Understanding the Childhood - Essay Example

Answer The poem in its lucid and excellent way tries to describe the world of a child which is a continuous swing between reality and fantasy – a child seldom is able to clearly differentiate between the two. But a child has a brand new world that their young and innocent mind is eager to discover. In their nascent spirit of inquisitiveness, the child seems to imbibe whatever the environment has on offer and the poet expresses this eloquently by saying that a child has a hundred languages and a hundred hands and a hundred ways to marvel at hundreds and hundreds of new things that is there to experience. The child wants to travel on this exciting voyage of discovery all on their own and in their own way – the way that they are most comfortable with. However, modern education system tries to stifle this independent spirit of enquiry present in a child and wants to straitjacket the system of education in a pattern that is not only predetermined but also blandly uniform for each and every child. This sort of uniformity nips in the bud any form of creativity or individuality that is present in every child and transforms the joy that is there in experiential learning into an unending drudgery that is epitomized through a strictly monitored series of learning by rote. To some it appears as a forced circumcision of free play of young minds aimed at snubbing off the spirit of questioning and daring to charter newer terrains – arguably two most important drivers of human civilisation. It also negates the basic fact that all of us have different ways of learning. (Thornton and Brunton 2005) To others it seems as the only practical option available whereby pre-school children are made aware of the basics and parameters of knowledge they will acquire in their subsequent sojourns to schools and colleges. This school of people believe knowledge should be strictly regimented, crystallised and devoid of any unnecessary frills that only confuse children and leave them struggling to cope with the arduous task of sifting necessary nuggets of knowledge from the flotsam of hazy concepts that segue between illusion and reality. Reggio Emilia preschools refute the straitjacketed approach to childhood learning and encourage them to discover the world on their own through play, drawing and freely interacting with one another. This allows them to discover their identity and relate to society in an effortless and seamless way. Thus they always remain in congruence with the world around them and never ever suffer from any form alienation or identity crisis in later life. The predominant presence of mirrors, especially around the tetrahedron where children gather, allow them not only to develop socially compatible traits but also to discover different facets of their personality by looking at their multiple images reflected in numerous mirrors placed all around them. This apparently inconsequential method of allowing children to explore the world and themselves unhindered by any predetermined procedure can be easily replicated elsewhere only if mothers elsewhere become as enlightened as the mothers of Reggio Emilia. (Abbot and Nutbrown 2001) Answer 2 Any maladjustment or maltreatment (either genuine or perceived) during childhood more often than not surfaces in some form of societal contradictions and confrontations in a child’s later life. This concept naturally assumes some form of ideal childhood with notions of ideal family structure, immediate environment, social norms and mores, and desirable social interactions – both within the family and with the external world. United Nations accepts its responsibility in upholding “fundamental human rights and in the dignity and worth of the human person” and has declared “childhood is entitled to special care and assistance”. (Office of the United Nations Higher Commissioner for Human Rights "OHCHR" 1990) United Nations realised the importance of family and healthy social environment as two important drivers of harmonious growth of each child into an adult that genuinely believes in the spirit of peace, dignity, tolerance, freedom, equality and solidarity among entire humankind. Without ever letting go out of sight that a child is essentially immature both in body and mind and unable to take care of themselves on their own, the United Nations has clearly laid down the Rights of the Child to ensure that children everywhere are adequately protected and provided for. The primary right of a child is not to be affected by social prejudices and legal strictures, if any, that might be prevalent against their parents. All actions taken by legal, social, governmental and non-governmental bodies that might affect children must be taken with the best interest of concerned children in mind. United Nations has also declared in its charter that, except under extraordinary circumstances, State should ensure that a child is never separated from their parents. The world body has also been unambiguous in its censure of illegal human trading in children and has directed State to take the most stringent measures to prevent any such nefarious activity. A child, like any other adult human being will be entitled to freedom of opinion, thought and expression and will also be entitled to their right of privacy. (Office of the United Nations Higher Commissioner for Human Rights "OHCHR" 1990) However, Helen Penn draws our attention to the fact that notions of childhood is not the same in every region of the world and varies much widely than can be conceived by a Westerner. Just to place her argument in proper perspective, she draws the example of poverty as viewed in Western world and elsewhere. While poverty is considered as a personal failure in Western world it is mostly considered as a failure of the social system in less developed countries. Thus, Western world feels the