Evaluation of Two Articles Describing the Best Way to Educate American Children - Essay Example

CRITICAL THINKING ESSAY: Evaluation of Two Articles Describing the Best Way to Educate American Children BY YOU YOUR ACADEMIC ORGANIZATION HERE YOUR COURSE/TUTOR INFO HERE DATE HERE CRITICAL THINKING ESSAY A recent article, “Child’s Play” by Sheryl Nance-Nash from Stanford University, describes the author’s perspective on how best to educate American children. This article specifically describes how to educate these children about global hunger through the use of tools and social expertise in the academic environment. This article links modern technology to contemporary child behavior as justification for the author’s perspective in this area of study. The author provides evidence regarding the methods by which children learn today, suggesting that American children spend most of their free time engaged in video game play, leaving them no time to even consider global issues such as hunger (Nance-Nash, 2005). The author is suggesting that it is quite difficult for educators to capture children’s’ attention without using a medium that already has their interest: The video game system. The United Nations World Food Program, an international organization designed to offer starvation relief to many under-developed nations, agrees with the authors premise and has created its own video game which is both interactive and educational about global citizens living in hunger. According to Debra Lieberman, a representative for the Institute for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research at the University of California, stated, “well-designed, action-adventure video games can significantly improve learning, skill development, and behavior change” (Nance-Nash, 2005, p.67). This article provides evidence from a renowned global organization as well as a reputable researcher from a notable American university as a means of supporting video games as the best method for teaching children about this important issue. Though the author uses ample evidence to support her claim, there are areas of concern throughout the article regarding the evidence offered. First, using video games as a medium for teaching due to the fact that children are already engaged in this activity routinely is not supported by any citations, thus this would seem to be more opinion-based without the support of concrete research studies. Though it is somewhat common knowledge that today’s children are using video games regularly, the notion that it will be a stimulating and inviting medium for teaching purposes cannot be substantiated with hard research evidence. Additionally, it is cited in the article that after the game’s development and launch, more than two million downloads of this new game had occurred from users in 40 different countries (Nance-Nash). The author seemed to believe that this was solid evidence that the game was promoting education and interest about global hunger due to the high download rates. Without conducting an appropriate research study to measure children’s’ attitudes after playing the downloaded game, assuming that the program was successful does not add any real credibility to the author’s perspective that video games are quality teaching tools. The fallacy in this article also comes from the perceived assessments about the video game’s overall effectiveness in teaching children about this issue. Margaret Carrington, the World Food Program press officer, identifies that “I get $3 checks from children who save up their allowances, or money they earned from raking leaves. Kids want to feel like they are helping and doing something” (Nance-Nash, 2005, p.68). Carrington makes this assumption without having any credible research conducted on different sample groups of children who have been exposed to this new video game. There is no indication that notes of sympathy are being attached to these checks from the children, therefore kids may have already had these feelings about starving global citizens but just simply did not understand how to send help. Assuming that these attitudes come from the video game’s content, without having solid evidence of this, is a considerable fallacy. The largest strength in this source is the fact that many reputable members of different academic and global food organizations have teamed up to use their expertise in developing a system to teach children about important issues. Drawing on their own unique experiences and education about children, these groups were able to successfully develop, market and launch a new video game concept without having much experience in this area. Showing the reader that reputable members of the international community remain focused on better teaching methods helps to get others thinking about what they, themselves, can do to assist in this process. The largest weakness is that many of the assumptions given in this article were not supported by additional research. The World Food Program invested $400,000 into development and launch of the new teaching video game, a sizeable investment, however no follow-up with certain child demographic groups occurred. This gives quite a bit of skepticism about the ability of video games to act as teaching tools. Most of the evidence that the program was working was based on perception only. The second article under review, “Enhancing Academic Performance by Strengthening Class-Inclusion Reasoning” by Robert Pasnak, Willa Cooke, and Charlene Hendricks, offers considerable evidence regarding how children between the ages of five and 12 have not yet mastered the concepts of class inclusion. Class inclusion is a theory proposed by Piaget which describes the cognitive development stages of children in which they are unable to master concepts regarding depth and volume. Making use of appropriate research studies, the evidence provided shows that children between five and 12 cannot make use of abstract thought (Pasnak, Cooke and Hendricks, 2006). For example, without proper cognitive training, if a child of this age group is given ten beads, seven of which are brown and three of which are white, they will cling to the perception that they have more brown beads than all of the beads combined (Pasnak et al). This suggests that the children cannot yet classify by volume but only by their perceptions based on color. The authors are suggesting that in order to help students master abstract concepts, training in this area should be reinforced by using different experiences to help the child gain a better cognitive understanding of amount versus specific features of an object. There is considerable relevance and significance to this study program as the evidence provided in the article uses concrete research data about childhood development patterns and provides a series of experiments which can be done to help children move from perceptive activities to abstract reasoning. The fallacy in this article comes in the assumptions which are made by the author which suggests that most children begin to be able to think abstractly by the age of seven (Pasnak et al). Teachers and parents will be the most likely reader of this instructional article and might begin to believe that their own child, by the age of seven, will be cognitively-equipped to handle complex rationalization and start these experiments too soon, thus overwhelming the child. Morris & Maisto (2005) offer that children do not reach the level of abstract thinking until the age of 10, thus this assumption is not grounded in solid cognitive development theories, but seems to be based more on belief or perception. Assuming that a child’s physiological brain patterns have evolved enough to grasp abstract experiments would seem to be impractical. The strength of this source is that many assumptions are actually grounded in hard data, gathered from several experiments conducted to determine the abstract reasoning level of children. A well-designed study was created which was both relevant and precise to the research question. The largest weakness was that the study did not have much breadth, as it did not measure whether academic performance had improved over an entire school period. This was a short-term study which also only measured a very small sample of children, thus assuming these lessons could be applied to all children of this age, as a valid teaching method, does not necessarily offer positive implications for all American children of this age group. References Morris, M. and Maisto, A. (2005). Psychology: An Introduction. 12th ed. Pearson Prentice Hall. Nance-Nash, Sheryl. (2005). “Child’s Play”. Stanford Social Innovation Review, Stanford. 3(4): 66-68. Retrieved 3 Aug 2009 from www.proquest.com. Pasnak, R., Cooke, W. and Hendricks, C. (2006). “Enhancing Academic Performance by Strengthening Class-Inclusion Reasoning”. The Journal of Psychology, Provincetown. 140(6): 603-614. Read More