Jean Piaget

Swiss psychologist, educator and author, known for his studies of children's learning patterns. A leading investigator and writer of thought processes among children, he received numerous prizes and honorary degrees from all over the world. His life work was learning how children learn, as their thought process is not that of adults. A leading investigator and writer on thought processes among children, his four developmental steps are studied by educators the world over. He developed several new fields of science, developmental psychology, cognitive theory and what came to be called genetic epistemology, the theory of knowledge.

The eldest child of Arthur Piaget, professor of medieval literature and Rebecca Jackson, a strict Calvinist, Jean, a child prodigy, wrote his first paper at age ten. After high school graduation he studied natural sciences at the University of Neufchatel obtaining his Ph.D. in 1918. After a semester at the University of Zurich, where he developed an interest in psychoanalysis, he attended lectures by Carl Jung.

Piaget went to France for a year to work at a school established by Alfred Binet. In 1921 he became director of studies at the Rousseau Institute in Geneva. In 1923 the first of his over 60 scholarly books was published and in 1929 he was appointed director of the International Bureau of Education. One of his greatest and most pioneering books, "The Origins of Intelligence in Children," was published in 1948. Piaget established the Center for Genetic Epistemology in 1955.

Jean married Valentine Chatenay in 1923 and they had three children whom he observed from birth for his studies.

He was still working at his death in Geneva on 16 September 1980.