Which position do you believe best describes childhood intelligence – Piaget’s position or the Nature verses Nurture treatment or Gardener’s multiple intelligences? Explain your reply.
When sing intelligence. Piaget focuses on the mental procedures that occur. instead than on the existent step of the mind. He uses four countries to specify intelligence where Gardner defines eight. For Piaget these countries are a biological attack to looking at intelligence. the sequence of the phases. cognition. and rational competency ( Vander Zanden. 2003 ) .
Piaget’s biological attack. or biological version. focal points on the physical and mental facets of our organic structures. This includes our physiological reactions. which occur when certain stimuli trigger an natural response. He besides discusses how we adapt to certain state of affairss utilizing assimilation and adjustment. Assimilation occurs when new information is introduced to a individual. The individual begins to incorporate the new information into bing files. or “schema” . Accommodation occurs when the individual reorganizes scheme to suit him or herself with the environment ( Vander Zanden. 2003 ) .
The sequence of phases involves the motion through four phases that Piaget has set and defined. Children must travel through these phases during their childhood. These include Sensorimotor. Preoperational. Concrete operational. and Formal operational ( Vander Zanden. 2003 ) . Stage motion is an of import factor of Piaget’s definition of intelligence. because Piaget provinces there are a specific set of standards that must be met and mastered at each phase. In order to travel from the first phase to the following. the kid must get the hang that specific set of standards ( Vander Zanden. 2003 ) .
To specify Intellectual Competence. Piaget focuses on the highest degree of working that can happen at a specific phase. Although Piaget has approximative ages assigned to phases. a child’s competency is merely measured by what phase they are in. non by age. If the kid can merely execute undertakings that are at the preoperational phase. which is the highest degree the kid is at regardless of age ( Vander Zanden. 2003 ) .
Piaget’s theory explains how human intelligence develops through an rational regulative procedure geared by version to the environment ( Vander Zanden. 2003 ) . During this ongoing relationship with the environment the kid exhibits certain organisations based upon assimilation- the pickings in procedure of experience. accepting new brushs and suiting them into bing strategies. and accommodation- the reaction of the person who encounters new experiences that are non consistent with bing strategies and so the individual must alter their strategy to accept or suit the new information ( Vander Zanden. 2003 ) . Piaget felt that a babe is an active and funny being. which reaches out and seeks to modulate a balance between assimilation and adjustment. This balance is what Piaget describes as equilibrium.
Piaget considered the procedure of equilibrium an of import factor in the cognitive growing and development of a kid. It was for this ground Piaget insisted that kids must be allowed to make their ain acquisition. Piaget realized that worlds increasingly develop or mature to higher provinces of cognitive development and realized that kids get cognition transmitted by parents. instructors. and books ; he called this “social transmittal. ” Piaget believed that when a kid hears contradictory statements that challenge established strategies. equilibrium is disturbed ( Vander Zanden. 2003 ) . Piaget called such a break in equilibrium “cognitive struggle or disequilibrium. ” When kids experience cognitive struggle. they set out in hunt of an reply that will enable them to accomplish provinces of equilibrium.
Piaget felt that all kids go through certain phases of rational development in the same order. even though the chronological ages may change between bright and dull pupils.
Early on in his calling. he had been a devoted pupil of Piaget ; nevertheless. as Gardner probed more profoundly in his ain survey of the head. he re-evaluated Piaget’s theories as “too narrow a impression of how the human head plants. ” Gardner farther stated that he did non believe in the being of “one signifier of cognition” that “cuts across all human thought. ” Gardner observed that there are at least seven intelligences and that each of these intelligences has independent rational incapacities ( 1999 ) .
Subsequently. Gardner wrote about his observations of multiple intelligences in what has turned out to be a seminal book in the educational community. Frames of Mind. which was published in 1983. The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. which Gardner proposed in this book. has become a accelerator. every bit good as the model. for many current educational schemes that are turn outing successful in heightening pupil success. The theory advances a mental paradigm in which each individual’s head can be thought of as a delightful pie. with seven big pre-cut pieces. each with its ain distinguishable gustatory sensation. In other words. Gardner proposed at least eight comparatively independent rational capacities that persons employ to near jobs ( 1999 ) :
§linguistic.
§musical.
§logical-mathematical.
§spatial. bodily-kinesthetic.
§naturalist
§interpersonal. and
§intrapersonal intelligences.
Harmonizing to Gardner ( 1999 ) . the deduction of the theory is that learning/teaching should concentrate on the peculiar intelligences of each individual. For illustration. if an person has strong spacial or musical intelligences. they should be encouraged to develop these abilities. Gardner points out that the different intelligences represent non merely different content spheres but besides larning modes. A farther deduction of the theory is that appraisal of abilities should mensurate all signifiers of intelligence. non merely lingual and logical-mathematical.
Gardner says. “Although they are non needfully dependent on each other. these intelligences rarely operate in isolation. Every normal single possesses changing grades of each of these intelligences. but the ways in which intelligences combine and blend are every bit varied as the faces and the personalities of individuals” ( 1999 ) .
In drumhead. Piaget describes four phases of intelligence looking at them through a biological attack ( Vander Zanden. 2003 ) . Piaget believed that if one did non do it through one phase successfully so they could non travel on to the following phase of intelligence ( Vander Zanden. 2003 ) . Whereas Gardner describes eight phase of intelligence ( MI – Multiple Intelligences ) and states that. everyone processes an country and nowadayss grounds from many spheres including biological science. anthropology. and the originative humanistic disciplines to which they excel at and it is in that country they should be nurtured to turn ( 1999 ) .
In drumhead. Gardner refers to IQ testing and the prejudices that go along with them socially. culturally. and in general non proving of all the different countries of intelligence.
As quoted by Gardner ( 1999 ) :
“Human existences are able to cover with legion sorts of content besides words. Numberss. and logical dealingss — for illustration. infinite. music. the minds of other human existences. Like the elastic set. definitions of intelligence demand to be expanded to include human accomplishment in covering with these diverse contents. In add-on. we must non curtail attending to work outing jobs that have been posed by others ; we must see every bit the capacity of persons to manner merchandises — scientific experiments. effectual organisations — that draw on one or more human intelligences. The elastic set can suit such widening every bit good. ”
Mentions:
Gardner. H. ( 1999 ) . Who Owns Intelligence? Retrieved April 19. 2003 from hypertext transfer protocol: //www. theatlantic. com/issues/99feb/intel. htm
Vander Zanden. J. W. ( 2003 ) . Human development ( 7th ed. ) . New York: McGraw-Hill.
