Educators today are talking a lot about the need to equip students with 21st century skills. In a democratic society, reasoned discourse should be one of them, if citizens are to participate in shaping the future of the society they live in. A culture that supports discourse is certainly needed, but so is each individual’s development of the skills and values that reasoned discourse requires

(via Reasoned Discourse as a Vital 21st-Century Skill – Scientific American Blog Network)

This is equivalent to what Piaget says about concrete and abstract knowledge, and how disequilibration is one way to foster the transistion