Evaluating Circle Time - Tool for Developing Self-Esteem - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages Primary-aged children in today's classroom environment require a significant investment on behalf of the educator in relation to providing a quality learning environment geared toward satisfying the mandated curriculum demands of the school. However, far beyond the concepts of mathematics, reading literacy or any other rather generic lesson lies the necessity in fostering productive socialization, both between peers and the educator. In a typical educational facility, molding and stimulating these relationships can be relatively simple as positive socialization tends to occur as a natural evolution of children's interaction.

However, when instructing children with special educational needs, both in the form of physical and mental disabilities, the process of engaging in quality social interaction can be a significant undertaking. Children dealing with frustrations stemming from physical or emotional insecurities, especially when paired with children of more advanced developmental capabilities are often plagued with diminished self-esteem and increased anxiety due to poor (or false) self-assessments of their own inadequacies.

As such, developing a positive self-image in these primary-aged children with special educational needs (SEN) must be a primary goal of the contemporary educator As an experienced primary educator, the problems, I have personally encountered within a learning environment in which primary-aged children of various disabilities are paired with children who maintain (at least) average ability, are that some of these children do suffer from a further drop in self-esteem when their lack of skills and natural abilities are fully revealed to them. This from my own personal observations regularly results in whole class disruption.

Of the same opinion is Hundert (2007) who reports that when placing SEN children within a classroom to work alongside regular ability children, some of these SEN children have been known to not only experience significant decreases in self-esteem but also known to show increased disruptive behavior and higher frequencies of off-task behaviors. ...Download file to see next pages Read More