Piaget, Jean

Jean Piaget was born on 9th August in 1896 in Neuchatel, Switzerland. His father, Arthur Piaget, worked as a professor at the University of Neuchatel where he was a professor of romance languages and literature. Piaget spent the majority of his life living and working in Geneva.

Piaget first began his career in the field of natural sciences and zoology, which was his area of study when he enrolled at the University of Neuchatel in 1915. Here, he gained his Ph.D. in zoology but also developed his interests in epistemology (the theory of knowledge) and child development. Piaget’s interest in philosophy lead him to publish two philosophical papers during his time at university, which many now regard as pivotal to the direction of his future research.

In 1918, Piaget spent a period of time studying in Zurich under the supervision of Eugen Bleuler and Carl Jung as part of his post-doctoral training, which is where he was first introduced to methods of psychoanalysis. Combined with his interest in epistemology, this laboratory experience directed the course of his research and future work towards child psychology and the development of knowledge. Following this, Piaget left Switzerland and moved to France to pursue work at the Alfred Binet Institute, where he conducted his first experimental studies of intelligence and how the mind develops.

In 1923 Jean Piaget married Valentine Chatenay, with whom he went on to have three children with. As his children grew up, Piaget studied their intellectual and language development in order to develop his theory of cognitive development. These observations of his own children became crucial in the formation of his famous Four Stages of Cognitive Development where he suggests that children acquire knowledge progressively and in stages by taking an active role in the learning processes. In his theory of development and knowledge acquisition Piaget coined the term “schema” to describe the mental frameworks children use to understand the world and their environment, and that these schema shape how human’s interpret new information. Piaget was one of the first psychologists to put forward the theory that children’s minds are not simply smaller versions of adult minds, but different entirely and therefore no less intelligent just because they think differently. Notably, Albert Einstein referred to Piaget’s work as “so simple that only a genius could have thought of it.”

Piaget held various positions and several chairs in academic institutions, for example directing the International Bureau of Education in Geneva from 1929 until 1967, and founding the International Center for Genetic Epistemology in 1955. Piaget primarily spent his career at the Rousseau Institute in Geneva where he worked as the director of studies. Despite not being his intention at the time, Piaget’s work has today become an influential power in education-reform movements, such as highlighting the importance of educating a child at their developmental level, utilising constructivist and interactive approaches to a child’s knowledge acquisition.

Piaget dedicated his life to his work, and eventually died on 16th September in 1980 with works still in progress.