In Robert Siegler's book 'Emerging Minds', he argues that the variability of children's thinking indicates that stage-like 'essentialist' development models are misleading. He says, "When children are depicted as only having a single way of representing a situation, thinking about a concept, or solving a problem, there are no choices to be made. They are, in a sense, the slaves of their cognitive structures. In contrast, if they possess multiple ways of performing these cognitive activities, then they must choose which one to use in each situation." (p. 4)
What excites me about this is the clear connection highlighted between cognitive development (and I would argue - the development of consciousness) and autonomy - the connection that is the current focus of my research.
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