Young Children's Symbolic Behavior: Theories of Representation - Report Example

Name Tutor Task Date Young Children’s Symbolic Behavior: Theories of Representation Background Representation theory begins from mental states such as beliefs, thoughts, desires, imaginations and perceptions. These states in human mind are said to have intention, i.e. they tend to refer to things around their environment. They are often evaluated with respect to consistency, appropriateness, accuracy and truth. Representation theory helps in understanding intentional mental states in relation to mental representation. Representation also helps observers understand processes such as thinking, imagining and reasoning as a sequence of intentional mental states (Richardson, 300). Psychologists and philosophers of the mind suggest all mental facts have explanations in terms of natural environment they attempt to give accounts of mental states and processes in terms of the brain and nature. Mental representation has centered on the existence of attitudes such as desires, beliefs, determination of content and the existence of phenomenal properties and relation to content of thought. Mental states and processes are explained in terms of mental representations and thus my observation of a child will be based on this concept. The child I chose to observe is a four year old boy that I will name A. He is a highly gifted child who unfortunately has divorced parents. His parents are divorced but he lives with his mother, who has another husband. His father also remarried but he often has contact with him even though they have a strained relationship. He comes from an upper middle class background but my observation is in a school setting where he is able to meet all kinds of people including the poor and the rich. A. has no brothers or sisters. My observation started as he brought by her mother to the school. The child is an African American male in a preschool room of a church. My one hour observation includes the child listening to a story and at the same time playing during as he interacts with other peers and the teacher. Both the peers and the teacher are of African American background; in addition, there are no other children from multicultural backgrounds. The teacher had control of the class since she was able to talk a child out of whatever activity they did that was away from class activity. Based on the issue above I believe that the classroom was well directed and the teacher had greater control over her children. This is because the children did not get out of line and if they did, their teacher would reprimand them. The room they were in contained many toys, books and pictures for their age. The walls were mainly covered with different pictures and posters. As their teacher Mrs. R. was reading a story, A. was not paying attention. But when she started asking questions about the story, A. was the only one who was did not answer. Other children answered happily but A. did not. This process happened for a couple of minutes with A. continuing to play with his nails while looking around the classroom and fidgeting all the time. From the observation above, A. showed the need for movement since he was always looking around trying to figure out what everything around him meant (Gambrell, 199). Since A. was the youngest among the children in the classroom, he same how felt inferior to the other kids. I think this did not give her the need to respond. I also think that when he was not listening he was exploring the environment around in order to get better understanding of the teacher and his peers. Since the teacher also knew about his younger age, she did not feel the need to respond to his quietness. After Mrs. R was done with her story, she once again asked questions. She applied the story to real life situations of animals and objects that would need a “bed” during wintertime. Through the teacher’s interpretation, of other animals and objects, the children we able to learn how to apply one concept in different criterion in order to produce intense collective knowledge system based on cognition (Brandon, 230). After some time, Mrs. R announces that it was time for “Centers.” This was a kind of game where one of the children would become a leader within a group of other children. The teacher went through the class list alphabetically, so that each child would be given an opportunity to be a leader while other children were “children at preschool.” A child leader was what center they would want to work at. When all the other children had picked centers, A. looked around and walked over to a dough table of puzzle, pumpkin and play that happened to be empty. The teacher allows the children to pick and decide own activities. This was done in order to develop a ‘capable’ classroom and a ‘can-do’ classroom. A. being an inferior child and vulnerable to intimidation by other students, he wanted to work quietly by himself at the dough table. Despite being intimidated by other student’s ages, he was aware of the surrounding since he was able to make his own decisions. As the observed child was working patiently and quietly at his table, the teacher noticed him by looking over her shoulder. She realizes that A. had trouble solving a puzzle. She did not hesitate but swiftly walked over to him to help him. The child looked up at her then draws back down to his puzzle. Mrs. R asked him what he was working on but A. did not reply. He only pointed at the puzzle. The teacher then only commented that he should try turning the pieces. He does as told by her