Childhood Youth and Education - Assignment Example

Essay addressing Parts and 2 Examine how social, historical and spatial constructions of childhood and/or youth inform the design, practices and values of a selected institution of childhood or young people. Conceptualising Childhood There are several definitions and facades within which the concept of childhood can be examined and assessed. According to Rathus (2008), “a child is a person undergoing the period of development from infancy through puberty” (p4). He goes on to define infancy as “the period of very early childhood, characterised by lack of complex speech usually, the first two years of birth” (Rathus, 2008: p4). This implies that a child is a person aged between puberty and infancy. An infant is one who is below the age three and an infant cannot really put together a complete set of speech and talk in an understandable manner as most people do. Thus, for the mainstream classification, a child is a person between ages 3 and 13. Rathus goes on to state that a child goes through a period of accelerated development that is different from other stages in life. In other words, childhood is the period that bridges the period of birth with the age of adulthood. Development, for the purpose of this discussion is defined by Rathus as “the process whereby organisms unfold features and traits and grow to become more complex and specialized in structure and function” (2008: p4). This means that childhood is a period where a childs features grow and develop from the status of a baby to a full grown adult who can take up responsibilities and functions in the society. Childhood is separated from adulthood by virtue of the admission of some biological facts about the two classes of human development stages. In the debates of Blundell, he identifies that there is a difference between childhood and childish (2011). When critiqued further, it can be identified that childhood is seen as a natural phase that everyone needs to go through. It is a perfectly acceptable biological phase that everyone must go through and learn and understand some basic elements of life. On the other hand, the world childish is used to to describe an adult who is showing negative traits of a child. This is used in a negative sense and suggests that an adult failed to learn important lessons of life whilst he was a child. Thus, childhood is seen as the early frame for contextualizing the early years of life (James and Prout, 1997). Thus, childhood is a distinct biological phase whereby an individual learns important things and important elements of humanity and the society. According to James and Prout (1997), childhood has been separated from adulthood since the days of the Enlightenment in Europe which goes back to the 1700s. This is a time where the Medieval practices of Europe, such as belief in metaphysics and superstition were put ahead of the need for scientific thinking and analysis. This allows structured learning and structured teaching to be carried out by institutions in Europe. The separation of childhood from adulthood provides the impetus for formal and structured education. This is because in contrast with the medieval periods where children were to learn at home and not really go through schooling as a prerequisite, the definition of childhood as a separate stream of life was necessary to support the Age of Reformation where the Protestants believed that baptism was not enough to teach a child right from wrong as the Catholics taught (Blundell, 2011). Hence, there was the need to segregate children and treat them differently and allow them to have a good childhood in order to become more responsible adults. Thus, as a symbol of childhood, young people between 3 and 13 were allowed to study theoretical frameworks and ideas as the Ancient Greek philosophers described essentialism (James and Prout, 1997). This is because childhood is seen as an important and significant part of human life that allows a person to learn important things about life in order to get a more appropriate adulthood. Mills (2000) identifies that there are four main facades through which a childhood can be examined and critiqued. They are the following: 1. Childhood as a force for good: Everyone believes that children are a malleable group of people who can be shaped and reshaped. Thus, childhood is seen as a point of flexible teaching and flexible instructions. Thus, most people believe that a child has a potential to be encouraged and taught the right things and the right structures of what would make them responsible adults. 2. Childhood as a point of apprenticeship: Aside the moral elements of life, childhood can be seen as a point in an individuals life where he can be taught important things about life that would enable him to ply a trade and provide a service to society that would enable him to become productive. Thus, aside being taught general things about life, children are also taught specific things that would enable them to specialize in any field of endeavour they may find themselves in the future. 3. Childhood as a distinct group: Childhood can be seen as a distinct age group that is made up of people in a unique social class with distinct biological attributes and features. Childhood is seen as an age and a phase with unique features and characteristics that makes a child different from an adult. Children are therefore allowed to have a life that enables them to experiment and prepare for the future of the life that will be ideal for them and for their society. This classification gives impetus to the childhood and childlike comparison where a person classified as a child would be allowed to do things and a person classified as an adult might not be allowed to do such things. 4. Childhood as an age of vulnerability: If children are considered as different from other people in the society, they can also be seen as a group of people who need special care and protection from the harsh realities of society. Children are to be given special protection and guidance to enable them to go through their unique phase in life and become responsive people to societys norms and rules. Children are people who are pervasively viewed as a weaker group and hence, they ought to be given all the protection they deserve. Institutions of Childhood, Youth and Education Childhood had no place in medieval days, mainly because children were required to work or perform some functions in support of their wider family (Blundell, 2011: p16). Even up till fairly recently, children in England had to work in order to support their families and social settings. Cunningham identifies that the Poor Law of Britain in the early 1800s were meant to make children work in destitute homes and other places and hence, childhood was just non-existent (2006: p16). In other words, children lived like adults from the earliest days of their lives and this was quite different from what we have today as a way of life for educating and training young people to become responsible adults. The concept of childhood was therefore a creation of the new Britain that came up after 1832 when laws were made to reform the leadership systems and