Department of Physics and Astronomy: Publications and Other Research
Date of this Version
October 2007
Abstract
Bärbel Inhelder and Jean Piaget. The Growth of Logical Thinking from Childhood to Adolescence An Essay on the Construction of Formal Operational Structures. New York: Basic Books, Inc., Publishers. 1958, ISBN 041521002X, 356 pp, $25.
My recommendation is get your hands on this seminal book (it is probably in a library near you.), read at least the first part of each of the first 14 chapters and try an much of the rest of the book as you can stand. Then set it aside and read To Understand Is To Invent, The Having of Wonderful Ideas (Duckworth) and Children and Adolescents; Interpretive Essays on Jean Piaget (Elkind). After that, if you get caught up in the content autocracy of teaching your discipline within a formal educational institution, I hope that the voice of Jean Piaget will haunt you in your sleep, saying, “Have you forgotten about the development of reasoning?”
Comments
Published in Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 29:5 (Sept-Oct 2008), pp. 412-414. Copyright 2007 Elsevier Inc. Used by permission.