Engel to Discuss Play and Reality in Sigma Xi Lecture Series

Media contact: Noelle Lemoine, communications assistant; tele: (413) 597-4277; email: [email protected]

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., Oct. 20, 2003 – Susan Engel, senior lecturer in psychology, will present this year’s Sigma Xi Lectures at Williams College. The first of the two-part lecture series, “Piaget’s Children: Play and Reality,” will be held Thursday, October 23, and the second, “The Fancy Ladies of North Poo Poo: Play and Reality Revisited,” will be held on Friday, October 24. Both lectures will begin at 4:15 p.m. in the Wege Auditorium of Thompson Chemistry. The lectures are intended for a general audience and the public is cordially invited to attend.

Piaget’s study of his children launched a new scientific field: developmental psychology. His work provided – and continues to provide – the bedrock of research and theory about the way young children think. In her first lecture, Engel will give a brief history of developmental psychology, focusing on the specifics in Piaget’s research that revolutionized the genre, and how others have built upon his work. Looking back at the past century, she will discuss whether our basic conceptions of the child have evolved; are we still Piaget’s children?

In the second lecture, Engel will consider “Piaget’s children,” his successors in the field of developmental psychology. Those that came after Piaget focused increasingly on the child’s remarkable abilities to tackle and make sense of reality. Engel, however, will take Piaget’s project down another path: rather than emphasizing the child as scientist, she will focus on the ways in which children balance play and reality. It is the child’s immersion in play that distinguishes them from teenagers and adults, and makes their thinking, even about reality, so remarkable. Engel will conclude the lecture with a discussion on the educational implications of such a view.

Engel is director of the program in teaching at Williams College. She is educational advisor and co-founder of the Hayground School, Bridgehampton, N.Y., and was a member of the Southern Berkshire Regional School District Committee from 1993 to 1997. She has taught at Bennington College, Smith College, Simon’s Rock of Bard College, and Berkshire Community College, and was a NICHD training fellow; she was a recipient of its Developmental Psychology Grant for four consecutive years, 1980-1984. She has written numerous articles for scholarly journals and is also the author of “The Stories Children Tell: Making Sense of the Narratives of Childhood.”

She received her B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College, and her Ph.D. from the Developmental Psychology Program, Graduate Center, City University of New York.

The Sigma Xi lectures are held twice annually by the Williams branch of Sigma Xi, an international research society devoted to promoting the health of the scientific enterprise and honoring scientific achievement. The lectures attempt to fulfill Sigma Xi’s mission to foster interactions among science, technology, and the society in which they play a role.

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For building locations on the Williams campus, please consult the map outside the driveway entrance to the Security Office located in Hopkins Hall on Main Street (Rte. 2), next to the Thompson Memorial Chapel, or call the Office of Public Affairs (413) 597-4279. The map can also be found on the web at www.williams.edu/home/visitors/map/index.html

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Published October 24, 2003