One of the most influential educators in the world
―Jean Piaget and Maria Montessori ―
and
Way of Mother’s Discipline and Child’s Mental Development
Akemi Nozaki and Eriko Uchida
Ⅰ１. Introduction
We young people or others have cognitive knowledge (it means that connected with mental process of understanding.) . In other words, we have the competence to think. How did we acquire this competence so far? I want to focus on the process whereby children understand the world by looking at Piaget’s theory.
2. Jean Piaget
He was born in Switzerland in 1896. He clarified the development of intelligence from newborn babies to youths scientifically and he founded developmental psychology (発達心理学[1]) , cognitive theory, and genetic epistemology (認識論[2]) .
3. His Theory
According to Piaget, children try to adapt to the environment positively with the innate (生得の) action (for example, sucking) or new complicated actions based on their innate action. He believed that children have gain their knowledge by forming schema. In other words, schema is a kind of information processing and storing system to understand the world. Children’s knowledge is developed through the process of assimilation and accommodation.
(1) ① assimilation (同化) : Children try to understand the world by using the schema they already have.
② accommodation (調節) : Children revise (修正する) their schema as it fits the new information. As a result, children can broaden the framework of their knowledge.
(2) An example of assimilation (同化) , accommodation (調節) and equilibrium (均衡化)
*As = assimilation Ac = accommodation
When children try to adjust to the environment, we call the action system adjusting their schema (for example, the behavior that infants suck anything when it touches their mouth.) . They acquire the information (to fill their stomach when they suck mother’s breast) by adjusting this schema to the environment, which we call this assimilation. At the same time they revise their schema a little bit (When mother’s nipple touches the infant’s cheek, they look for it toward the right direction) . If they fail to assimilate (They look for the something to suck when they are hungry, so they suck their fingers or a blanket but fingers or a blanket they don’t feed them.) , they revise their schema (When they are hungry, they don’t suck their fingers or a blanket.) . We call this action accommodation. Assimilation and accommodation happen like two sides of the same coin. We call this equilibrium (均衡化)
3. Mental Developmental Stages
1 The sensorimotor stages (0~2 years old) : 感覚運動期
The infant uses senses and motor abilities to understand the world.
e.g. The baby sucks her thumb. That feels good, so she sucks her thumb more and more...
2 The preoperational stage (2~7 years old) : 前操作期
They create simple phrases such as “so big” and “all gone”.
They have mental representations and are able to pretend, it is a short step to the use of symbols (drawing, written word, spoken word, language and etc...) .
*animism･･･The belief that everything has a consciousness or life
*the theory of artificialness (人工論) ･･･Everything is made by human-beings.
* (実念論) ･･･They believe that all they think exists.
This picture below shows the egocentric (自己中心的な) characteristic of the child during this stage.
There are three different shapes of blocks. If I ask a child, how can you see from the view that I would see, in short, the view from other side. He would see the columnar (円柱) block on the left and round block on the right. From the view I would see, I can see the round block on the left and columnar on the right. The child would answer the question from the view they see only. He can’t imagine the view the other side. They can’t imagine how others think. But this kind of mistake is important to understand their cognitive development. This research is well known as a “Mountain Study”.
③ The concrete operational stage (7~11 years old) : 具体的操作期
operations = logical operations or principal we use when solving problems
In this stage, the child is possible to think about the context of concrete situation logically.
Conservation (保存)
Reversibility (可逆性)
④ The formal operation stage (12~18 years old) : 形式的操作期
In this stage, they can recognize the abstract events. They become increasingly competent at adult-style thinking. (=hypothetical thinking: 仮説演繹的思考 )
e.g. E K 4 7
3 Maria Montessori (1870~1952)
・She was the first woman in Italy to become a doctor of medicine. She based her educational methods on the scientific observation of children’s learning processes.
① The aim and the method of Montessori
(1) Her aim = to create an independent child
Children are born with the competence of making them grow up and develop so their parents or teachers should understand the demand and guarantee their freedom. Besides they should support children’s voluntary activity. They drive their children to play and work with enthusiasm.
(2) The method = to guarantee children’s freedom and educate by environment
Montessori founded the “children’s house” and there, they are guaranteed the freedom that children may cope with whatever they are interested in. She designed a “prepared environment (整えられた環境) ”.
“Prepared environment” fulfilled the following four factors.
・Environment in which children can choose the teaching tools (教具) .
・The interesting tools which makes children want to play or work.
・Forming the different age class so as to encourage the social or intellectual cooperation.
・The teachers who support the children’s self-development and prepare the environment which is appropriate for the each children’s developmental stages.
l In Montessori education, the teacher is not the person who teaches but the observer or a supporter.
② The content of the Montessori education
In this education, they set the following five experimental subjects based on the children’s spontaneous (自発的な) developmental program. Not always they follow the curriculum, their independence is respected.
(1) Practical life: 日常生活の練習
２～３year old children want to imitate the adult’s daily action. They are under the “imitating period”. In this period, they can move their body freely. And also, they can do everything by themselves.
As a result...
↓
Independence increases.
(1) Sensorial education:感覚教育
３~4 years old children begin to have the desire to make their sensorial organs more sophisticated. The activity of using the five senses (sight, touch, hearing, smell and taste) makes children’s sensorial organs sophisticated and developed.
(2) Language education
Children learn words by using the picture card or letter card, each of those teaching tools fits their developmental stages. Language is the basis to get along with others in society and useful to mutual understanding.
(3) Mathematics:数教育
Children’s vague (曖昧な) understanding is put in order. This education
leads to children to learn about history or religion related to the concept of number and time.
(4) Cultural education
This education stimulates the children’s curiousness or creativity. The aim of this region is that they raise the children who take care of others and love peace.
