Editing Jean Piaget (section)

==Personal life==
Piaget was born in 1896 in [[Neuchâtel]], in the [[Francophone region of Switzerland]]. He was the oldest son of [[Arthur Piaget]] (Swiss), a professor of [[medieval literature]] at the [[University of Neuchâtel]], and Rebecca Jackson (French). Rebecca Jackson came from a prominent family of French steel foundry owners<ref>{{Cite web|title= Jean Piaget: biography of the father of evolutionary psychology 【NUOVO】|url=https://virtualpsychcentre.com/jean-piaget-biography-of-the-father-of-evolutionary-psychology/|access-date=2022-02-20|website= All about Psychology - VirtualPsychCentre|language=en-US}}</ref> of English descent through her [[Lancashire]]-born great-grandfather, steelmaker [[James Jackson (steelmaker)|James Jackson]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=James Jackson|url=https://www.geni.com/people/James-Jackson/6000000038577199031|access-date=2022-02-20|website=Geni |language=en-US}}</ref> Piaget was a precocious child who developed an interest in [[biology]] and the natural world. His early interest in [[zoology]] earned him a reputation among those in the field after he had published several articles on [[mollusk]]s by the age of 15.<ref>[http://www.biography.com/people/jean-piaget-9439915 "Jean Piaget"], Biography. Accessed 28 February 2012</ref>

When he was 15, his former nanny wrote to his parents to apologize for having once lied to them about fighting off a would-be kidnapper from baby Jean's pram. There never was a kidnapper. Piaget became fascinated that he had somehow formed a memory of this kidnapping incident, a memory that endured even after he understood it to be false.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Restak |first1=Richard |title=The Naked Brain: How the Emerging Neurosociety is Changing How We Live, Work, and Love |url=https://archive.org/details/nakedbrainhoweme0000rest |url-access=registration |date=2006 |publisher=Harmony |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/nakedbrainhoweme0000rest/page/156 156]|isbn=978-1-4000-9808-8 }}</ref>

He developed an interest in [[epistemology]] due to his godfather's urgings to study the fields of philosophy and logic.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Biehler|first1=Robert F.|title=Psychology Applied to Teaching|date=1978|publisher=Houghton Mifflin|page=113|isbn=978-0-395-11921-1}}</ref> He was educated at the University of Neuchâtel, and studied briefly at the [[University of Zürich]]. During this time, he published two philosophical papers that showed the direction of his thinking at the time, but which he later dismissed as adolescent thought.<ref>[http://www.piaget.org/aboutPiaget.html A Brief Biography of Jean Piaget] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190824192513/http://www.piaget.org/aboutPiaget.html |date=24 August 2019 }}, Jean Piaget Society (Society for the study of knowledge and development)</ref> His interest in [[psychoanalysis]], at the time a burgeoning strain of psychology, can also be dated to this period.

Piaget moved from Switzerland to Paris after his graduation and he taught at the Grange-Aux-Belles Street School for Boys. The school was run by [[Alfred Binet]], the developer of the Binet-Simon test (later revised by Lewis Terman to become the [[Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scales]]). Piaget assisted in the marking of Binet's intelligence tests. It was while he was helping to mark some of these tests that Piaget noticed that young children consistently gave wrong answers to certain questions.<ref>{{Citation |last=Piaget |first=Jean |title=Jean Piaget. |date=1952 |url=http://content.apa.org/books/11154-011 |work=A History of Psychology in Autobiography, Vol IV. |pages=237–256 |editor-last=Boring |editor-first=Edwin G. |place=Worcester |publisher=Clark University Press |language=en |doi=10.1037/11154-011 |access-date=2022-07-07 |editor2-last=Werner |editor2-first=Heinz |editor3-last=Langfeld |editor3-first=Herbert S. |editor4-last=Yerkes |editor4-first=Robert M.}}</ref> Piaget did not focus so much on the fact of the children's answers being wrong, but that young children consistently made types of mistakes that older children and adults managed to avoid. This led him to the theory that young children's cognitive processes are inherently different from those of adults. Ultimately, he was to propose a global theory of cognitive developmental stages in which individuals exhibit certain common patterns of cognition in each period of development.

