The Passover Seder as an Exercise in Piagetian Education Theory

This paper focuses on two elements of the Passover Seder ritual and their connection to Piagetian education theory. After outlining Piaget's theory of genetic epistemology and its implications for education theory, it focuses on Sigel's distancing theory, which touts question asking as a tool for presenting information to students. This paper argues that the Jewish ritual of the Passover Seder was formulated with such pedagogical methods in mind, especially as it concerns the role of questioning. This paper also discusses storytelling's importance as an effective tool in pedagogical instruction, and how the Passover Seder also takes advantage of that modality to make the ritual more impactful for educational purposes.