My thoughts on Child Development

During my research for a favorite quote about children is difficult because I can’t recall a favorite quote about children. There are so many quotes I have read and heard in the past and have such passion and meaning behind them that I wish I could pull from every one and post a variety of them, however I can recall a quote  by Jean Marc Itard. He displayed his motivation for child development when he stated from his article “Begin with the nature of the child and his interests.”(Lieberman, L (1982) working with children the focus has always been the child. Part of my philosophy is to find out what interest the child and work on ways the child can learn based on what the child enjoys. From this course I have learned from the readings and observations of children. The observations of children opened my eyes to their world. My focus changed from the child, to the child’s domains of development to trying to achieve a better understanding of “the child’s world” and factors as to finding levels of where they stand in development. Even in my own work environment I try to find out the interests of the children in our program and work with them. Many times I find activities run smoother when the environment is child-centered and children respond well when they are involved in learning that is fun for them and now activities that are closer to their physical, social and emotional development. Finding a balance at this time is difficult. I also try to find out what interest children with special needs. However, it is not an easy task. A relationship must be built between caregiver and child. Caregivers must set time aside to observe a child in order to want to encourage or help them. These skills I will most likely take with me as I move throughout my career. I’m delighted to have experienced and learned more about child development through a different perspective.  I believe I will continue to develop a passion for this field as my knowledge of children grows. I just wanted to set some time aside to send my professional Thanks! to all of my colleagues. I greatly appreciate all of the shared efforts, personal insights, stories, and positive comments throughout this course. I also want to thank each one of you who found interest in the course assignments including discussion and featured blog posts that I posted. I found other colleagues post rather exciting to read than my own. And to Dr. Kien thank you for feedback and your constant efforts to instill in me as well as my colleagues proper ways to complete assignments. (I still struggle with it) It has been a pleasure to be in an online environment to not only meet people but communicate with those in this profession that share similar passions for young children in the field of early childhood. I hope to keep in contact with most of you as I try to stay on this path of learning. I was also excited to read familiar names of colleagues that shared the previous class with me hope to see everyone in future courses.I wish for everyone to continue to stay encouraged and motivated in our field of study.

Lieberman, L. M. (1982). Itard: The Great Problem Solver. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 15(9), Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Teacher: “Today’s surprise a POP QUIZ!” Student’s response: “Aw man, Why?!”

                I’m going to be honest, as a child growing up and attending the different levels of school, college, entrance exams certification exams, proficiency, aptitude and skills test or whatever testing it might be whenever I heard my teacher, professor, recruiter, doctor or driver’s test administrator say “Test is on this day, short quiz on that day, pop quiz, pregnancy, and even blood testing I responded with terror and nervousness. My world feels like it is coming to an end when it comes to testing. I have test anxiety especially if testing has a time limit. No doubt about it every time there is some sort of testing involved I always ask myself “Why does everything I want to do involve testing? I also ask myself “am I intelligent? If I fail does that make me stupid?” Most of the time no matter how much time I spend preparing for a test majority of the time I choke and fail them. Out of the different types of testing I listed throughout my life I have failed more than half of them at least twice.

I favor and prefer child portfolios, verbal, written, social expression and hands on work from child’s perspective that is proof of a child’s progression. I know firsthand how difficult it was for me to pass my high school proficiency test I failed it two times I cried. I was so upset to know that to graduate high school passing the test was a standard. “You need to pass your test for your diploma” Even though I passed all my classes with high grades and was a top student and worked my way to graduating with honors I had difficulty passing the test. No joke I needed a tutor’s help to pass. I believe testing is better measured through experience especially if the child is a visual learner. Growing up I developed my own system that still helps me a little today with testing and assignments. I have to see the work, and then attempt to do the work hands on and then wait for results. It’s almost like a routine.

            I understand standardized testing and what the different tests are supposed to measure however yes, I agree that this type of testing does not consider the entire child. I lean more towards the variety of learning styles human beings have in the multiple intelligence theory by Howard Gardner. I think early childhood professionals can learn from different approaches to measuring the mind of children using this theory as a foundation. Every child has a different learning style and when early childhood professionals use this tool it can encourage positive learning. For example say a child has a musical ability or is considered to have “musical intelligence” businessballs.com (2011) but is having difficulty reading and writing a clue in encouraging reading and writing for the child maybe the early childhood educator providing an opportunity for the child to sing the alphabet with flash cards to begin recognizing letters or finding musical instruments that represent almost every letter of the alphabet. I believe it is using the intelligence in the child’s favor to encourage a meaningful learning experience.

During my research to find how other school age children are tested or measured by intelligence I came across the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology by Sternberg (2002) and some of the research testing done around the world and found an instance where these young boys from Brazil that lived in the streets are “the same children who are able to do the mathematics needed to run their street business are often little able or unable to do school mathematics”(Sternberg, paragraph 2, 2002).  Further into the article it expressed how children from different countries differ in intelligence depending on the culture they live. I also considered from the article that most of the intelligence testing done around the world for school age children is compared to that of what the article calls “Western Patterns of Schooling” (Sternberg, paragraph 9, 2002) and that it depends on the ways of their society. In this case parents are more concerned more on how their children are developing skills to be successful working on the farm fields than the skills learned and taught in school.

Reference

Link:  Retrieved 12/10/11 http://www.businessballs.com/howardgardnermultipleintelligences.htm

Link: Retrieved: 12/10/11

 http://orpc.iaccp.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=74%3Arobert-j-sternberg&catid=23%3Achapter&Itemid=2