In 1921, Piaget returned to Switzerland as director of the [[Rousseau Institute]] in [[Geneva]]. At this time, the institute was directed by [[Édouard Claparède]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://gseacademic.harvard.edu/~hgsebio/presentations/A%20Brief%20Biography%20of%20Jean%20Piaget.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060901201210/http://gseacademic.harvard.edu/~hgsebio/presentations/A%20Brief%20Biography%20of%20Jean%20Piaget.pdf |archive-date=2006-09-01 |url-status=live|title=A Brief Biography of Jean Piaget|author=Mayer, Susan |date=21 October 2005|website=gseacademic.harvard.edu}}</ref> Piaget was familiar with many of Claparède's ideas, including that of the psychological concept of ''groping'' which was closely associated with "trials and errors" observed in human mental patterns.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Voyat, G. |year=1981|title=Jean Piaget: 1896–1980|journal=The American Journal of Psychology|volume=94|issue=4|pages= 645–648|pmid=7044156}}</ref>

In 1923, he married Valentine Châtenay (7 January 1899 – 3 July 1983);<ref>[http://www.fondationjeanpiaget.ch/fjp/site/biographie/index_biographie.php Fondation Jean Piaget – Biographie]. Fondationjeanpiaget.ch. Retrieved on 26 February 2018.</ref> the couple had three children, whom Piaget studied from infancy. From 1925 to 1929, Piaget worked as a professor of psychology, sociology, and the philosophy of science at
the [[University of Neuchatel]].<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1037/h0020564|pmid=4910176|title=Distinguished Scientific Contribution Awards: 1969: Citation for Jean Piaget|journal=American Psychologist|volume=25|issue=1|pages=65–79|year=1970|author=Anon}}</ref> In 1929, Piaget accepted the post of Director of the International Bureau of Education and remained the head of this international organization until 1968. Every year, he drafted his "Director's Speeches" for the IBE Council and for the International Conference on Public Education in which he explicitly addressed his educational credo.

Having taught at the [[University of Geneva]], and at the [[University of Paris]] in 1964, Piaget was invited to serve as chief consultant at two conferences at [[Cornell University]] (11–13 March) and the [[University of California, Berkeley]] (16–18 March). The conferences addressed the relationship of cognitive studies and curriculum development, and strived to conceive implications of recent investigations of children's cognitive development for curricula.<ref>Rockcastle, Verne N. (1964, p. xi), the conference director, wrote in the conference report of the Jean Piaget conferences about Piaget:
:Although few of us had any personal contact with Piaget prior to the conference, those who attended came to have the deepest and warmest regard for him both as a scientist and as a person. His sense of humor throughout the conference was a sort of international glue that flavored his lectures and punctuated his informal conversation. To sit at the table with him during a meal was not only an intellectual pleasure but a pure social delight. Piaget was completely unsophisticated in spite of his international stature. We could hardly believe it when he came prepared for two weeks' stay with only his 'serviette' and a small Swissair bag. An American would have had at least two large suitcases. When Piaget left Berkeley, he had his serviette, the small Swissair bag, and a third, larger bag crammed with botanical specimens. 'Where did you get that bag?' we asked. 'I had it in one of the others,' he replied.</ref>

In 1972 Piaget was awarded the [[Erasmus Prize]] and in 1979 the [[Balzan Prize]] for Social and Political Sciences. Piaget died on 16 September 1980, and, as he had requested, was buried with his family in an unmarked grave in the [[Cimetière des Rois]] (Cemetery of Kings) in Geneva.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Burman|first1=Jeremy Trevelyan|year=2013|title=Profiles of international archives: Les archives Jean Piaget, University of Geneva, Switzerland|journal=History of Psychology|volume=16|issue=2|pages=158–61|doi=10.1037/a0031405|pmid=23544355}} A photograph of his grave is available [http://supp.apa.org/psycarticles/supplemental/a0031405/Burman-PiagetStones%28ColorInset%29-lrgweb.jpg here].</ref>