Chapter 3: of Educational Psychology

Hot spots:

Piaget's basic tendencies of thinking - Adaptation, Assimilation, Accomodation and Equilibration.
Page 38

Preoperational Children - Acquiring reversible thought, Conservation, egocentric thought patterns
Page 40

Concrete Operational stage - compensation and classification
page 42

Formal Operation Stage
page 43

"Do we all reach the 4th stage?"
page 45

Limitations of Piaget's theory
page 47

Questions:

Do we all reach the 4th stage compells me. Do we all reach the 4th stage???

Do people who uphold the ideas of racism and bigotry keep their thoughts/opinions in the concrete stage? Does what gets sealed in concrete stay in concrete?

Can't children sometimes demonstrate consideration for others? In spite of being egocentered?

Are all matters of inspiration some kind of equilibration?

Opinions:

In terms of conrete thinking and maturing into the formal operative stage, I wonder if that only parts of our logic mature into these ideals. I personally find that I have problems wrapping my head around certain matters but in others I can be quick or punctual with a response. I have also observed this when trying to explain some of my ideas about poetry in songs to some people who "just don't understand" what I am trying to say. Not that I am an oracle for understanding song lyric symbolism but it's odd.

In terms of racism, I have expereinced bigotted sentiments from other white people who would just assume that I am sympathetic to their nonsense. When I try to explain to them that the reasons for upholding racism are mostly misconceptions and say things like "well, you haven't met all the black people in the world" they're usually too annoyed by the topic to even open their mind for one conversation. I guess my main question is that, "Does what gets sealed in concrete stay in concrete?"

I feel like some kids have apparent decentered ideas. Once children learn the value of sharing I think they can understand that they'll have their turn on the tireswing, in the conversation, in the reading out loud group, etc... This gets into the idea of the limitations of Piaget's theories. In fact, the issue is not "concrete" unto itself but I believe that Piaget's work provides an interesting guide to the way most people might develop and grow.