Looking again at what “adaptation” means to our practice as constructivist teachers: Can theory give us hope and inspiration?��Association for Constructivist Teaching Annual Conference�October 2025��Christine Chaillé
“Look again…”
“Look again…”
Embracing uncertainty and making a declaration of ignorance
Listening is about not being bound by what you already know.
Bronwyn Davies
Dried Seahorses
What do you think the children were trying to figure out?
What do you think the children were trying to figure out?
WE DON’T KNOW.
What does it mean when you don’t know, and what is the value of not knowing?
What is the value of “looking again”?
Revisiting theoretical concepts, and unexpectedly finding hope and inspiration
The context: A conversation about looping
My discontinuous educational journey
Looking again at Piaget’s theoretical concept of adaptation, and how it changed
Looking again at Piaget’s theoretical concept of adaptation, and how it changed
Looking again at Piaget’s theoretical concept of adaptation, and how it changed
Looking again at Piaget’s theoretical concept of adaptation, and how it changed
Study at the University of Geneva
Jean Piaget
The Development of Thought: Equilibration of Cognitive Structures
Changing views of adaptation
Changing views of adaptation
Changing views of adaptation
Changing views of adaptation
The children have been playing with Giant Legos, building towers up and building them across the floor.
Looking again: Piaget’s changing views of adaptation
Looking again: A changing view of adaptation
Constance Kamii, in her review of Piaget’s book, discusses the importance of this change.
“…Equilibration does not mean a return to a previous state of equilibrium. Instead, it means a process that involves the creation, or construction, of new forms that lead to better, improved equilibria.”
Back to Mark, he continues his efforts to building down…
MARK IS EXPERIENCING CONFLICT.
Eleanor Duckworth:
At certain levels, the children do not even see the conflicts in their own thinking. Conflicting notions are simply compartmentalized, and no need is felt to reconcile them.
Only if children recognized and were bothered by a conflict did they sometimes manage to construct a more adequate notion to coordinate the two conflicting ones.
Piaget, in his introduction to Duckworth’s work, comments that what is significant about this research on learning is that…
“in every case where acceleration takes place, it results from a conflict arising in the child’s own mind. It is the child’s own effort to resolve a conflict that takes him or her on to another level.”
William Damon says:
This cognitive conflict is “a perceived sense of contradiction between what the child believes and what the world is telling the child.
…”If the child becomes aware of such a contradiction, the experience has a disequilibrating (or perturbing effect) on the child, instigating the child to question his or her beliefs and try out new ones. Cognitive conflict, therefore, is a catalyst for change.”
William Damon
Lory Britain researched how children provoke each other’s thinking by providing “conflicting notions,” fueling each other’s disequilibrium as they are building theories together.
Back to Mark, he persists with the task that he has posed for himself…
Equlibration and the role of affectivity and emotions
Piaget describes affectivity as playing the role of a necessary energy source on which…
“the functioning but not the structures of intelligence would depend. It would be like gasoline, which activates the motor of an automobile but does not modify its structure.”
“Increasing equilibration”: Why is this important?
Piaget:
To understand is to discover, or reconstruct by discovery, and such conditions must be complied with if in the future individuals are to be formed who are capable of production and creativity and not simply repetition.
Piaget:
The principal goal of education is to create people who are capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what other generations have done – people who are creative, inventive, and discoverers.
��Children moving forward and upward in a social constructivist preschool classroom:��Exploring the big idea of transformation��
Julie’s words:
With this turn of events in the classroom I begin to see transformation in a new light. Transformation for these children doesn’t involve changing blue and yellow into green - it also involves transforming a blank sheet of paper into a work of art and now …transforming the canvas of ourselves into new characters.
They formulate a new question: What happens when children are given the power to transform and explore their own identities?
Children and teachers come up with other ideas for transforming their faces…
I go into everything knowing that the children can surprise us. A lot of that has to do with how I – and we as a staff – are set up to think about who the child is, our image of the child. If we go into it knowing that all of their play is about something, all of it has meaning for them, then it becomes a little easier to surrender your knowing and take each group and each child as an individual who has different interests.
Julie
Although our process and direction may not always be clear, we are steadfast in our desire to learn about life, without teaching to a prescribed learning plan. In this way, we honor the power of the children’s ideas and look at them all with a gaze of potential.
“Increasing equilibration” in action
Another example:��Potatoheads and glasses
one week later
faces in the light studio
The image is gone. I sit in silence and wonder about “the extraordinary moment” I have just witnessed, and about how many of these moments there are that go unnoticed in the midst of our busy days. I wonder about the ways that children make meaning of their experiences, about the ideas they share with us, and about the stories they are telling to those who will listen.
How re-thinking adaptation has inspired me and given me hope in a time of change and disequilibrium
Referring to the work in Reggio Emilia as providing a “vision of utopia,” Peter Moss discusses “new stories” about early childhood education…
Peter Moss:
…Though the times are dark and uncertain, and the new stories need be under no illusions, … they can offer hope that another world is possible…
… a world that is more equal, democratic and sustainable, a world where surprise and wonder, diversity and complexity find their rightful place in early childhood education, indeed all education. They can offer faith in people, of all ages, and their potentialities. They can offer us cause to believe in the world again.
Peter Moss
Only education is capable of saving our societies from possible collapse, whether violent, or gradual.
Jean Piaget
As educators, we firmly believe in optimism and in hope. We have faith. We, as educators, don't want to stop; we want to carry on, walking forward.
Sergio Spaggiari
Our written reflections could evoke a number of different sensations. One of these sensations could be the air of optimism that pervades all…
After all, education must stand on the side of optimism or else it will melt like ice cream in the sun.
Loris Malaguzzi
The future is tomorrow
and I can only imagine it
I think it’s…
a lovely day
(Mariam, a child in Reggio Emilia)
The future is a lovely day
Special thanks to:
Christine Chaillé
chaillec@pdx.edu