The Possible Role of Intuition in Education

Abstract

U.S. schools teach predominately to the analytical, left brain, which has foundations in behaviorism. Since the mid-1900s, education in the U.S. uses a mechanistic paradigm that influences teaching. The result is that learning is impeded. Using discourse analysis of a historical set of Piagetian children, this study re-analyzed Piaget’s work. It found that, although the participating children answered from both an intuitive and an analytical perspective, Piaget's analysis of the interviews ignored the value in the intuitive, right-brain answers; Piaget essentially stated that the children were only doing valuable thinking when they were analytical and logical. Using other comparable re-analyses as the yardstick, this study extended Piaget's original interpretations. Implications for teaching and learning are also described. Since education in the U.S. has not challenged Piaget's omissions, but rather, has followed earlier behaviorist recommendations, this study is a call for research into a pedagogical balance between analytic and intuitive teaching.