Key Theoretical Perspectives to Child Development - Essay Example

? Key Theoretical Perspectives to Child Development Children learn through different methods as they grow andmature to adulthood in their different environment, which exposes them to different knowledge and skills. In this perspective, the teachers to different children use various models to impact knowledge on the children through selectively choosing the methods that can facilitate fast learning. Psychologists have advanced different models and perspectives to explain the nature of the training and knowledge and how students or learners can benefit from it. Through their different models of explanation, they explain the different methods necessary to impact children with knowledge in the most effective way. These psychological perspectives of children development explains why different steps taken to impact them with knowledge can be effective or can offer them with the needed environment to learn. The psychological perspectives of child development differ in their explanation of why the children get the knowledge they have and how they learn it. The three perspectives that explain children development include the maturationist, environmentalist, also called the behaviourist and the constructivist or the interactionist perspective (Donnelly and Straus, 2005, p3-7). These perspectives differ in the way they define the roles of a learner in attaining the required knowledge and skills found in the environment through the teachers. In addition, the models explain the roles teachers play to enhance the learning of ideas by children for whom they are responsible. The models disapprove the arguments of each other, by emphasising different things, in the explanation of how children learn, internalise and apply the knowledge they get in the environment by being getting involved in the activities that happen there. The three perspectives given in explanation of children development vary in different of their perspectives of explaining the sources of knowledge obtained by children and the way the extract it from such sources (Dalton, 2005, p195). According to maturationists, children are growing organism in an environment that offers them with choices for their life and which they can choose to adopt or leave. According to some proponents of this theoretical perspective of children development, children depend on their genetic characteristics to enhance their ability to grasp certain things. This means that the environmental conditions have insignificant control over the way children behave because people develop their ability as they grow and this enhances their capability to contain their issues as they come. The perspective argues that in the process of growth, children reach different stages that prepare them to acquire various characteristics in their lives and to enhance their lives. This perspective argues that a child does not have to undergo training in formal manners to attain the knowledge that they need in life. In relation to the things they do, different stages of life help them to choose the different things that they can do and choosing the best manner to do it because they are ready and can accommodate all the requirement of training (Dalton, 2005, p198-199). The maturationist theoretical perspective of explaining the development of children defines the roles of different parts of the environment of a child and which have impacts on their conduct. This perspective argues that a teacher, though important to the process of development of the child in different stages plays minimal roles to influence the acquisition of knowledge and skills by the child. In the process of learning, the teacher serves the role of supervising the child and specifies the necessary signs for determining, assessing or gauging the development of the child. According to this perspective, teachers are the environment that places demands on the children so that they can attain the required skills of different stages of life of any child. The process of education is to enhance the acquisition of knowledge and skills as opposed to active role of equipping the child with the selected knowledge requirement. This is to say that education is a catalyst to the development of knowledge in a child because even without education, students can get it, only that it would take a longer time. Teachers should offer a well-planned education to children so that by going through it, they can move from a lower level of knowledge to a higher level as they progress. This kind of education ensures that teachers offer different development oriented challenges to children, which will promote them to see the demand for the skills and knowledge at different levels. The teachers should formulate a curriculum that has a perspective beyond the normal environment of the child and that, which exposes the whole world to the knowledge students. This is because the students will need to obtain knowledge in its diverse nature so that it can help to adapt to different environment if they happen to move to different places. Through education also, students will be able to rank environment in terms of their different qualities and to select the skills they can use when it comes to such environment. Education is a system that offers students within the opportunities they need to test the knowledge they have gotten independently and naturally and therefore education ought to be orderly and systematic. According to this perspective, experience and knowledge enhance and facilitate the process of maturation and maturity itself since it is about exposure and practise. The experience and knowledge a child attains is as a result of their ability to meet social and environmental expectation of individuals of the specific stage of growth (Dalton, 2005, p190). Other proponents of the maturationist theoretical perspective to explain children development argues that the attention that mentors give to children help them to develop different knowledge and skills. The abilities learnt by a child through attention he or she receives from the mentors is manifested socially, academically, spiritually, sensorial and behaviourally. In an example, the children who are growing within an environment do the things that are done in by people of their age and at their stage of development. The children do not have to hear some people commanding them in particular ways but they have innate ability to decide to take a specific course of action but the mentors assessments help them to learn at a faster rate than in their absence (Dalton, 2005, p193). The other theoretical perspective that is different from the maturationist is the environmentalist or the behavioural outlook of the process of growth of a child from one stage to another. The proponents of this perspective argue that knowledge and skills exist in the environment of a child but not within the