teacher. As I had already mentioned, A. is a ‘can-do’ child since he was able to pick his own center of work. The teacher also did allow him to work on the puzzle by himself but with constant eyeing and little guidance. The teacher in this context used Vygotsky’s scaffolding method in the zone of Proximal Development (Richardson, 301). This involved a situation when a child cannot completely accomplish a task, but can do better with the help of others who are slightly skilled. We are able to see that child A. could not yet complete a puzzle by himself but with help of the teacher (skilled other), he can easily can complete the puzzle. Additionally, we can observe that A. was developing fine motor skills with his constant interaction with the small pieces. A. finished his puzzle and was commended by the teacher by excitedly saying “That was a tricky one” “Good Job.” The child puts down the finished puzzle and takes another one as the teacher walked away. Through their constant interactions, A. seemed to work more competently. The teacher’s encouragement also made him look happy and eager to complete the next puzzle. Another child joined his table and starts playing as a cashier. She immediately calls out to anybody willing to pay. A. abruptly says a strong no and continues to work on his puzzle. A. seemed more interested in learning about developing his other area of physical development than interacting with his peers. He continually ignores others and continues to work on his puzzle. Another male student aged four approached A’s table in order to help him play. This child calls out that “I have come to help you finish this puzzle so long as you do that!” A. says that it was fine with him. After sometime they finished and A. replies, “This is great, let us now clean up.” They both laughed and A. clapped his hands excitedly since he knew that he had perfectly completed another puzzle. The second child G. watched as A. picked up the pieces of puzzles piece by piece and after he was done cleaning up, they get another puzzle which they both start working on. A. was now using motivation from other peers in order to complete a specific task. With the help of peers, he was completing a task in order to gain personal pleasures. Through this, A. learned a habit of cleaning up after work. He developed the habit of cleaning up without being told. He realized the need of avoiding living a mess behind. After completing the third puzzle with her peer, he looks around the classroom and slowly gets up. He walked over to the teacher who was by the play area in the back corner of the class. He said, “teacher, teacher, can I play at the play dough center?” Mrs. R. replied “Sure child, go there by L. and work together.” He looks down at the floor and then walked over to the dough table where a child L. was playing. As we had already seen, the class was a ‘can-do’ class and the teacher avoided picking an activity for the children. She lets A. pick the next activity for himself without hesitation. As A was working on his dough, he rolled and squashed the piece he was holding into a flat sheet. The teacher went over and asks him what he was making. He excitedly replies, “An egg, it smells good!” Mrs. R. then said ‘that is good A., after that try this shape, or that one! Try making them and I will be back.” The teacher leaves the dough table and goes to attend to other children. Playing with the dough seemed to be developing a fine motor skill in A. he was using his hands is a good way so as to experience and explore the rich environment around him. We realize that A. did comment on the smell of the play dough. This indicated that he was developing the sense of smell at the tender age of four. His continuous wok with the play dough shows us that he was enthusiastic with the squashing of the dough into different shapes. The teacher also continually checked him and helped him with shapes. Once he was through with a shape, he clapped his hands and gave a cheerful smile. It is also noticeable once again that A. is able to get personal pleasure from completing up shapes by pulling and squashing dough. Additionally, Mrs. R would check on him and help him despite watching and helping other children. We can also say that A. has become too dependent on the teacher for help in completing tasks (Goodman, 45). The teacher finally announces that it was time to clean-up. A. looked around and saw that others had started cleaning up. He then starts putting away her dough in order to clean up the mess she had created. He also looked down at her hands and realized that there were play dough that stuck on his hands. A. picked up a face cloth and wiped his hands off. After finishing, she went and sat on a chair by the bulletin board. In noticing other children cleaning up, we realize that A. puts down his play dough away and starts cleaning up too. This indicated that he had awareness for other kids in the classroom. It also showed that he developed this as a habit (other kids also developed this into a habit). A did also develop a sense of cleanliness because he saw that his hands were dirty and thus he had to clean them using a hand face towel. After all the children had sat by the bulletin board, the teacher once again started reading another story and in the process, all other children started listening to her. Although the playing games are over A. did realize that it was time to go back to the normal classroom routine of learning about environmental issues. This time, A. sat and listened intensively to the story. A. this time developed schemes on one subject