Disequilibrium, Discomfort, and Motivation: Lessons Learned from Piaget

Disequilibrium, Discomfort, and Motivation: Lessons Learned from Piaget

By Pauline Stein

EDI 600 Psychological Foundation of Education

School of Education
Long Island University, C. W. Post
September 22, 2008

In today’s class, we learned about Erikson’s and Piaget’s theories on how people learn. The most important thing I took away from tonight’s class concerned Piaget’s cognitive development theory. According to Piaget, what motivates learning is a gap between what we know and what we need to know. I listened to the story about the woman in her 50s who was a teacher returning into the workforce who realized there was a gap between the knowledge she had and what she needed to know in order to work as an effective teacher. This disequilibrium motivated her to go back to school. The teacher was contrasted with a young child whose mother would consistently tie his shoes for him. He had no motivation to learn to do it himself, so he relied on others to do it for him. It was very interesting that discomfort can be so motivating. The main thing I learned tonight is that disequilibrium, or discomfort, is actually good if it is managed properly.

I can relate to all of this personally. I obtained my undergraduate degree more than 20 years ago and decided to go back to school for my Master’s last year. When I was an undergraduate student, there was no internet or E-mail available. Research was done in the library, and if you needed to contact your teacher, you had to go to his/her office.

Times have changed. When I found out that I had to submit my assignments on webCT, I wasn’t sure how things would work out for me. I felt very uncomfortable with this and thought it would be simpler just to submit a hard copy the way I was used to. Change is always uncomfortable, but I worked especially hard to learn it, so that the use of it wouldn’t concern me. Now, I use webCT all the time and it is no problem at all. It goes to show that Piaget is absolutely right. By creating discomfort, learning and success can result. I think the next time I have to tackle something new, it will not be as scary.