Early childhood education is based off of many different theorists, theories, developments, stages, and curriculums to help reach the needs and interests of each individual child learning today. There are many important theorists now and then that have developed theories: constructivists, behaviorists, or maturationists and curriculums to help support and drive instruction today. Jean Piaget's work is a natural predecessor to project approach, emergent curriculum, differentiated instruction, and multiple intelligences (Mooney, 2013). One thing he says are is that children are "little scientists" and develop their own intelligence (Morrison, 2013). Children learn today through developmentally appropriate practice, exploring real-life experiences, and based off of their own interests.
One theorist, Jean Piaget, has four stages of cognitive development and has established a HighScope Curriculum Model in? which will help educators understand how children develop and learn as they grow. As it says in the Code of Ethical Conduct position statement, some of the core values include: appreciate childhood as a unique and valuable stage of the human life cycle and base our work on knowledge of how children develop and learn (NAEYC, 2011). It is key to understand and know how children are developing and learning as early childhood educators.
Background Information.
Here is some history on the theorist Jean Piaget. He was born in Switzerland in 1896 and died in 1980. Piaget was a constructivist and was an epistemologist, which is someone who studies the nature and beginning of knowledge (Mooney, 2013). He established the HighScope Curriculum Model and the project approach to learning. His theory was a constructivist theory, in this sense learning is mental process involving children's adapting new knowledge to what they already know. Piaget's proposition is that children develop their learning through direct experiences with the physical world.