The First Relationship

Jerome Seymour Bruner was born in Manhattan, New York on October 1, 1915. Born blind because of cataracts, he had an experimental operation to restore his vision at the age of 2. He received a degree in psychology from Duke University in 1937 and received a doctorate from Harvard University.

His theories about perception, child development, and learning informed education policy and helped launch the cognitive revolution. He wrote or co-wrote several books including A Study of Thinking written with Jacqueline J. Goodnow and George A. Austin and The Process of Education. He helped design Head Start, the federal program introduced in 1965 to improve preschool development. He died on June 5, 2016 at the age of 100.

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