This is Sara with her mom when Sara was just a baby. She said, "I was a very chubby baby! I was adopted from S.Korea at 10 months old, and my mom always said that the Korean adopting agency thought that American couples wanted healthy (chubby) looking babies. I was so chubby my pediatrician had a difficult time finding my knee caps!" Well, thankfully, Sara didn't have any trouble finding chapter 5 in the Elkind book, as she's done a great job writing about it here. Happy reading!
Elkind begins this chapter by sharing a heartbreaking story of a girl who was raised under the most horrific circumstances. She was dehumanized by her parents to the highest degree, keeping her cooped up in a tiny room until the age of thirteen. She was mentally, physically and socially far behind anyone her age. During Elkind’s time observing and evaluating this girl, he came up with three misunderstandings about how children learn.
The first misunderstanding is The “Watch Me” Theory of Learning and Instruction (p.91). This misunderstanding explains how teachers, parents and caregivers often essentially “give up” on children’s learning process. Instead of allowing children to learn through imitation and repetition, parents may lose patience and try to focus the child’s attention on something else. Or, they may take the activity in their own hands and, in turn, tell the child to “watch me.” I have to admit that as a child development major, my biggest fear is losing patience. I feel that it is important for me to make the conscious effort to stay in the moment with students all the time. It would be unfair and selfish of me to not allow children to learn at their own pace.
The second misunderstanding is The “Little Sponge” Theory of Learning and Instruction (p. 95). Elkind explains that followers of this theory believe that there is a certain time period the brain is conditioned to absorb as much information as possible. To an extent, children instinctively know about certain subjects and learn their meanings, but may not understand their concepts. I agree with Elkind: “They [infants and young children] take more time to process information than adults do, at a lower level of abstraction and complexity” (p.98). This concept coincides with what I have learned from Piaget’s theory of cognitive development: Children organize their thoughts into different structures and refine those structures as they mature.
Finally, the last misunderstanding is The “Look Harder” Theory of Learning and Instruction (p. 98). Naturally, we are all born curious and eager to learn about our environment. As we learn about new concepts we learn what they do and what they are for. I assume most adults forget how vulnerable infants and young children are and how it affects the rate they learn. I believe that children today are being taught things at an inappropriate age. We need to allow children to be children and appreciate and respect their development rate. Learning that children do not learn from watching, absorbing or looking harder, how do they learn?
Elkind states that, “Learning is the product of play-generated experiences limited only by the child’s level of intellectual development” (p. 103). He also suggests that there are four types of play: “mastery play, innovative play, kinship play, and therapeutic play” (p. 103). In mastery play, infants learn object permanence and start coordinating their motor skills. Through repetition and imitation children will learn more effectively both in the physical domain and mentally. Once children refine those skills, they can start to build new ones on their own by being innovative. I feel that kinship play is essential to a child’s developmental needs. Generally, people like to associate themselves with people who share the same interests. But with children, they are “naturally drawn to one another” regardless of their interests (p.112).
I believe these types of play can resolve our misunderstandings about how children learn and raise the awareness of parents and teachers. As an aspiring teacher, I think it was important for me to understand Elkind’s misunderstandings about how children learn. I hope these tools will help guide me to become an effective teacher and mentor to young children.
I can relate to your concern about losing your patience when working with children, as we're all human, and working effectively with them (especially in groups) can be very demanding. I believe wholeheartedly, though, that having a deep understanding of child development helps us have more patience. Knowing what children are capable of in all domains -- cognitive, physical, social, emotional -- makes it more likely that we'll set reasonable expectations for them, and hence, have fewer reasons to lose our patience. There are tough days...but the more we apply sound child development information, the more good days we have with children!
ReplyDeleteSara-
ReplyDeleteI agree that one of the biggest challenges a child development major can face is losing patience. When working with children I occasionally feel frustrated, and find it necessary to step back and find a different approach to the situation. I worry that one day I will not be able to take a step back and instead will simply lose my patience. I believe that being aware of the possibility will help to overcome that. Since you are conscious of how easy it can be to lose your patience, you will be more sensitive to the smallest signs that your patience is running low. Having a solid understanding of the capabilities of children will also help to circumvent this issue. Elkind’s thoughts concerning the “Little Sponge” theory were very accurate. New programs are constantly coming out that encourage teaching children to read and perform basic math calculations very early. Every parent wants their child to excel, but I wonder if encouraging them to learn so much, at such a young age, will cause them to experience burn out earlier in life. I completely agree with your thoughts regarding kinship play. Playing with others their age allows children to learn social skills and establish friendships, which are essential to development.
