Book Review



Book Review

Introduction

Learning and development are the concepts that are always attached with the human being. There are various theories and concepts that have been put forward by many theorists and philosophers. The process of learning and development starts from childhood. The field of child psychology and the process of learning and development in children has been the main focus of many psychologists. The aim and objective of this paper is also to talk about one of the psychologists whose work is immensely regarded when it comes to the learning and development I children. This psychologist that is the main focus of this paper is Jean Piaget. This paper specifically talks about one of the books that Jean Piaget wrote about the learning and development in children. The following part of the paper discusses Piaget's book The Psychology of the Child that he wrote with Barbel Inhelder.

Purpose of the Book

From his development of the clinical method to his prolific work with children of various ages, Piaget's impact on our understanding of a child's ability to learn and understand has been indisputable. His theories have influenced teaching methodology in the classroom while inspiring interest in the field as a whole. In 1955, Piaget founded the International Center for Genetic Epistemology in Geneva, and thereafter continued to publish prolifically until his death in 1980. Similarly, this work of Piaget is also commendable. He along with Barbel wrote this book in the year 1969. The main objective to write this book is to present the summary of all the important works that he has been publishing since 1920. Since 1920, he has published many articles, books and research report. Most of his writing is difficult to understand and basically quantitative in nature which makes it difficult to understand the various concepts put forwarded by Piaget. In order to solve this problem, Piaget with Inhelder wrote this book. Through this book, Piaget wants to convey all the important information and knowledge that he discovered. This book is interesting and easy to understand (Piaget & Inhelder, 1969).

Author's Qualifications

Piaget's background was in zoology, and he retained a strong biological orientation, emphasizing the innate specification for development through a serial process of learning, each stage being the necessary foundation for the next (e.g. The Origins of Intelligence in Children, 1936, trans. 1952). This was not to deny the importance of the environment which he saw as an essential aspect of this process, though later theorists, such as Jerome Bruner, have tended to give environmental experience more weight than did Piaget. Jean Piaget became a celebrated psychologist for his work on the cognitive development of children. His early interests were in natural history, and he published scientific works on mollusks before turning to psychology. He received a doctorate from the University of Neuchâtel in 1918. He worked in France in an intellectual milieu that favored the intelligence testing methods recently developed by Alfred Binet (1857-1911). While working on intelligence testing, he started a long-standing interest in ...