I Find Myself Opposed To The View Of Knowledge As A Passive Copy Of Reality.

I find myself opposed to the view of knowledge as a passive copy of reality.

- Jean Piaget 1896-1980

How do we learn things? The answers to this age-old question have been examined and analysed by many scientists. There are plenty of prominent theories explaining cognitive development and helping us to understand the foundation of knowledge.

One of the most prominent answers to the question has come from a Swiss psychologist, Jean Piaget.

The legacy of Jean Piaget to the world of early childhood education is that he fundamentally altered the view of how a child learns. And a teacher, he believed, was more than a transmitter of knowledge she was also an essential observer and guide to helping children build their own knowledge.

As a university graduate, Swiss-born Piaget got a routine job in Paris standardising Binet-Simon IQ tests, where the emphasis was on children getting the right answers. Piaget observed that many children of the same ages gave the same kinds of incorrect answers. What could be learned from this?

Piaget interviewed many hundreds of children and concluded that children who are allowed to make mistakes often go on to discover their errors and correct them, or find new solutions. In this process, children build their own way of learning. From children’s errors, teachers can obtain insights into the child’s view of the world and can tell where guidance is needed. They can provide appropriate materials, ask encouraging questions, and allow the child to construct his own knowledge.

Piaget’s continued interactions with young children became part of his life-long research. After reading about a child who thought that the sun and moon followed him wherever he went, Piaget wanted to find out if all young children had a similar belief. He found that many did indeed believe this. Piaget went on to explore children’s countless “why” questions, such as, “Why is the sun round?” or “Why is grass green?” He concluded that children do not think like adults. Their thought processes have their own distinct order and special logic. Children are not “empty vessels to be filled with knowledge” (as traditional pedagogical theory had it). They are “active builders of knowledge-little scientists who construct their own theories of the world.”

Piaget’s Four Stages of Development

Sensorimotor Stage: Approximately 0 - 2 Infants gain their earliest understanding of the immediate world through their senses and through their own actions, beginning with simple reflexes, such as sucking and grasping.

Preoperational Stage: Approximately 2 - 6 Young children can use symbols for objects, such as numbers to express quantity and words such as mama, doggie, hat and ball to represent real people and objects.

Concrete Operations: Approximately 6 - 11 School-age children can perform concrete mental operations with symbols-using numbers to add or subtract and organizing objects by their qualities, such as size or color.

Formal Operations: Approximately 11 - adult Normally developing early adolescents are able to think and reason abstractly, to solve theoretical problems, and answer hypothetical questions.

Albert Einstein once called Piaget’s discoveries of cognitive development as, “so simple only a genius could have thought of it”. As the above shows, Piaget’s theory was born out of observations of children, especially as they were conducting play. When he was analysing the results of the intelligence test, he noticed that young children provide qualitatively different answers to older children.

This suggested to Piaget that younger children are not dumber, since this would be a quantitative position – an older child is smarter with more experience. Instead, the children simply answered differently because they thought of things differently.

At the heart of Piaget’s theory then is the idea that children are born with a basic mental structure, which provides the structure for future learning and knowledge. He saw development as a progressive reorganisation of these mental processes. This came about due to biological maturation, as well as environmental experience.

We are essentially constructing a world around us in which we try to align things that we already know and what we suddenly discover. Through the process, a child develops knowledge and intelligence, which helps him or her to reason and think independently.

For Piaget his work was never just for a closeted coterie of scholars and researcher but had real world application. Piaget was able to put his work in a wider context of importance. He said, “only education is capable of saving our societies from possible collapse, whether violent, or gradual”. Piaget’s theory centres on the idea that children, as little scientists, need to explore, interact with, and experiment in order to gain the information they need to understand their world.

INTJs doomed by design?

stlsrr submitted: Hello, Harsh title i know, but its the best to describe what im about to express. Its not long ago i found out about my INTJ character, though to my surprise it explained a lot! The way i acted and reacted to specific situations, my love for solitude, not much talking etc… you probably are aware of these things. But its the first time I was justified by knowing that. The reason was simply, that when you are the ONLY one to act differently (not akward) and EVERY single person you know to judge you and turn against what you are you begin to doubt your self and your ways. Though that is very painful thing to do because deep in you you know you are acting in a “correct” way that asides morality and happines of your self. INTJs love to have it rough, indeed we adore challenge, but this is something way different. Despite i dont wish to write about me self rather to express my ideas i have to say that my life the past few years been … lets just say not to pretty. Both my actions and my luck costed me and made me lose a lot. Thought that’s one of my biggest debates as an INTJ. Did i brought it upon my self or just people behaviors did? In other words cant an INTJ ever avoid this presure about their “inner be” I havent met any other INTJ , the closest i got is an ENTJ ( a Godsent gift!!!) , and because of that i havent the slightest idea how other INTJs deal with their lives. Me , as an INTJ tend to have most of the characterists that make a person of that temperament to be jugded as wierd, loner, sarcastic, selfish and many more, but i Never let that to take me down. There were many times i trully wanted to give in my nature and be sarcastic, snobbish, through my ingenius ways i could be extremly evil and revengeful. But i withhold my self. Due to my evolved sensing and feeling I wanted to like people, to respect, appreciate and accept them for what they are. I was by their side in their darkest hours, i was always looking for the goodness in them…

