Piaget: theory of stages

Piaget argues that intellectual growth is continuous, he also maintains that particular mental abilities tend to appear at certain stages of a child's development. Some children might show the ability earlier and some later, but children in all cultures will pass through these stages at some point:

• The sensory motor stage (or pre-language stage), which usually occurs between birth and two years.

- lasts until the baby is about 2.

- Action stage before speaking.

- unable to make distinctions between self and other

- ‘object permanence’ – babies realise objects exsist

• The pre-operational stage (usually between two and seven)

- Children are able to represent things eg. Doll = baby

- Spoken language is developed

- childs thinking is; what is seen not logical principles

- can see that the self is different from the rest of the world

- can’t understand anothers point of view

- understand that something remains the same even though it has been transformed in appearance.

• The concrete operational stage (usually between seven and twelve)

- become much better at classification.

- better at conservation operations by the end of this stage but only when the concrete objects are physically present.

• The formal operational stage (or stage of propositional operations), usually from eleven to twelve onwards

- the highest level of thinking

- development of abstract thought.

- become concerned about the future and about ideological problems.

- allows mastery of complex systems like science, religion and mathematics. Teenagers can make and test hypotheses about things which they haven't actually experienced themselves.

Piaget says that all children pass through these stages in the same order but at different speeds. Intellectual development is always an extension of what has preceded it.

My Account of a Formal Operational Student

Here is my account of a child who show characteristics of one of Piaget’s Theory of stages. I will keep the identity of the student anonymous and refer to him as pupil A. Pupils A falls into the formal operations stage. He is a 14 year old who shows leadership skills and concern for world issues and future occurrences. He has full development of abstract thoughts and understands all his subjects by making hypothetical judgments before investigating the answers; an example of this is when he began using a video editing software program of which he had no knowledge, he was able to experiment and teach himself the basics of this program, only referring to a user manual when his experimentation had run its course.

His thinking is very typical of this stage as he likes to know about things in lots of detail, he is very inquisitive. He shows concern and empathy for his peers and at times (when working in groups) will assist others. He recently volunteered to join a mock UN Summit investigating different world organizations which involved taking part in various debates; he has a clear understanding of world issues. A lot of his learning comes from experience, in and out of school and he always comes to school with probing questions regarding an experience or something he has watched on TV. If you are to have a conversation with' ‘pupil A’ it is very adult like and as a teacher and student we are able to have meaningful discussions which result in understandings of new theories and perspectives. His writing has advanced over the year I have known him and he uses many different synonyms and complex phrases.

These are all signs that this student has flourished into a  ‘formal operational’ thinker.