I think the bowl test is for pre-school children. It does seem to mark the point where children start to learn conciously. I’m not arguing that you can’t find any developmental stages in children. I think it would be ludicrous to consider a newborn having the same kind of functioning level of a school age child, and just an ‘empty’ brain that needs to be filled. There’s no doubt that adolescence is also a stage since we know the body (which includes the brain) is physically transforming at that point. I think I’ve already said that the abilities of the brain do change as a child grows as well.
I’ll try to remain clear on my points here, I haven’t heard anyone provide a reason why there would be a clearly identifiable stage in a child’s mental functioning, except through the standardization of tests. It would seem that many of the abilities being discussed, cause and effect, deduction, abstraction, etc., do not just spring forward at some particular age, but rather there is a curve that starts from a low level and grows at some individual rate. I think what people are calling stages are just aligning a type of test with some point on the curve, that you would expect most children to achieve at around the same time. By ‘around the same time’, I don’t mean within a month of age 7 for instance, I think we all know of cases where that range might be + or - 1 year. But I still haven’t heard an explanation for how the theories and tests would indicate a childs abilities can’t be improved ahead of schedule. And some people seem to be arguing that they can, and can’t at the same time. So if a child can’t use the principle of conservation at age 5, but probably will at age 7, why bother trying to teach the 5 year old about it? Perhaps I’ve misunderstood, but everybody seems to be saying you should try to teach this to a 5 year old though. But I may not have understood what others were saying in that regard.
Yes, I wanted to consider it for a while. I think the same applies for the converse though. If you fail to teach children in advance of the expected age, it is falsified. Unfortunately in this area we can’t actually look at the underlying mechanism, so its tricky to conduct these tests. Your theory wouldn’t be falsified by teaching a 4 year old to answer X for question Y. And you couldn’t falsify my ‘theory’ by teaching children not to answer X for question Y.
That’s kind of my problem with the conclusions from these tests. I’m still a skeptical that the tests described here lead to the conclusions stated. If a child can’t show an understanding of the principle of conservation, how does the test show why? How would it distinquish between a lack of background, and an inability to comprehend the principle. So I’ll ask you, is there anything about these tests, or others, which shows the reason why children can ‘pass’ these tests at one age, but not at another? I simply contend that the simplest answer would be because the child initially fails from a lack of requisite background, and then passes when that background is obtained. That doesn’t rule out continuing improvement in abilities as a child ages. But I don’t think those abilities just appear one day. I think they are innate (in some sense) starting from a young age, but grow over time, and like anything else, will be strengthened through exercise.
TriPolar, have you actually read any of the cites offered, or done any independent research into cognitive development? I don’t intend any disrespect, but really, many of us have presented a volume of evidence. The experiments and studies we refer to have been performed over an extended period of time (more than 50 years) by a plethora of investigators using multiple methodologies. Their conclusions have been published, peer reviewed, corrected for discovered methodological issues, re-investigated, elaborated, revised, re-published, (repeat ad nauseum) and eventually incorporated into educational pedagogy. Techniques of teaching that incorporate these conclusions appear to relate successfully to the real world of children. There is today nothing controversial about the idea that cognitive development proceeds by discrete stages (within a demonstrable range) and these stages represent differences of kind, not merely of degree.
And yet you keep harping back to your own inability to “believe”, your own anecdotes, and your own rather bizarre hypotheticals. Why is that? This, like any other scientific field, is not a system of belief. No one is asking you to “believe it” or to “believe in it”. Rather, you are offered a wealth of evidence, sufficient to convince actual practitioners and investigators who have studied said evidence. But the more we say, the more you repeat the same (or substantially the same) questions and objections.
The bottom line is that Piaget-derived conclusions about cognitive development are not at all “Bad ideas in education”. It was reasonable I guess to have spent more than a hundred posts on this diversion, but now we’ve reached the point where I simply don’t have any more interest in “convincing” you. You seem to be immune to evidence, and I don’t have any other tools available. Can we just move on now?
I don’t mean to be disrespectful either, but there are very few cites, and no explanations. I haven’t been offered a wealth of evidence either. I know how to go look up the research myself. I’ve challenged these theories, that I didn’t bring up in the first place, because they have been unsupported by reason. In order to explain this I have to end my own participation here, because it will likely sound hostile. I’ve been told repeatedly, directly and indirectly, that I don’t know what I’m talking about. I do not what I am talking about, and I think others do not, or in some cases just considered me too hostile bother giving me an explanation.
So I’m done. But none of you have explained how the tests described in this thread differentiate between a lack of ability and a lack of knowledge. If you know what you are talking about you could give an explanation of that. I have explained that I have based everything I’ve said on my own observations and reason. The most likely reason a person doesn’t know the answer to a question, is because they don’t know, because it hasn’t been explained to them, or they haven’t had experiences from which to derive the answer. Nobody has offered an explanation for how the tests described could determine that the questions weren’t answered based on a lack of ability as opposed to a lack of knowledge.
Since it is now the time to leave this thread, I want to apologize to all I have offended, intentionally or otherwise. I wouldn’t use anything I’ve said or you’ve said to form an opinion of you outside of this thread, and wouldn’t bear any ill will. I will readily admit I have been outrageously argumentative and combative at times. Much of this has been enjoyable, to learn, and interchange ideas, and I regret anything I’ve done to make it less enjoyable for others.
Thank you for providing that information. As mentioned before I am done discussing this topic in this thread. If you would like a response, let me know here, or by PM, and I will do so outside of this thread.