I’m not sure if that was a mistake but defently people never apreciated the efford and value i gave em. I never asked and gotten nothing in return rather a cold and unfair behavior by them. I dont know what caused that and i dont know who to blame, but i all know is that it made me more cold and less expressive. After two years of extreme conditions i was tired to withhold over and over again and again… I wasnt aware of how i could reacted through a very negative perspective on life. Long story short very outraging. I started to defend my self againt others will to change me. Are INTJs so … violent as in terms of self preservation ? That time i figured that not only people were afraid of me and started to respect me but as well i met my capabilities, something that made me afraid of living through a negative side. So my points out of all the above are: Do INTJs have it rough in their lives? and if so how should they react? Respect towrds others? Or their selves? ( I believe both isnt an acceptable anwser as we are people of edges, the is no shades of grey in our lives, just black and white) Should an INTJ show compassion and patience for what people are or simply people brought it to them selves (Our reaction to their actions)? For the same as we INTJs want to be accepted as we are , i believe we should show some but… im out of alternatives, they just dont accept us. And as the title suggest are INTJs doomed by design? How can a person thats destined to see and fix mistakes to ever find peace and happiness in such a flawed world? Thanks for reading and thanks for any kind of reply.

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kasuga707

4 years ago

I think millennials don’t want to have children right now because they’ve seen their mothers (baby boomers) make up for what they missed out on from becoming young parents. The ones I’ve seen have failed miserably at doing so.

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kasuga707

4 years ago

Do you know what I mean when I say that sometimes I don’t have any feelings or emotions? I’m not in a good mood, or a bad mood. I just sit there, by myself, and think. I over think sometimes. I think about what has happened, what will happen, and what could have happened. I think about you, I think about what’s wrong in my life, I think about how I can get myself out of this stage, I think about why I got here in the first place. I think about everything and anything.

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kasuga707

3 years ago

[ 중요한 영어 어휘 ] encourage / encouraging / encouragement

이번 강의에서는 영어에서 일상적으로 자주 쓰이지만 우리나라 사람들에게는 어렵게 느껴지는 많은 단어 중 하나인 “encourage / encouraging / encouragement”에 …

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kasuga707

3 years ago

Everything you did to me, I remember.

Mama, I made it out of your home alive, raised by the voices in my head.

— Warsan Shire, from “Extreme Girlhood,” Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head

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kasuga707

4 years ago

Why do humans need companionship?

Why can't be satisfied by being alone with ourselves?

Humans are known to be social beings,and no matter how much we may love our alone-time,we will always choose,with such alacrity even,to spend some of our time with someone whom we deem worthy of being around us.

It is an inexorable truth,which no matter how strongly you are opposed to,will show itself to you some time or another.

It is surely up to you whether to understand it or not,but there will come a time when your good intentions aimed at protecting yourself will backlash.

At that point in time there will be no one to turn to,all your choices will pour down on you and you will see no path ahead of you.

After realizing what companionship means to you,everything will become undeniably stressful.

Is it because of fear?Do you just not know how human interactions unravel anymore?Or what is it?

Usually it would be wise to let go of such feelings by interrupting the friendship causing them,however that is not the case in such a context.

At this point in time you only have one option:try not putting this companionship ahead of everything else,instead just hold it dear to you.Hopefully everything will be set in motion once again.

Tags

thoughts *thinking*

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kasuga707

4 years ago

“Have you ever sat there, looking into space and feeling a tight grip wrapped around your heart, it’s squeezing and squeezing not allowing you to breathe and slowly slowly you start to feel the tears fall down, and one after another the fits start to happen and you just can’t stop it. It hurts so bad it’s indescribable. People say love hurts, but that words used are so vague, “love hurts”, no love kills, and it doesn’t just take your breath away it takes away a piece of you, making you feel fragmented, shattering you into small different pieces where you can’t even get yourself back up on track again. That is what love is. Not the holding hands, forehead kisses. It’s the feeling you feel when you break down into a million pieces. It’s when you can feel your heart shatter against your rib cage. It’s murder. That is love.”

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kasuga707

3 years ago

I think it’s one thing to be born a pessimist and have heartbreaking experiences that confirm your doubts.

I think it’s a second thing to be born a realist and have heartbreaking experiences that hurt, but not in ways that aren’t foreseen.

I think the it’s a much different thing to be born an optimist and to have heartbreaking experiences that tear down your hope and alter your expectations.

I think the pessimist comes out, not much different, but with better understanding of the world and its cruel sentences.

I think the realist comes out a little different, with cosmic changes in strength and compassion.

I think the optimist, most of the time, is broken into an entirely new human being.

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kasuga707

4 years ago