③ The differences between Montessori and traditional education
Montessori emphasizes learning through the five senses. Children in Montessori classes learn at their own, individual pace and according to their own choice of activities. Learning is an exciting process of discovery, leading to concentration, motivation, self discipline and a love of learning.
④ What can we do for children as a mother?
We can provide them the opportunity for independence. For instance, we make them clear away their dishes after dinner or put the toys away neatly. Mothers motivate them for independence.
4 Conclusion
We have looked how children understand the world through the Piaget’s theory. They have innate competence to adjust the new environment and they develop their cognitive knowledge by passing the process of developmental stage.
And also, we have looked at the education of Maria Montessori. We understood that teachers or parents should support their development or provide the opportunities for independence. We have the power of developing ourselves. This is similar to the development. Children have the power of growing up for themselves. So all need teachers and parents should do is to help at the proper situation, observe them and support.
Way of mother’s discipline and child’s mental development
The environment is very important for bringing up a child. Above all things, humans live together with family and learn many things from family.
Family: small group that is connected by mutual devotion and trust.
The measure of devotion and trust affect the child’s development. Especially, child’s behavior is affected by his/her mother’s behavior, words and attitude.
○Discipline○
When a child is doing something bad or doesn’t hear her mother’s saying, the mother may caution or try to listen to her words.
This time focus is how much mother can allow a child’s psychological space, that is, space of response choice.
The way of disciplining is different between the United States and Japan.
America…………Direct command (直接命令) high level control, mother makes her children to listen her caution in an authoritative way.
Approval listens to children say and allows them their view (yielding)
Japan………… Trying to persuade them to make them obedient.
↓
Allow their opinions and pass (not all allowed)
Japan’s psychological pressure is weaker than America’s.
We can see this feature of the difference of how to discipline in below experiment.
○Experiment○
Purpose: To make clear the style of teach, pattern of mutual touch (相互交流) and style of communication.
Content: Block Sort Task (積木分類課題) , communication Game (図形伝達課題) , Unstructured Game (自由遊び場面)
Control strategy of psychological space (しつけ方略の心理的空間[3])
ObjectLevel of
Psychological space / Mother / Teacher
JAPAN / U.S.A. / JAPAN / U.S.A.
1. Direct command / 43.1 / 54.6 / 39.4 / 34.0
2. Mild command / 9.2 / 11.9 / 16.0 / 20.6
3. Converted command / 7.2 / 0.5 / 22.8 / 4.1
4. Substitute / 1.4 / 14.0 / 0 / 31.8
5. Concession, compromise / 1.4 / 7.0 / 0.6 / 1.2
6. Persuasion, suggestion / 22.4 / 2.0 / 18.7 / 1.2
7. Allover admit / 2.6 / 3.7 / 0.6 / 4.7
8. Persuade→allow / 2.9 / 3.2 / 0.6 / 2.4
9. Impossibility of decision / 9.8 / 2.2 / 1.3 / 0
SUM (％) / 100.0 / 100.0 / 100.0 / 100.0
E.g.
1. “Brush your teeth clean!”
2. “Let’s brush our teeth before we have bad teeth (虫歯) ”
3. “Don’t write on the wall, I’ll give a piece of paper instead”.
4. “If you finish doing it, I’ll read you picture book.”
5. “Let’s try to eat a bit of this carrot.”
6. “If you wouldn’t eat any vegetables, your blood wouldn’t run smoothly. It isn’t good for you, is it?”
7. === Saying nothing (Mother doesn’t rebuke the children.)
8. “Eat to grow up!” __Child doesn’t eat → no repeating
Control strategy of recognition space (しつけ方略の認知的空間)
ObjectLevel of recognition space / Mother / Teacher
JAPAN / U.S.A / JAPAN / U.S.A
1. (Status) no reason / 17.5 / 45.6 / 17.9 / 34.1
2. Rule / 13.6 / 16.9 / 32.3 / 33.4
3. Personal/subjective reason / 21.9 / 7.9 / 21.8 / 10.6
4. Logical/rational reason / 30.6 / 22.3 / 18.8 / 20.3
5. Model / 5.0 / 0.6 / 1.3 / 0
6. Cause / 2.4 / 3.4 / 7.0 / 1.0
7.impossibility of decision / 9.0 / 3.3 / 0.9 / 0.6
SUM (％) / 100.0 / 100.0 / 100.0 / 100.0
E.g.
1.”Eat! Soon!”
2.”You mustn’t throw your blocks. It’s not a ball.”
3.”You might feel bad when you injure someone with the blocks. Your friends also will feel bad.”
4.”If you don’t eat these vegetables, you won’t grow up.”
5.”If you do such a bad thing, your younger brother will copy you.
In Japan, some mothers say only about the cause and result. Usually, these are suggestions and orders. Many mothers expect the child to guess ‘what should I do now?’ by to give reason that is easy to understand for child.
Result
In America, many mothers give their child purpose of subject and direction of general explanation. A lot of questions are intentioned to make answer by speech not action. If child make some mistakes, mother repeats to ask same question.
In Japan, many mothers ask to carry out the subject exactly, but doesn’t care about these answer’s cognizance background. A lot of questions and orders are not how to stage by stage (段階をふんだ方法でなく) but are directly connected with final purpose action. If child said right answer, she adds more some information about that. It means many mother do feedback actively.
○Relationship between mother’s teaching style and child’s score.
If mother do give feedback soon when child made a mistake on the test, it is plus inflection for child’s score, especially in Japan.
The importance of feedback for children and three types.
Type of modification (付加) To add more information to former explanation.
Type of renew (一新) With draw before explanation and play over completely different one