E XPORTACIONES E I MPORTACIONES EN E CUADOR

As noted above (4b), Piaget argued that imagination is in fact the child’s attempts to cohere his or her experiences of the world. Piaget’s successive and sequential stages of child development are well known, with children undergoing an age-related process involving consequential, developmental steps from sensorimotor (0-2) to pre-operational (2-7), concrete pre-operational (7-11) and formal pre-operational (11+) (e.g.;

Morgan, H. (1999) p120-125, Wood, D. 1988, Ch. 2). In the context of this thesis, Piaget’s concepts of schema and the accommodation and assimilation of new experiences into these (1952 the Origins of Intelligence in Children) resonate with Kant

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and Aristotle in considering the role of imagination in developing a mental model of our world. We construct this by drawing upon a store of mental representations, related to sensory perceptions, which like Aristotle, Piaget describes as images (Piaget, 1971).

Piaget’s proposition that we rely on active experience with our environment for the development of our learning implies the importance of sensory perceptions, going against Cartesian and Platonic concepts which demote and stigmatise physical experience. Wood summarises Piaget’s idea that ‘Thought is internalized action’ (1950 The Psychology of Intelligence) well:

‘…the analysis of human knowledge and intelligence must begin with a consideration of motor activity and practical problem-solving. It also alerts us to one of his most important messages, which is that children have to be active and constructive in order to develop their understanding of the world.’

(1988, p.19)

Piaget sees active experience as critical in the early, ego-centric stages of sensorimotor and pre-operational thought which prepare the ground for concrete and formal operations. These ‘later’, more developed operations are akin to logical and abstract thought, so that, while Piaget emphasises the importance of sensory experience in the early stages of development, we see an echo of Plato’s ‘divided line’

represented in a ‘progression’ away from sensation and perception and towards reason and abstraction. There is an inference that these later ways of thinking are more complex than their sensory predecessors, thus implying (whether intentionally or not) that these more abstract thinking skills (perhaps referred to in education as more

‘academic’) are somehow ‘ultimate’. Whether Piaget intended that we strive for these later ‘levels’ throughout our lives as learners or whether they are simply ‘ultimate’ within the developmental process itself is unclear to me within the scope of literature appropriate to this study.

In the ego-centric phases up to age 7, children are characterised as not yet being able to think as adults do, with Piaget characterising adult thought as being rational and empirical to some extent:

‘…these egocentric habits have a considerable effect upon the structure of thought itself. This it is chiefly because he [or she] feels no need to socialize his thought that the child is so little concerned, or at any rate so very much

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less concerned than we are, to convince his hearers or to prove his points.’

(Piaget, 1964, p.1)

While Piaget is discussing the development of thought as opposed to thought in general, there seem to be inherent assumptions in his work that objective, empirical thinking which rests on culturally agreed ‘truths’ is more desirable than or superior to more intuitive, subjective thinking which we might consider to be characteristic of artistic and imaginative thought. He describes ego-centric thought as a ‘regression to a primitive mode of thinking’ (2002, p.153). I would argue against such a hierarchical approach which favours deductive reasoning, believing that the more subjective thinking which Piaget places in early, egocentric development, which he proposes is critical in supporting us to construct knowledge and meaning, is also critical throughout our learning. As I will outline below, it opens up possibilities for new interpretations, necessary for the construction of new understandings and ideas. One critique of Piaget is that:

‘…he had “always detested any departure from reality”, which he related to the influence of his mother’s poor mental health…he confessed to having no visual imagination and no understanding of poetry…He was the epitome of his own theory, an imperialistic philosophy which perceived in the development of the child a recapitulation of the development of culture from the “primitive” to the “enlightenment”, satisfyingly situating the western scientific world as the pinnacle of intellect.’ (Angelo in Adams and Duncan (eds.), 2003 p.131)

While I agree in part with this opinion Piaget offers much to support the argument for imagination and creativity if we cease to accept the early developmental stages which he outlines as being inferior to the concrete and formal operations which can be seen as something to be aspired to within his model. By removing a hierarchical perspective of the ‘stages’ we find useful models of thought which help us to think about how imagination functions in development and in ‘developed’ learners. For me, different kinds of thinking are likely to be more or less useful in different contexts. If artists tend to use cognitions which are more akin to Piaget’s sensorimotor and preoperational stages (though they will probably use concrete and formal operations too) it is because these aspects of cognition suit their purposes and offer a particular kind of insight in the construction of their (and, in a cultural sense through the production and sharing of art, our) mental models. Therefore, it is useful to look more closely at the processes

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which Piaget describes as addressing a ‘lack of coherence’ (Piaget, 1962, p.131) and which enable our ‘subjective assimilation’ (Ibid) within the construction of our understanding, which Piaget suggests is what we mean by ‘imagination’.