Jean Piaget
Pioneer of developmental psychology
Most quoted
"The child who defines a lie as 'a naughty word' knows perfectly well that lying consists of not speaking the truth. He is not, therefore, mistaking one thing for another; he is simply identifying them one with another by what seems to us a quaint extension of the word lie."
— from The Moral Judgment of the Child, 1932
"The more the schemata are differentiated, the smaller the gap between the new and the familiar becomes, so that novelty, instead of constituting an annoyance avoided by the subject, becomes a problem and invites searching."
— from The Origins of Intelligence in Children, 1936
"Knowledge is not a copy of reality. To know an object, to know an event, is not simply to look at it and record it in a mental image or even to make a perceptual copy of it. To know an object is to act on it."
— from Speech at UNESCO, 'Science of Education and the Psychology of the Child', 1964
All quotes by Jean Piaget (326)
Knowledge is not a copy of reality. To know an object, to know an event, is not simply to look at it and make a mental copy or image of it.
The child's mind is a garden, and we are often too busy planting weeds.
Children are like scientists, constantly experimenting and forming hypotheses about the world.
The only true education comes from experience.
We often underestimate the intelligence of children, and overestimate the intelligence of adults.
The greatest danger to education is the belief that we already know everything.
Learning is a process of active construction, not passive reception.
The child's mind is not a blank slate, but a complex and active constructor of reality.
If you want to teach a child something, let them discover it for themselves.
The problem with education is that it often tries to fit square pegs into round holes.
The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.
Children are not just learning about the world; they are creating their own world.
The more we try to control a child's learning, the less they will truly learn.
The only way to truly understand something is to act upon it.
Adults often mistake a child's lack of verbal expression for a lack of thought.
The greatest discovery of all is that we are constantly discovering.
The child's world is a world of action, not just words.
We teach children to memorize facts, but we rarely teach them how to think.
The mind organizes the world by organizing itself.
The true measure of intelligence is not how much you know, but how well you can adapt to change.
Contemporaries of Jean Piaget
Other Psychologys born within 50 years of Jean Piaget (1896–1980).