Reflective Journal Entry #1

Description

This week’s reading focused on the multiple views of how a child learns as they are growing up. Jean Piaget’s theory is most widely known. He believes in “schemes” and the fact that children go through stages of learning.

Analysis

Piaget believed that humans pass through four main stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational (Slavin, 2015, p. 32).  Piaget’s theory of cognitive development poses that a person cannot skip any one of these stages.  The first stage that a child passes through is the sensorimotor stage, which includes the range of newborns to children age two years old.  Of course, newborns react from their reflexes; as Slavin (2015) notes, “Touch a newborn’s lips, and the baby will begin to suck; place your finger in the palm of an infant’s hand, and the infant will grasp it.  These and other innate behaviors are the building blocks from which the infant’s first schemes [patterns of behavior or thinking] form” (p. 32).  As they learn and grow, they start to see a problem at hand and think of ways to solve it.  They do not, however, have the capability of realizing that an object that may be covered up still exists.  Object permanence is not developed in their minds, so they do not know that there are things that exist out of their sight.  However, this fact soon changes.

After leaving this stage, children move into the preoperational stage, and the range of ages for this stage is two to seven years old.  A comprehension of symbolism and language develops during this stage, yet children do not understand “the principle of conservation.  For example, if you pour milk from a tall, narrow container into a shallow, wide one in the presence of a preoperational child, the child will firmly believe that the tall glass has more milk” (Slavin, 2015, p. 33).  To them, the symbolism represented by something tall means something is greater than – despite the fact that it may be slimmer.  Likewise, short means less.  The stage is also notably broken up into three different categories of actions that children work on during this time: centration, reversibility, and egocentrism.  For centration, children do not take the entire situation into consideration.  That is, a child will center their focus on one aspect of an object, completely ignoring other factors (such as the slimness of the tall cup).  Reversibility is when students can see a situation one way but cannot understand its reverse.  Slavin (2015) notes this concept well: “we know that if 7 + 5 = 12, then 12 – 5 = 7. If we add 5 items to 7 items and then take the 5 items away (reverse what we’ve done), we are left with 7 items” (p. 33).  A child in the preoperational stage, however, does not grasp this concept.  The third aspect is that children are egocentric, indicating that they believe that there is only one way that every person sees the world and that it is the same exact way that they see it.  No other viewpoints are considered.

After working on these characteristics, children move into the concrete operational stage, which deals with students from the ages of seven to 11 years old (the bulk of elementary school).  Children in this stage operate under the perception that what is concrete is real; abstract concepts are not easy for them to grasps so much as ideas that “involve objects and situations that are familiar” (Slavin, 2015, p. 34).  They understand that appearances can be deceiving, but they should be familiar with the appearance of an object in its natural form to understand it fully, even when its appearance shifts.  Additionally, children who operate concretely are able to sort things in a series – for example, from smallest to largest or from lightest to darkest.  Further, their mindset becomes less egocentric, and their understanding of difference in perception develops.

The last stage students go through is the formal operational stage, which usually starts somewhere around age 11 and follows someone into adulthood.  In this stage, which starts around the beginning of middle school, people can deal with hypothetical situations.  These people do not need to actually see situations enacted in front of them; instead, they can hypothesize, when given adequate information, about the effects of an action.  Slavin (2015) also notes that their general “competence leaps forward” (p. 36), gaining the ability to grasp figurative language and deeper thematic elements better.

One major belief of Piaget is that “development precedes learning.”  He feels that children need to go through each step of development before learning the material at that age.  Researchers, however, believe that his stages of development may not be perfectly precise.  They believe that students’ experiences also have a profound effect on their development, varying from one person to another instead of neatly fitting into categories based on approximate age.

Reflection

I feel like teaching second grade before moving to the high school helped me in more ways than one. I got to see the early stages of learning before moving up and seeing what Piaget considers the final stage.  When I taught second grade, I saw firsthand that elements of Piaget’s theory definitely prove true.  Specifically, second grade is around the transition between the preoperational and concrete operational stages for most students, according to Piaget’s classification.  Slavin’s (2015) example of the math problem that “if 7 + 5 = 12, then 12 – 5 = 7” (p. 33) is a fitting example because second grade is around the time when students are taught some different mathematical properties such as the commutative and associative properties.  Being able to recognize that A + B = C and that C – B = A are very fundamental mathematical truths, so building them in the early years is vital to developing their mathematical comprehension in the later years as well.

Math in high school, however, is much different, so the fact that students enter the formal operational stage in middle school (according to Piaget’s theory) is important.  Developing those skills of working with hypothetical problems is difficult at first, so comprehension in middle school is very significant and relevant to students’ comprehension in later grades.  When I shadowed a middle school teacher for another college class, my own theory was proven true: that many students were going into high school without knowing all of the necessary information from middle school.

Although Piaget’s last stage goes from age 11 throughout adulthood and to death, that huge timeline encompasses many opportunities for growth and development.  For this reason, many psychologists do criticize his categorization.  I, too, see his system as flawed, because – from my experiences – a seventh grader does not have the same mental faculties that a college student does.  While both age groups here require “the use of formal operational thought” (Slavin, 2015, p. 36), the level of complexity for tasks in each grade/range is greatly varied.

            More than anything, it seems, experiences change a person’s perception.  While similar or expected experiences make it easy to categorize a person’s mindset within a certain age range, we are all different, and we all have unique experiences.  A trauma can mature a child greatly, or intrinsic motivation paired with parents who push a child to succeed can allow them to grow atypically from most of their peers.  While Piaget’s theory of cognitive development has so many proven elements, it’s important to remember that the categories are rough and general, not definitive or written in stone.

References

Slavin, R. E. (2015). Educational psychology: Theory and practice (11th ed.). New York, NY: Pearson Education, Inc.