Genetic Epistemology
"The principal goal of education is to create individuals who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done"   Jean Piaget

“Play is the answer to how anything new comes about”   Jean Piaget

Genetic epistemology is a study of the origins of knowledge or the developmental theory of knowledge.

The discipline was established by the Swiss developmental psychologist and philosopher Jean Piaget (1896-1980).  Piaget was known for his epistemological studies with children and his theories of cognitive development.

The goal of genetic epistemology is to link the validity of knowledge to the model of its construction. It shows that how the knowledge was gained affects how valid it is. For example, our experience of gravity makes our knowledge of it more valid than our theory about black holes.

Genetic epistemology also explains the process of how people develop cognitively from birth throughout their lives in four primary stages:
 1) Sensorimotor
 Age: Birth to 2
 Attribute:  Sensation, perception, images.

 2) Preoperational
 Age: 2 to 7
 Attribute: Symbols (2-4yrs), Concepts (4-7yrs).

 3) Concrete Operational Awareness (Conop)
 Age: 7 to ~14yrs
 Attribute: Concrete rules.  Reason.  Social scripts.

 4) Formal Operational Awareness (Formop)
 Age: 11yrs to ~15+ yrs
 Attribute:  Thinking about thinking.

Piaget developed novel experiments to evaluate at what stage a child was at.