Good stuff!
Your clarification of ‘universal’ implies that we still somehow disagree, I accept all of the above.
It’s interesting that you seem to look into the origin of ideas so often. There’s nothing wrong with it, it’s just a very alien habit to me. I basically isolate ideas entirely from historical context, I can see certainly see benefits of your way, it just never appeals to me. //derail
I never used to. But people would know more about it than me, and then they'd put up persuasive arguments this way and that, and my life fluttered like a butterfly in a hurricane. I learned that if I knew the origin of ideas, then I could have a better overview of what happened with an idea, what the major factors were, what the details were, etc. It put things into perspective so that I could use them without screwing up my life. It also meant that if someone tried to blindside me with an argument based on an earlier understanding of the idea, I'd have some knowledge of it, and then they couldn't easily shake me. My life calmed down.
It seems we still agree on everything so far.
This is a really good point. I see it slightly different, but we are largely in agreement. The model does give ordinal value to the cognitive landmarks, which I don’t think is entirely correct, but it is largely descriptive of reality. It’s not deductive in conclusion, but psychology would be a very poor descriptive tool if it limited itself to only deductive reasoning.
I like non-deductive reasoning. But I know that any reasoning is only going to work reliably, if I am careful to stay within its reliable operating parameters. If I extend it beyond that, it won't break. But the thing I would be using it for, probably will, and probably, no-one would even notice, because they think we're using it right.
Piaget’s theory describes a pattern of development that is largely true for the entire human population,
Not so sure anymore. Seems like there are a LOT of people who got screwed by being pigeon-holed by the education system.
but there are certainly outliers.
For example, I’m pretty sure I reached formal operations before having completely developed my concrete operations. I’ve gone through life retroactively correcting poor inferences pertaining to concrete reality. I’ve always been off with the faeries, and thus am sometimes caught doing something fucking awkward that would be easy for the average 12yo. I’m a moderate outlier, but the rule in general still holds true.
I’m not entirely certain that the theory posits that you must reach equal skill before moving on (though I’m certainly open to that possibility). I have only read that the stages are ordinal in nature. This means that I could develop some semblance of reversibility and conservation, but not develop these to average competence before moving on to more complex operations. This isn’t skipping a step, but it is getting to later stages without achieving our (arbitrary) measure of social, motor, or observational skills.
You’re an outlier in this respect.
These are both good and accepted limitations/criticisms. I guess I don’t worry too much about them because I’m not too married to the idea that Piaget was entirely correct. Piaget, just like Freud and Jung, had good ideas, but didn’t get everything correct in his first go. This means we shouldn’t accept everything he says as gospel, but I generally think that sort of faith in anything is sorta bad.
The important thing is that his idea describes reality to a fair degree, and that the patterns he noticed are similar to those that Jung noticed. That’s pretty much the extent of any positive claim I’m making. There is a correlation that I want to explore, particularly in light of the blatant prejudice that one sees floating about on type sites (a third corellatory, though probably irrelevant given the shared cause).
I think that we both agree, that all humans can develop multiple skill sets, and to different amounts (including nothing). and can also learn them in different orders, and maybe, sometimes even in parallel, as well as sequentially.
However, from what I've read, Paiget's ideas did influence educators, or good and bad, even to this day, and probably in public schools like the ones that many posters here attended.
The good stuff, was that people used to think you were either totally stupid or totally smart, and if you didn't show advanced reasoning, they wrote you off as a moron, who had to be told what to do all the time like a dumb animal. Piaget thus showed by his use of stages, that you could still be competent at some tasks, even if you couldn't get your head round advanced multi-dimensional Hahn-Banach spaces.
The bad stuff, was that Piaget thought this was a biological process, one that all humans had to go through stage by stage, and thus was absolutely impossible to be even slightly capable of a later stage if you didn't show the same competency of an earlier stage. This influenced educators in several ways. I know of 2 ways that I and others experienced:
1) If your teachers happened to notice that you were doing a later stage, like they saw you doing advanced maths, they assumed that you had already passed through and achieved competency in the earlier stages. You were immediately pushed up classes, and you were not given a chance to be taught about the skills in the earlier stages. This particularly happened to gifted students, who were excellent at music, or maths, or languages, but still had a normal level of capability for their age in social skills, or sports, or things like that.
If they stayed with their peers, they would get so bored with the subjects they were gifted in, they lost interest, got distracted, didn't do their homework, and flunked out, and the world lost another genius who could have changed the world for the better.
If they moved up, they weren't given the chance to develop their social skills, sports and co-ordination, and all that. They were half a person. They could publish theories, and perform concerts. But they couldn't really communicate to others. So they were the most appalling teachers and communicators. They knew how to save millions of lives, and people respected their intelligence enough, that they would be willing to listen. But they were so lacking in social skills, that no-one would listen, because they couldn't communicate, especially in non-verbal communication, which is 90% of communication. So again, more massive waste of human development.
Plus, either way, they were a dropout or a freak. Their lives were extremely unpleasant.
2) If your teachers happened to notice that you were struggling with a stage, they'd assume that you wouldn't be able to progress further. It didn't matter why. Often, it was because you had a major family problem during those years, like a bitter divorce. It was so emotionally turbulent that you could not hope to concentrate. After a year, you'd be fine. But now, for you to continue, you'd have to start the year behind everyone else, and according to Piaget, that meant you had a learning difficulty with those skills, because otherwise, you would have learned those skills at the right age. So that meant you could not possibly progress further, not until it could be firmly established that you showed competency in that field. But because of the presumption of the learning difficulty, teachers would treat you like you were disabled. Even on that stage, they'd keep giving you only the most simple of tasks. So in their eyes, you never showed competency in those skill sets, because you'd never proved you had. You'd spend the rest of your school days being treated like a retard. You'd leave school with no qualifications, and lacking even in proper education of reading and writing. Employers assumed that because you struggled to read and write, and had no qualifications, that you were retarded, and you weren't worth employing, except for the most menial of jobs.
If you could break the cycle, you'd have to find people, who you could convince could do well, if you were given a chance. Then you had to study in secret with them, until you had developed enough skill to sit exams with children. Then you and your friends would have to try to convince the board to let you sit those exams. After all that, you had the qualifications of a 16-year-old. But at least you could get a regular job.
Or, you took jobs cash-in-hand with people by word of mouth, and you just blagged your way through life, never being a part of the system, and never gaining from it either.
Again, more waste of great minds.
When I have to do something, and I'm being held back because I didn't learn something that I should have been taught in school, it's infuriating.
It's also really infuriating when people complain about the world, and blame it on religion, or that we're not paying scientists enough, and I look at this, I know that even if we had what they wanted, we'd still be just as screwed, and it pisses me off, because others will agree with them, and put money on the wrong things, that will probably just make the problems worse.