best way to help poor children is to provide them non-financial help through centre-based education and social programmes, parenting advice, home visiting, or a mixture of all these techniques. In contrast, in less developed countries, the accepted norm to help poor children is to provide them financial support, often to the extent of setting up shelters for destitute children. Thus, the dictums laid down in UN charter can be interpreted in widely differing manners and there can be no one unique or best way to ensure that every child can exercise their right that has been enshrined in UN declarations. (Penn 2005) Answer 3 Loris Malaguzzi considered a school not as an institution that had strict administrative procedures in place and existed in order to fill the empty minds of children but, as a living organism that took active part in the development of a child by becoming a partner in its learning and cognitive process of gradual development into matured adulthood. Malaguzzi thought a child has enough potential to competently build their own knowledge base and concepts and all that they require is an ambient environment that encourages each child to embark on their individual journey of discovering the whole new world that lay waiting and eagerly inviting their young minds to set off on this exciting journey. A preschool, where a toddler first gets to know the world outside their immediate family, should be the ultimate facilitator in motivating the child to start experiencing the outer world without any premeditated schedule of acquiring knowledge. This entire process is reinforced by active participation of parents and teachers that are more interested in co-construction of knowledge rather than instilling the young minds with knowledge and skills that they have already acquired by virtue of their maturity and formal education. Thus for each child it is an individual journey, unique in its nature and characteristics, whereby each child develops their own identity and social equation with other members of the society. With active participation of parents and teachers, the child gets an environment that exudes love and care and is one that the child can repose full faith on. Thus, learning becomes a joyful experience with the child exploring a new page of life each day. (Penn, Understanding Early Childhood: Issues and Controversies 2008) Jean Piaget and his theory of "genetic epistemology" on the other hand clearly defined four distinct stages of cognitive development of a child. Each and every child went through these stages as they travelled the long journey to adulthood. These stages consist of: Sensorimotor stage that spans the first two years of their life and is spent mainly in mastering their physical reflexes. Preoperational stage that spans the next five years and is spent in learning how to speak and think in a cohesive manner that need not always be logical or exhibit a rational continuum. Concrete operational stage that spans the next four to five years of their life is spent in gradually incorporating logic in their thoughts and mastering the concepts of time and numbers. Formal operations stage is the last stage of cognitive development that lasts till a child reaches adulthood and it largely consists of progressive mastery over logical thought and mental experimentation including hypothecation and postulation. Piaget considered these stages as a sort of a timetable set by nature for the natural cognitive development of a child and is to a great extent independent of the environment in which the child is brought up. Thus, the emphasis on social environment by Malaguzzi is totally negated by Piaget who views child development more as a psychosomatic affair rather than a societal one. (Woodhead 2003) For an ordinary child educator the practical approach seems to be somewhere along the middle as a child can be exposed to increased interactions only when they are intellectually capable of assimilating and interpreting the consequences of the exposures. Answer 4 Childhood is a period where an infant tries to come to terms with their self and immediate neighbourhood that generally consist of parents and siblings. In some extended families grandparents and uncles and aunts also form an integral part of the picture with cousins also considered at par with siblings. An infant has no experience of the world around them and childhood is a period when they gradually learn and conceptualise about the world around them. It is a period when often what a child does is not intelligible to adults but there is always a specific reason as to what a child does. Most often as the adults are unable to make much sense of actions of a child they tend to term such actions as ‘child’s play’ and refuse to look beyond such actions as having some purpose. Sandra Smidt has done elaborate study on such ‘child’s play’ and hold the opinion that each such playful activity of a child is an attempt to know more about their surroundings and objects that surround them. In an example where a ten month old child intently inspects a stick and repeatedly drops it on the floor, Smidt has found an attempt by the child to understand what happens when the stick is released and by observing that it drops to the floor when done so realises the existence of something called gravity. Quite obviously the child will be unable to explain the science behind the force of gravity, but they would be aware that anything that is released from hand most certainly crashes on to the floor. Smidt thus is of the view that it is through play, and that must be devised by the child and not imposed upon by any adult, a child learns more and more about the world around them and develops their own knowledge bases. Childhood is thus a period of exploring, experimenting and drawing own conclusions and setting own paradigms through repeated hit-and-miss enactments