ABSTRACT
I shall illustrate some of the confusions that may arise when teachers attempt to base instruction on Piagetian theory by reference to three books written to illustrate such attempts. The first is by Furth and Wachs (1974) and concerns the Tyler Thinking School’ in Charleston, West Virginia, where they have created an environment ‘to implement Piaget’s theory by providing the child with experiences best designed to develop his thinking’. They distinguish development (i.e., ‘general mechanisms of action and thinking’) from learning (‘the acquisition of specific skills and the memorizing of specific information’). They call ‘learning’ the result of teaching that does not basically alter the child’s intelligence; and ‘development’ the result of teaching that brings about intellectual change. In practice, of course, one cannot teach without transmitting specific skills, but Furth and Wachs claim that the conceptual distinction between general and specific changes has value. However, it does appear from what they say that development can be brought about by teaching, and their conceptual distinction is valuable only in maintaining the Piagetian dogma that development is spontaneous.
