1-What does piaget mean by “ assimilation” and “ Accommodation” ?
2- How do the two process combine ?
Piaget, a great education psychologist, has described tow processes of development within the growing child, which he calls assimilation and accommodation.
At first the child while he plays assimilates his surroundings, that is, he makes things do what he wants them to do, using his imagination to control the environments around him in fantasy play. Later, the child learn that he cannot make things around him do just what he wants, so he learn to accommodate himself to his environment. He learns to accept the world as it is and to live with it. These two processes, assimilation and accommodation, combine with each other as the child grows up.
Children’s paintings clearly demonstrate the developing balance between two processes. In paintings done by very young children, the imagination is most obvious , showing qualities of assimilation. Later on, children attempt to make their paintings look as close as possible to the real thing they are representing. At this stage qualities of accommodation are upper most.
Adolescents tend to be more concerned with copying reality accurately than with expressing their imaginative ideas. At a later stage, however, the students will find a balance between the two tendencies.
The development of reading and writing also shows a balance between the two processes. The child continues to assimilate, to use his imagination to control the language when he writes stories or compositions. But he also learns to accommodate himself, to understand and take in the writings of other people, when he studies literature. Eventually, as a sensitive reader of feelings which the poet is trying to communicate.
Even in the learning of arithmetic one can see the double process. Learning to manipulate figures, to add, subtract, divide and multiply, is of course a matter of accommodation, but once he can use figures properly, the child has a powerful means of assimilation, of using and controlling his surroundings. He can begin to manipulate money, time, weights and measures. He can begin to enter the wider world of shops, post office and transport, and he can attempt more advanced school subjects, such as Geography and Science.
In elementary Science the same is of course also true. The pupil learns the basic rules governing nature, through a process of accommodation, and then he assimilate and begins to control nature for himself, learning to use fire, for example, or to construct equipment, or to transform solid matter into gases.