Theory studio
Piaget, Vygotsky, Erikson, attachment, Bandura, Gardner, embodied cognition — each one answers a different question. Blend them. Every page ends in the room, not in a citation.
Jean Piaget · 1896–1980
Children are not miniature adults. They construct knowledge through action, and they think in qualitatively different ways at different ages.
Lev Vygotsky · 1896–1934
The mind is social first. What a child can do today with help, they can do tomorrow alone — that strip is the Zone of Proximal Development.
Erik Erikson · 1902–1994
Each age has a social-emotional job. If it goes well, a virtue grows. If it goes badly, a residue of doubt, shame, or inferiority tags along.
Bowlby & Ainsworth · 1950s–
A child who knows they can return to you is a child who can leave you to explore. Security is not clinginess — it is a base camp.
Albert Bandura · 1925–2021
Children learn by watching, and they attempt what they believe they can do. Your example and their self-efficacy are half the curriculum.
Urie Bronfenbrenner · 1917–2005
A child is nested: family, class, parents' work, culture, and time. Teaching the child without seeing the nest is guessing.
Howard Gardner · 1983–
Intelligence is more than a verbal-math score. Children have different ways of being smart — and schools often grade only two of them.
Embodied cognition · 1990s–
The mind is not a computer on a stick. Gesture, balance, and movement are part of thought — not decoration around it.
Executive function research · 1990s–
Working memory, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility — the trio that lets a child wait, switch, and hold a plan — grow slowly and love practice.
Theory of mind research · 1980s–
Around four to five, many children realize that other people can hold beliefs that are false — a hinge for empathy, lying, secrets, and stories.
Dynamic systems · 1990s–
Skills do not march in a straight line. Body, task, and world cooperate — a baby walks when the room, the muscles, and the motivation line up, not on a due date.
Lawrence Kohlberg · 1927–1987
Moral reasoning grows from 'don't get in trouble' toward 'what kind of person / world do we want' — and children need dilemmas, not only rules.
B.F. Skinner · 1904–1990
Consequences shape behavior. Useful for building habits — dangerous if it becomes the whole theory of a child.
AAP & play science · ongoing
Play builds prefrontal circuitry, social skill, and courage. It is not the opposite of serious. It is how children get serious work done.
Locke & Rousseau · 17th–18th c.
Locke: the mind is written by experience. Rousseau: the child is already good, and we should not rush them into our corruptions. You still teach inside this argument.