
went through the world learning with their motor skills such as touch, sight, smell, hearing, and
most of all taste. While looking at an infant, most children go around putting things into their
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mouth, grasping whatever object they can and tasting it. While going through this, the child
begins to deal with object permanence. Object permanence is the child knowing that when an
object disappears, that it didn't actually go anywhere, and that it still exists. This is one of the key
elements in the sensory motor stage. When thinking about object permanence, think about
playing peek-a-boo with a baby, they don't know that when the parents hiding their face, that
they are still there, where as you do it with a two year old, they know you didn't actually go
anywhere. The sensory motor stage can be broken down into six sub stages, reflexes(0-1 month),
primary circular reactions(1-4 months), secondary circular reactions(4-8 months), coordination
of reactions(8-12 months), tertiary circular reactions(12-18 months), and early representational
thought(18-24 months).
Following the sensory motor stage is the Preoperational Stage. In the preoperational
stage, children, ages 2 to 7, experience a thing known as egocentrism. Egocentrism is a term for
which the children are unable to believe that other people feel the same way they do. Egocentric
children believe that the world revolved around them and don't believe that anybody else matters.
In this child stage in their life, children tend to use symbols. The use of symbols, lead up to
children role playing. This expands a child's mind to be creative and to play out what they
believe people do. Another thing that happens in the preoperational stage is conservation. Child
believe that though the same amount. if a skinnier glass holds the same amount of liquid as a
fatter glad, that the skinner glass has more and will go for the skinner glass.
At ages 7 to approximately age 11, children will go through what is known as the
Concrete Operational stage. In this stage, children began to gain more skills in knowledge in the
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real world. They begin to us logic while thinking but they have problems understand things that
have to do with a hypothetical situation. Children in this stage have a good concept of using
inductive logic, which means taking a certain rule, and then are able to apply it to a general
situation. Children in this stage are also able to use reversibility. Reversibility is the knowledge
that every action can be reversed. This is the most important development in this stage. The
last and final stage is the Formal Operational Stage. This stage involves twelve year olds, to
adulthood. In the formal operational stage, we begin to think about things in an abstract manner.
We are able to wrap our minds around things that we know nothing about for sure, like these
theories. Often found in this stage, is being able to use deductive logic. Deductive logic is the
logic of taking a general topic and being able to specific topic. Also a key element in this stage is
being able to use problem solving. Every day, while driving down a road to eating a bowl of
cereal without milk, we are able to solve our problems.
Piaget is often criticized for his theory and why children do the things they do. Parents
sometimes think he has a messed up mind because of some of the theories that he has come up
with. After observing children I have noticed that though his theory is just a theory that I saw a
lot of things going on that it make senses to me why he came up with these four stages. A theory
is just a reason of believe why people do the things that they do and they cannot be proven to be
true.
I am able to concept these things to my everyday life to remember looking back and
remembering some of the situations I went through. I can apply this to my studies because while
working with children, it will be easier for me to deduct why the children are doing what they're
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doing and why they are doing it. It’s sometimes hard for us to realize that children are smart, and
that they know what they're doing and that they are doing it for a reason. I will be able to use
these theories in a class room to know at which stages in the child’s life that they are able to do
things, or what they like to do. This helps adults and parents understand that most of the things
that they are going through are normal and everyday things. It’s helpful for staff of a day care to
know these things because it can help you pick out things for your day are and for you to know
what to expect from a child. It can also help with kids that have cognitive impairments because if
you noticed a child isn’t doing some things in a stage that others are, that the child might have a
cognitive impairment and can get help for the child early on in their life. Doing so you can help a
child by getting them help early enough that they would do better in school, or even life, that
they wouldn’t have been able to do if not caught early on.
When younger, I never knew what I wanted to be when I grew up or what I wanted to do
for the rest of my life. After lots of research, I now know that it is kids that I want to focus all my
time and attention too. I have great appreciation for every theorist and all the time and dedication
they have put out there. I now know what to think about while working with kids or even looking
after my own children. Jean Piaget my not be right in his theory and he may think differently
than most other people that I know, but after looking after multiple kids I can see why his way of
thinking is the way that it is.
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Bibliography
Cherry, Kendra. "Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development." About.com Psychology. N.p., n.d.
Web. 18 Mar. 2014.
McLeod, Saul. "Jean Piaget." Simply Psychology. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Mar. 2014.
Presnell, Faith. "Jean Piaget." Psychology History. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Mar. 2014.
Piaget, J. (1968). Six Psychological Studies. Anita Tenzer (Trans.), New York: Vintage Books.