Do these Fourth Graders Live Up to Piaget’s Theories?

[Sophia Maag]

The Greenvale Park classroom was dark when Logan and I stepped up to the door. The projector was on, a podcast playing, and kids were scattered across the room, some standing up, some perched on their desks, others sitting still. “Do we go in? Knock?” I asked. A moment later, Ms. McLaughlin stepped out into the hallway and greeted us. A relatively young woman, Ms. McLauglin leads a class of twenty fourth-graders. However, only eighteen students have been present during my visits — the other two have been in quarantine at home. The class is very homogenous in appearance, and of the twenty students, there are only four boys. All the students and teachers are required to wear masks, but some are better at it than others. Some wear it religiously under their noses, others have it casually draped over their ear. For the most part, everyone follows the rules. The first Monday, Allie (not her real name), a squirrelly blond girl was reading me a book about volcanos when she pointed to her purple mask, saying, “This will protect me when there is a Volcano. I won’t breath in the dust.”

According to Piaget, these 4th graders, roughly nine and ten years old, should be in the concrete operational stage. This stage focuses on conservation, classification seriation, and reversibility, among other things. For the most part, these kids seem to follow this stage, and the teacher seems to actively find tasks that will engage qualities such as reversibility. For instance, during a lesson about non-fiction books, the teacher held up books and asked her students to categorize them as either narrative or expository non-fiction. At first, they followed a pattern of narrative then expository, but as she progressed through the books the order became random and the kids had to think about the qualities of the books, instead of relying on the previous pattern. Some of the kids transitioned easily with the switch but others continued to blurt out “Expository! Narrative! Expository! Narrative!”

Every day the fourth graders have about twenty minutes of reading time. There is a huge classroom library and the students have the freedom to pick whatever book they want and think is appropriate for their reading level. I have been able to move around the classroom, sitting with students, asking them questions, and asking them to read to me. I first sat down next to a girl reading a picture book; I’ll call her Kay. She gave me an in-depth summary of the book, as she’d read it previously. I was impressed. As I moved along, I realized she was one of few kids still reading picture books. Most others had graphic novels or chapter books. Kay loves to read, though. They all do. When I was in elementary school we were placed in reading groups according to reading level; there was always drama and hurt feelings over who got to be in the “good” group,” and who was placed in the “bad” group. Ms. McLauglin’s system doesn’t deal with this. Friday, when I sat down with Kay, she pulled out a book called Baby Whales Drink Milk. On the first page, it said whales were mammals. I asked Kay if she knew what other species were mammals and I pointed at her. She deduced that humans were mammals and so that meant being a mammal meant having a mom. This was the most direct evidence of Assimilation/Accommodation I saw. Because she was a mammal and had a mom, that must mean that being a mammal meant having a mom. A page later, she was corrected and now understands what it means to be a mammal.

At the end of the day, all the kids get out their iPads and log into a reading skills program called Lexia. Today I had the opportunity to sit outside the classroom with Allie as she worked on the program. I’d been assigned the job of keeping her on task. As she opened her iPad, she said, “I don’t want to do this. I just want to read…” I asked her if we could just do the program for a few minutes and she obliged. I soon realized why she didn’t want to do all the reading skill “games.” She got all but one question correct, and it barely took her any time. After zipping through several levels she moaned that she was bored, understandably. She is very smart, but also has trouble staying on task, using her words, and will occasionally stand up in class and blurt out some random information. She obviously learns in a different way. Sitting in this classroom, I’ve begun to realize that it is incredibly hard to give kids individual attention. Everyone needs it, but there is only one teacher.

[Shaw Qin]

First, I love your observation of Allie claiming that her mask protects her from the volcano! I also find your comment on Piaget’s assimilation/accommodation in the classroom fascinating and insightful. When introduced to a new category (mammal) with one known example (humans, especially Kay herself), Kay somehow creates a new mental category of mammals that shares some features with humans. In this process, Kay understood mammals as having a mom. However, when Kay encountered the information about mammals later, she accommodated her understanding of mammals to fit the new information she internalized. Of course, this observation cannot possibly expose many nuances in Kay’s mental structures. For example, did Kay initially think that mammals are a subcategory of humans despite your prompting question hinting the other way around? (Only then can one logically conclude that since humans have mothers, mammals have mothers.) Or did Kay understand the categorical hierarchy but lack abstract logic (as she would at the concrete operational period) to attribute characteristics to the correct category level? Those questions make me wish I am Piaget and have several young children around me to observe! Extending the topic of assimilation and accommodation, Allie, who talked about masks and volcanos at the beginning of your blog, also showed some evidence of assimilation. Perhaps we could say that she assimilated volcanos and their dust into the scheme/mental representation of the things cloth masks can protect against. However, Allie might not realize yet that volcano dust might need different protective equipment. Later, she could accommodate her category of protective equipment, currently containing (only) cloth masks, to cover those needed in front of an erupting volcano.

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