Jean Piaget
The peculiarities of early childhood education have a serious impact on the further development of an individual in both cognitive and emotional aspects. Thus, it is of crucial importance to define an appropriate and relevant pattern of child education in order for the model to be inclusive for a child and his or her abilities. Over the past decades, the notion of education has undergone major challenges in terms of its definition, values, and field perspectives. Common belief states that proper education and early development are the key factors when it comes to one’s intelligence, future success, and position in society. However, if previously, the educational paradigm was rather focused on academic knowledge and healthy competition in the classroom, today’s process of early education is not regarded as successful and relevant without the emotional intelligence variable.
One of the theories that seemingly still manages to successfully integrate both aspects is Jean Piaget’s theory on cognitive development. The concept implies the creation of a kid’s mental image that is supposed to go through the four various stages in terms of the process (McLeod, 2018). In such a way, the notion of education becomes more than just about learning fundamentals, as it encompasses one’s social environment and inherent ability to perceive information. According to Piaget’s assumptions collected from the empirical data, the two most important aspects of education is the competence and performance of one’s knowledge. Thus, while tackling issues important for today’s society, Piaget’s interpretation of children’s learning abilities had a rather negative connotation. Bearing in mind the historical gap between the assumptions made and the current trends in education, it might be concluded that while Jean Piaget’s theory is a valuable tool in terms of a scholarly basis, the major ideas of children’s rather limited cognitive performance should not be taken too seriously today.
Reference
McLeod, S. (2018). Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. Simply Psychology, 1-9.