and organized them by linking them to other concepts so as to develop an interconnected cognitive system. Discussion This observation looked at practical observation where the time for study was given and also the time for hands on activities was also given. The teacher only directed the activities while children contributed at certain agreed points with themselves. I observed A’s movement in the class and his participation as it developed form the first step to one where he could concentrate in story told by the teacher. The teacher did not attempt interrupt activities but only gave quick suggestions for remedial responses. From the observation we have seen that representation as depicted by A. begins from mental states such as beliefs, thoughts, desires, imaginations and perceptions (Gambrell, 200). His state at the beginning of the lesson had intention, i.e. he tended to refer to things around their environment. The evaluation was in respect to consistency, appropriateness, accuracy and truth. Representation theory helped in understanding intentional mental states in relation to mental representation. Representation also helped us observe and understand processes such as thinking, imagining and reasoning as a sequence of intentional mental states. Psychologists and philosophers of the mind suggest all mental facts have explanations in terms of natural environment they attempt to give accounts of mental states and processes in terms of the brain and nature. Mental representation has centered on the existence of attitudes such as desires, beliefs, determination of content and the existence of phenomenal properties and relation to content of thought. At the beginning of the lesson A. showed the need for movement since he was always looking around trying to figure out what everything around him meant (Gambrell, 200). Since A. was the youngest among the children in the classroom, he same how felt inferior to the other kids. I think this did not give her the need to respond. A. was developing fine motor skills with his constant interaction with the small pieces in his table of puzzles. A. then used motivation from other peers in order to complete specific tasks. With the help of other peers, he completed task in order to gain personal pleasures. Through this, A. learned a habit of cleaning up after work. He developed the habit of cleaning up without being told. He realized the need of avoiding living a mess behind. Playing with the dough seemed to be developing a fine motor skill in A. he was using his hands is a good way so as to experience and explore the rich environment around him. We realize that A. did comment on the smell of the play dough. This indicated that he was developing the sense of smell at the tender age of four (Goodman, 45). In noticing other children cleaning up, we realize that A. puts down his play dough away and starts cleaning up too. This indicated that he had awareness for other kids in the classroom. It also showed that he developed this as a habit (other kids also developed this into a habit). A did also develop a sense of cleanliness because he saw that his hands were dirty and thus he had to clean them using a hand face towel. Conclusion Mental representation has centered on the existence of attitudes such as desires, beliefs, determination of content and the existence of phenomenal properties and relation to content of thought. Representation also helped us observe and understand processes such as thinking, imagining and reasoning as a sequence of intentional mental states. Psychologists and philosophers of the mind suggest all mental facts have explanations in terms of natural environment they attempt to give accounts of mental states and processes in terms of the brain and nature. Mental representation has centered on the existence of attitudes such as desires, beliefs, determination of content and the existence of phenomenal properties and relation to content of thought. My observation was on a four year old boy who I named A. He is a highly gifted child who unfortunately has divorced parents. His parents are divorced but he lives with his mother, who has another husband. His father also remarried but he often has contact with him even though they have a strained relationship. He comes from an upper middle class background but my observation is in a school setting where he is able to meet all kinds of people including the poor and the rich. A. had no brothers or sisters. My observation started as he brought by her mother to the school. The child was an African American male in a preschool room of a church. My one hour observation included the child listening to a story and at the same time playing as he interacted with other peers and the teacher. Both the peers and the teacher were of African American background. In addition, there were no other children from multicultural backgrounds. The teacher had control of the class since she was able to talk a child out of whatever activity they did that was away from class activity. Reference Brandon, Ridge. Non-inferential Knowledge, Perceptual Experience, and Secondary Qualities on Mind and World. London: Rutledge Publishers, 2002. 230 Gambrell, Libby. What motivates children to read? Scholastic Literacy Research Paper 2, 1999. 199 & 200 Goodman, Straw. The Integration of Verbal and Motor Behavior in Preschool Children. Journal of Child Development. Brookline Publishers, 2005. 45 Richardson, Johns. Psychology in observational Learning. Social Sciences Handbook of Qualitative Research Methods. BPS Books Publishers 2005. 300 & 301 Read More