Jean Piaget
Jean Piaget (1896 - 1980), author of over 60 books and hundreds of articles, was one
of the first to study the child's growing mind experimentally. He wrote his first
published work at the age of 11. Later, he was inspired by the close observation of
his own three children.
Having trained in biology and philosophy,
he asked himself the simple question: how does knowledge grow? He asked this question
in relation to the child's understanding of cause and effect,
number, speed, weight, volume, the role of play and imitation, and many other topics.
More generally, he asked: how does the child come to know about an objective world outside the self?
He proposed major turning points in this process at around 18 months,
7 years, and 10 or 11.
A central idea running throughout his work is the
key role of the child's own activity and the need for materials which the child finds engaging
and which are appropriate for the child's current level of development.
Pigeon Post is designed as a natural material to engage children who are just
starting to write, and allowing them to support their writing by the more familiar activities
of painting and talking, singing, making animal noises, and so on.