Cheaper By The Dozen Character Analysis

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Piaget believed that a child’s development is neither intrinsic (learning based on interest) or extrinsic (learning from an outside force, such as a parent). He believed that a child develops based on his or hers interactions in the environment (Mooney 2000). Piaget created four stages of cognitive development, some of which can be seen in the film “Cheaper by the Dozen”. A few examples of characters that display Piaget’s theory are the twins, who are in the preoperational stage and lack the concept of conservatism, and the mastermind, who is in the concrete operational stage and show's the concept of decentralism. These characters will have Piaget’s theory applied to them in the following paragraphs. Preoperational Stage The preoperational stage happens between the ages of two and seven. In the preoperational stage, children take part in imaginative play and can grasp and express connections between the past and what's to come. A …show more content…

Children in this stage start to advance their speech and gathering thinking skills that help them reach end goals. Children in this stage use more advanced thinking skills such as decentralism, transitivity and reversibility. (Ojose 2008) The mastermind is around the age of 11, which puts her in this stage that helps develops a plan to get rid of her sister’s boyfriend. She makes the plan step by step in a logical way. She also shows the concept of decentralism,which implies she got through one dimensional thinking and has gained multiple dimensional thinking. She knew how each step of her plan would play out. She showed transitivity by knowing how each step of her plan would react with another. The mastermind was also able to reverse the steps of her plan to make sure they all fit together and get the correct end result. Piaget would agree with this scene of the mastermind because she fits into her stage and show's the correct concepts for her

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