child and they do not acquire it at an instance, but through a process. This means that the environment of the children does not only provide the knowledge to a child but through different participant, it impacts that knowledge to the developing children. According to this perspective, measurement of development in a child is by observing the progressive changes that take place within a child in their environment as a result of its influence (Van and Blieck, 2006, p11). This theoretical perspective specifies the role of a teacher as to plan, implement assess and supply the required support for learning and behaviour, which produces the intended feedback from the child. Teachers direct the learning of the students through minimum interactions with the children help them to acquire the knowledge that can be appropriate in determining conduct within an environment. The students do not have to have a relationship with the teacher to enhance their learning but small activities targeted to help them seek knowledge help them to acquire knowledge (Van and Blieck, 2006, p15). The environmentalist perspective also argues that there are differences in teaching different ages of children in which various activities of the teacher promote learning of knowledge and skills. Early childhood teachers implement child centred and interactive methods, which will not only equip students with knowledge but will be safe and will involve the children in activities of learning. This ensures that they learn the knowledge and some of the most important skill that they can use to implement the knowledge they acquire in each learning engagement. However, for all the children in different stages, practising the knowledge in different times in the course of learning enables children to use it as well as to develop competence. The perspective’s proponents argue that by sensorial experiences, children perfect their knowledge through repetitive activities that enhance whatever they learn in one instance. According to these proponents, sensorial experiences are better than the different teachers’ reinforced programmes, which just generate the knowledge and impart it on the children without making a follow up of the different ways the children uses it for their benefit. The sensorial experiences help to create and retain memory, which associates the knowledge about the environment and the child and uses the teacher as the bridge between the two (Van and Blieck, 2006, p33). The children produce response to behaviours they experience while they interact with different people in their environment whether they are positive or they are negative. This means that these proponents of this perspective argue that people will children have abilities that help them to distinguish between the different occurrences and take actions in order to counter them. However, some of the proponents argue that the development of the desirable character determines the behaviour rather than just the observation of the some characters in the environment (Van and Blieck, 2006, p51). The other theoretical perspective in explanation of the development process of children is the constructivist and argues that knowledge is dynamic and learners have to adopt various ways to learn it. The perspective explains that the environment in which teachers exchange knowledge with children influences the process of learning in a child and the way the sharing take place. The children are active participants in the process of learning as they interact with the people who teach them as well as the environments itself. The constructivist perspective argues that children participate in their environment and the people and in different stages of their life so that they get motivated to acquire different and significant knowledge through their active engagement (McAuliffe and Eriksen, 2011, p23). In the learning process, the role of the teacher is to implement some activities that guide the learners by determining their inquiry and creating an environment to exchange the various issues in the learning environment. In the issue, the teacher provides all the learning materials, which learners required in order to properly exploit their environment by making relevant inquiries. This ensures that all learners in an environment can acquire knowledge through doing activities and interacting with other people with whom they meet in the process of their learning (McAuliffe and Eriksen, 2011, p83). According to this perspective of children development, the process of learning cannot alienate itself from the social environment, which influences it to produce different impacts on the learners. The children who are in a learning environment have a platform to inquire from it so that they make some changes in their mind and end up boosting their ability to engage themselves in different activities. Through engagement and with the teacher’s presence to enhance the process of exchange of knowledge, people have resulted to develop their skills and hence growth is realised (McAuliffe and Eriksen, 2011, p123). In the process of learning, children present themselves to educators who provides them with skills and knowledge they need to adapt to different life issues within their environments. In evaluation of the different methods of learning, there are three factors that determine the outcome of the whole process, these include the child who is the learner, the teacher, who plays the role to moderate the different factors required for success and the environment, which gives a child the different option from which they can choose the different way to respond. All these three parts of a learning process influence differently the activities of children in the process of knowledge acquisition, which lead to the development of the children to mature adults. Although the three theoretical perspectives of explaining the children development offer different explanation and assign different roles to the different participants, they converge at the point that environment has influence toward the learning process. This implies that the nature of the environment in which a child learns can enhance or deteriorate the quality of what they learn and therefore, keeping it safe from harmful effects promote good behaviours in them. References Dalton, T. C. (2005). Arnold Gesell and the Maturation Controversy. Integrative Physiological and Behavioral Science, 40(4), p.182-204. Donnelly, M., & Straus, M. A. (2005). Corporal punishment of children in theoretical perspective. New Haven: Yale University Press. McAuliffe, G., & Eriksen, K. (2011). Handbook of counselor preparation: Constructivist, developmental, and experiental approaches. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. Van, P. P., & Blieck, A. (2006). The environmental worldview of children: a cross€??cultural perspective. Environmental Education Research, 12(5), p. 625-635. Read More