ABSTRACT
Students who study Piaget are often captivated by his descriptions of children's reasoning, learning that children do not simply know less than adults but actually think differently. Many instructors demonstrate conservation tasks because they draw students into the child's world. Students begin to appreciate the complexities of the child's reasoning and view of reality. In addition, these demonstrations can sometimes strengthen the conviction that adults are clearly more reasonable than children. To indicate that adult thinking is not always reasonable and that inability to solve a conservation task is not unique to childhood, two tasks are demonstrated. The first is a standard conservation task (water pouring). The second is a conservation-like task too difficult for many students to solve. Students analyze their ways of problem solving by applying the same Piagetian concepts used to understand the nonconserving child; they are thus encouraged to ponder their own thinking.