of ‘child’s play’. (Smidt 2006) There are other psychologists that view childhood as a “blooming buzzing confusion” but very soon this chaos, fragmentation and disorderliness gives way to some patterns and meanings to the happenings around them and learn how to imbibe only that is important and relevant while discarding all that add to unnecessary baggage. While some people are of the opinion that childhood most certainly impacts how a person evolves as an adult there are however no definite empirical evidence to back up such a conjecture with any degree of certainty. There are ample examples of people that have spent miserable childhoods have gone on to become eminently successful in life with Maxim Gorky being one of the leading examples. Childhood memories recounted by many authors of repute also seem to reinforce the opinion that people only have photographic memories of those incidents that they are fond of and want to remember, the rest they simply discard. It is perhaps human to do so since it would be beyond the capabilities of human brain if it were to have photographic memories of each and every incident of childhood. (Penn, Understanding Early Childhood: Issues and Controversies 2008) On a personal front one tends to agree with this view as one attempts to recount ones childhood and realises that it is one big album of photographs (some hazy, others bright) of all those incidents that one wants to remember. Answer 5 When the module commenced, as an individual the author was not impressed by the issue that has been repeatedly voiced by eminent personalities in the field of early learning processes of child. Like many others, the author was also of the opinion that a child was an empty vessel that needed to be filled up with knowledge essential for growing up into a mature adult capable of facing the hazards of modern life. The process of transmitting the requisite knowledge, quite obviously, had to be done by experienced teachers that are adept at tackling rambling toddlers. Any attempt in allowing the child to interact with and explore their own selves and their immediate physical surroundings and also with fellow toddlers so that they progressively acquire a knowledge base in their own unique way and at a pace they are most comfortable with was obviously looked down upon as an unnecessary wastage of valuable time in the process of growing up, and growing up real fast at that. But as one delved deeper and deeper into the module and became aware of the importance of what is known as ‘child’s play’ and realised that no play by any child is without purpose; it is on the contrary a child’s own way of knowing all that they need to know about the world they inhabit and gather their own knowledge about the basic laws of nature, one tended to marvel at the level of intelligence that each child displays. The respect for a toddler increased phenomenally and one became more involved and enthused to observe how a toddler prepares for the future journey into adulthood. As these toddlers babbled and huddled together one was sensitive enough to realise that they were taking the first lessons in socialising and learning how to live harmoniously with others in a civil society. (Loreman 2009) Also as children scampered through rough and rugged outdoors, often scraping and bruising themselves in the process, they came closer to nature and imbibed knowledge that would be impossible to directly transmit to them by even the best and most talented teachers. The author would earlier surely have lost temper at the mess children make as they play, but once the realisation that it is not as messy as it seems, it is a child’s own way of intimate exploration and accumulation of knowledge dawned on the author, the way of looking at children and their behaviour underwent a complete transformation. This has perhaps been the biggest challenge and simultaneously the biggest satisfaction of undertaking this module. (Tovey 2007) The author repeatedly marvelled at how ones perspective changes after being suitably educated on an issue that is still not explored sufficiently. Actually, the field of child education and learning might perhaps never be explored with the clarity with which a phenomenon in Physics and Chemistry can be explored. This is simply because the toddlers would never be able to expressly cogently the purpose of each activity of theirs. But upon becoming aware of various techniques of allowing each child to grow up to their full potential (as brilliantly executed in Reggio Emilia preschools) the author felt that a lot of vital information would have remained unknown if this module was not pursued. References Abbot, L., and C. Nutbrown. "Experiencing Reggio Emilia ." In Experiencing Reggio Emilia: implications for pre-school provision, by L. Abbot and C. Nutbrown (eds), 1-7. Buckingham: Open University Press, 2001. Loreman, T. Respecting Childhood. London: Continuum, 2009. Office of the United Nations Higher Commissioner for Human Rights "OHCHR". Convention on the Rights of the Child. September 2, 1990. http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/crc.htm (accessed January 23, 2010). Penn, H. Understanding Early Childhood: Issues and Controversies. Maidenhead: Open University Press, 2008. —. Unequal Childhoods: Young children’s lives in poor countries. London: Routledge, 2005. Smidt, S. The Developing Child in the 21st Century: a global perspective on child development. London: Routledge, 2006. Thornton, L., and P. Brunton. Undersstanding the Reggio Approach. London: David Fulton, 2005. Tovey, H. Playing Outdoors: Spaces and Places, Risk and Challenge . Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill, 2007. Woodhead, M. "The Child in Development." In Understanding Childhood: an Interdisciplinary approach, by H. Montgomery and M. Woodhead (eds). Chichester: John Wiley and Sons Ltd., 2003. Read More