Re: What is the place of Piaget in a History and Systems course?

[Deb Briihl]

I don't teach about Piaget because I just run out of time. I also tend to 
focus on people that contributed to psychology that other courses are not 
likely to mention and/or are important for starting that particular 
movement. For example, I cover over Hall and Baldwin as beginning 
developmental psych. I really don't cover Freud too much, but focus on the 
factors that influenced his thinking.

At 11:28 AM 3/24/2004 -0600, you wrote:
TIPsters,

I am curious to hear your opinions about the place of Piaget in a History 
and Systems course.  My immediate reason for asking is because of a 
(relatively friendly) argument with my department chair.  I have been 
teaching History and Systems for years, and I do not include Piaget.  My 
chair, a developmentalist "cannot conceive of a course in H&S without 
Piaget."  The fact that many H&S textbooks do not include Piaget does not 
seem to sway him.

Here is my justification for excluding Piaget:

1)  It don't think Piaget fits the structure of my course.  I teach a very 
traditional (E.G. Boring influenced) course in which I trace the "main 
line" of psychological history, but I do not trace the history of the 
branches.  In my own area, I of course cover Watson and Skinner, but I 
would never cover Herrnstein.  Watson and Skinner are main line, 
Herrnstein is speciality material belonging in a behavioral course but not 
an H&S course.   I similarly view Piaget as being out of the 
mainstream.  He belongs in a development course, but not a mainstream H&S 
course.

To this. my chair responds that Piaget has had a tremendous influence in 
mainstream psychology - for example, he cites Piaget as a major 
contributor to the cognitive revolution.  Which brings us to argument #2:

2)  Piaget's work was "discovered" by mainstream psychology far too late 
to have had a real historical influence.  Piaget's work wasn't really 
recognized until the mid 1960s, by which time the cognitive revolution was 
well under way.  Though some Piagetian terms do show up in cognitive (for 
example, schema) they often mean very different things.

This is not a really big deal - there isn't anything riding on the 
resolution.  I am just curious to hear opinions.

-- Jim Dougan

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Deb

Dr. Deborah S. Briihl
Dept. of Psychology and Counseling
Valdosta State University
Valdosta, GA 31698
(229) 333-5994
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://chiron.valdosta.edu/dbriihl/
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