Emily Brooks
Sara –
ReplyDeleteAs an aspiring teacher myself, I agree that it is not only important, but necessary to understand the misunderstandings of how children learn. Then, and only then, will we be able to fully engulf our students in the curriculum and target their learning styles.
For me personally, I think the “Watch Me” Theory of Learning and Instruction will be the hardest to go against while in the classroom. Particularly with ESL (English as a Second Language) students, because I know I will want to have them succeed with learning English, but I also know how difficult it can be to learn an entirely new and different language. I can already see the day when I will have to break English down, part by part; when I will have to explain how to read; when I will have to teach my students how to write a sentence with punctuation…the day will come. I know I will have to make a conscious choice and effort to stay calm and patient and really focus on the individual child and their individual needs. I will not be able to rush through and demonstrate the skill (like Elkind’s first tennis instructor did), but will have to break it down, step by step.
While reading about the four different kinds of play, I could not pin-point which one I thought to be the most important. Mastery play is crucial because it teaches the child to persevere, and that they eventually will succeed if they keep putting their mind to it – an extremely important life lesson! Innovative play is vital because it allows children (and adults too!) to think outside the box and push their skills a little bit. I strongly believe that kinship play is fundamental to a child’s healthy development because, just as you said (with Elkind’s assistance), “people like to associate themselves with people…” and children are “‘naturally drawn to one another’ regardless of their interests.” Last but not least, therapeutic play is essential because it allows the child to learn how to cope and deal with their feelings in a healthy manner.
Sara, you voiced concerns about being a teacher, and if you are anything like me, you want to truly be an effective teacher because you want your students to learn. I just know you are going to become a great one because it is obvious that you will really care about your students.
-Katie Carmichael
Sara-
ReplyDeleteI understand you when you say that you are worried about losing your patience with children. I have worked with children of all different ages and I too, have worried about losing my patience at times. I think it is human nature that we might feel this way at times, but we just have to decide what the best way to approach the situation is.
I agree with you when you say that as adults,we tend to forget about how vulnerable infants and young children are. Every child is different and unique and we should be able to respect their rate of learning, while still being able to recognize when there is a problem with their learning.
-Vanesa Alvarado
Reading the part again, about the young girl that was left thirteen years in a room by her parents without any outside human contact, makes me feel emotions of anger and sadness. I cannot believe how the parents, who are supposed to love and protect her, could destroy her childhood. I was impressed with Elkind and how he came up with three misunderstandings about how children learn just by observing the girl. As does Sara, I agree with Elkind on the point that children are being overloaded with information that cannot be processed as fast as some adults wish. Children will process information at their own pace. The misunderstanding that stood out in my mind was “look harder.” I understand that this refers to looking and learning, but to me, this has another meaning. To me, “look harder” also refers to “speak louder”; I have personally seen how people that only speak English have raised their voice to my mother, thinking that this was going to make her understand what they were trying to communicate. This happens to children as well. They see only what they know because of their level of understanding. Looking harder, in my opinion, does not work because they will not see what adults see.
ReplyDeleteBerenisse Becerra
Elkind’s three theories of our misunderstandings of how children learn are interesting for me. I agree with the second and third one, but I think the first one is a little more complicated. I think Elkind is talking about Jennie in the beginning of this chapter. He never states her name, but it sounds a lot like her case. If he is, I actually researched her and have learned that she is still alive and living in an assisted adult living center, and cannot communicate well.
ReplyDeleteChildren remember things from watching their adults/peers. I have a personal example about my son and me. I usually make my son eggs once a week or so, and one morning he woke me up and told me he was making eggs for me. I said okay, half asleep, and turned over. I heard something about two minutes after and got up to see what it was. When I walked into the kitchen, my son was standing on a chair at the stove with a wire mixer in his hand, mixing our half dozen eggs in the pan! I was so stunned by his actions I started laughing. To top it off, he didn’t get any shells in the pan. I asked him what he was doing and he said he was making eggs for me. I went over to see if the stove was on and thankfully it wasn’t, but then I asked him how he was making eggs if the stove wasn’t on; his answer was that this was how I made eggs. My point is that even though my son remembered to crack the eggs and put them in a pan, he hadn’t fully understood that the stove is what actually cooked them.
Children don’t always learn by watching their parents/peers, so it is sometimes good to direct their attention toward other things if they cannot fully understand what you’re doing. This blog entry was very thought provoking because I really had to think about where I stood on this particular issue. I could say that after looking back on personal experiences, my thoughts did change from thinking it was bad to direct children’s attention to other things to thinking it’s okay in different circumstances.
-Victoria Martinez