Jean Piaget was born on this date in 1896. A Swiss psychologist and philosopher, Piaget devoted serious attention to “childish thoughts” and consequently made major impacts in the fields of education and child psychology. He is most noted for identifying the four stages of child development: sensorimotor (birth to age 2), preoperational (age 2 to age 7), concrete operational (age 7 to age 12), and the formal operational stage (age 12 to age 15). His work on the study of the development of thought, which he coined genetic epistemology, consumed a great deal of his life. He died in 1980 in Geneva at the age of 84.

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