structures and provide some protection for the middle class and other social groups in the nation. This gave the impetus for the definition of practices and values that affected the way children and young people were to behave and to initiate them into adulthood and a life of work and raising families. Thus, childhood is conceived as a stage of being and becoming whereby it is seen as a stage in life and/or a transition from infancy to adulthood (Compass, 2008). Childhood is a preparatory space where children are seen as a work in progress rather than a finished and completed group of people in society. Learning and Studying and its Influence on Primary Education After it became universally acceptable that children are to be seen as a class of people being trained and prepared for a better future, the mode of educating children has been somewhat defined in a clearcut manner at the primary school level. For instance, most people associate childhood and primary school learning and teaching with planned learning and structured studies (Alexander, 2010). This means that children are put in primary schools receive instructions and are taught things in a structured and defined way and procedure. Most of such institutions include teachers and school administrators who teach pupils and give them guidelines on how to approach things through rules and regulations. Administrators of primary schools provide teachers with learning outcomes and targets that they have to meet in their teaching and delivery to children. The teachers are to work against such standards and try their best to ensure that children receive instructions according to the directions that are given by the syllabus or curriculum. “What this involves for teachers is best described as a cyclic process in which they gather data about pupils current understanding and skills by observation. Careful questioning, gathering children’s views and studying pupils work, then interpret this information in relation to the lesson goals to decide the next steps in learning... it requires that children as well as teachers have a clear idea of what they should be aiming for, thus enabling them to take part in assessing their work and giving some independence to learning (Alexandra, 2010: p315). Thus, ideally structured learning refers to a two-way situation whereby teachers are given guidelines of the area that they ought to educate their children in and guide such persons. On the other hand, parents are required to get to understand the position and view of children and try their best to move the standard of teaching to a level that children would understand and appreciate in their studies and their tuition. This enable teachers to guide their pupils and enable pupils to also get tuition in a way and manner that fits their level of reasoning and understanding. Thus, childhood is about finding ways and means of getting children to appreciate important things and elements that would help them to build a future through simplified ways and means. These teaching drives and activities culminate in joint activities and joint teaching sessions that enables children to interact actively with their teachers to create a situation where learning and understanding new ideas and concepts come somewhat naturally (Alexander, 2010: p355). Spatial Trends in Children’s Lives Today In spite of these conventional and traditional means of teaching children, Blundell (2011) identifies that some parents in the UK protest against children having to work for many hours in each day. A parent cited by Blundell states that children need time to play and have a normal life, as opposed to having to spend most of the day learning in the school and doing home work. This implies that to most people, particularly parents, childhood at the primary school level requires some degree of play and unstructured learning through play. Cunningham identifies that there is a general pressure between children having to learn in a structured environment as opposed to learning through informal ways and systems (2006). Some commentators also argue that children in the contemporary setting have many challenges like getting too much of what they want and the deprivation of the right to learn things by exploring situations and activities on their own (Blundell, 2011). These people who criticize the formal system of contemporary society state that children are being pressed towards uniformity rather than having to learn through the unstructured and informal system that childhood is connected with. In order to reconcile the two arguments, Alexander states in the report on primary education that there should be some kind of joint interaction between the teacher and the pupils (2010). Thus, children must be encouraged to encouraged to give up their personal views of education through a dynamic, rather than static system of teaching. In other words, children should be encouraged to participate in the teaching and learning rather than having to listen to whatever the teacher says about the topic at hand. Children must be encouraged to play a role in the creation and re-creation of knowledge and teachers must build on what the children are familiar with. Active learning should be encouraged instead of passive learning which involves teachers teaching children what is right and wrong. Children must be encouraged to come up with what they know and together, the teacher must help to reshape and reform ideas and concepts in children’s minds. Conclusions Childhood is the age between infancy and adulthood. Childhood is a biological phase where people are permitted to learn and understand new ideas and new concepts about life and the reality. Children are seen as a distinct people in a distinct group that is vulnerable and deserve some kind of protection. Childhood is a phase where children learn and build up a future for the society. In the modern setting, children are required to go through structured education and institutions. This include primary schools and other institutions which involve structured learning. In other quarters, people think children are forced to learn a lot and conform to many rules and regulations. However, children are encouraged to learn through play and creative activities. Due to this, most scholars encourage the teaching process to include a learning system where children and teachers jointly set objectives and targets for learning rather than having teachers and administrators dictate what children must learn. References Alexander, R. (2010) Children, Their World, Their Education: Final Report and Recommendation of the Cambridge Primary Review London: Routledge. Blundell, D., (2011), Education and Constructions of Childhood, London: Continuum Compass, (2008) The Commercialisation of Childhood London: Compass. Cunningham, H. (2006) The Invention of Childhood London: BBC Books. James, A. and Prout, J. (1997) Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood: contemporary issues in the sociological study of childhood London: Routledge Mills, R. (2000) “Perspectives of Childhood” London: Routledge. Rathus, S. A. (2008) Childhood and Adolescence: Voyages and Development Mason, OH: Cengage Read More