Week 8: Elliott: Mooney review

In week 8 we were to read chapters 1-5 in the Mooney text. I found the theory of Jean Piaget quite interesting.  Piaget was a scientist born in Switzerland who published his first paper at the age od eleven! ( Mooney,59). I found this quote in the text on page 59 very interesting,” Although Piaget is frequently referred to as a psychologist, he was really an epistemologist. “ An epistemologist is a person who studies the nature and beginning of knowledge.  Piaget was interested in how children know what they know.  Piaget’s theory stated that a child’s interactions with the environment are what create learning. 

Other psychologists of Piaget’s time believed that learning is either intrinsic which means it comes from the child or extrinsic which means it is imposed by the environment or taught by adults.  Piaget’s theory was that it was a child’s interactions with the environment are what created learning.  He said that children create their own knowledge by the meaning of the people, places, and things in their world.

According to Piaget there are 4 stages of cognitive development.  Beginning at birth to 18 months the child is experiencing the sensorimotor stage.  This is when the child is learning though their senses and reflexes. From 18 months to 6 years old the child is in the preoperational stage of cognitive development. During this time the child is learning based on their perceptions. The child is very egocentric at this point in their life. From 6 years old until 16 years old we are in the concrete operational stage of development.  Now the child is forming ideas bases on reasoning.  Finally from the age of 12 until death we are in the formal operational stage of cognitive development. Now we are able to think conceptually and hypothetically.  

I can relate to this theory because I babysit a lot. I can see how this theory can be true. When the baby is learning through reactions in the first stage they are becoming aware of the noises their toys make. At first the baby is startled by the sound of it when they shake it but once they learn that it makes noise when they shake it them they will continue to do it. This also reminds me of when I would play peek a boo with my cousins baby. This relates to the theory because at first she did not understand that I was just covering my face with the blanket, after playing for awhile she understood that she could lift the blanket off of me and I would be under it.