Jean Piaget

Hello! My name is Jean Piaget. I’d love to tell you a story about how I became a scientist who studied how children think. I was born in a beautiful country called Switzerland on August 9th, 1896. When I was a boy, I was not just interested in toys; I was fascinated by nature! I loved walking outside and observing animals, especially mollusks, which are creatures like snails and clams. I kept notebooks filled with my drawings and observations. I was so curious that I wrote my very first science paper when I was only 11 years old!

When I grew up, I went to a university and studied science. In the 1920s, I moved to Paris for a job helping a scientist named Alfred Binet. We gave children intelligence tests to see what they knew. My job was to mark their answers, but I soon found something much more interesting than the right answers: the wrong ones! I noticed that many children would give the same kinds of wrong answers. I realized they were not just guessing; their minds were working in a special way that was different from grown-ups. This gave me a wonderful, big idea. I wanted to spend my life figuring out the amazing mystery of how children's minds grow.

So, how did I study children? I watched them, played games with them, and asked them lots of questions. I even learned a lot from my own three children, Jacqueline, Lucienne, and Laurent. By paying close attention, I discovered something amazing. I learned that children's brains grow in stages, like climbing a ladder one step at a time. Little babies learn about the world by touching and tasting everything. Toddlers start using words and pretending. As you get older, you learn how to solve problems and think about big ideas. I realized that children are not empty buckets waiting to be filled with facts; you are all clever scientists, figuring out the world on your own!

I wrote many books to share my ideas with parents and teachers all over the world. I wanted to help grown-ups understand how to best help children learn. I lived to be 84 years old and had a very full and happy life exploring the world of the mind. Today, people remember me for showing the world that every child is a smart and curious thinker. My work changed how schools teach and helped everyone see that playing, exploring, and even making mistakes are important parts of growing up.