Comparing Piaget's & Lowenfeld's developmental theories

By Cynthia Grimm
College of Education
Long Island University, C. W. Post
February 10, 2011

Tonight I really enjoyed Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. I think his four stages (sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational and formal operational) really relate to Viktor Lowenfeld’s theory of Creative and Mental growth that I wanted to study for my research project. Lowenfeld broke his stages down to scribbling, pre-schematic, schematic, gang, and reasoning. If you line them up with Piaget, they really seem to explain each other. I am very much looking forward to applying these principles in teaching art.

Depending on what grade level I teach, there are vastly different expectations of outcomes. I’m not sure that this is taken note of in many art classrooms today, where the emphasis can sometimes be too much about what looks good on the bulletin boards and showcases in the hallways, rather than what is the natural phase of art the children should be doing. When we spoke about Erickson’s theory and how in today’s society, the intimacy vs. isolation stage seems to come too soon at the expense of fully developing oneself at each stage, the same can be said for rushing kids past the scribbling and even schematic stages, to create mini “works of art” for the principal. I’m excited for my observations in art rooms throughout K-12, going in with knowledge of Piaget and Lowenfeld especially.