March 2010

The Education our Children Receive

By:
Published March 11th 2010, in Education, Nursery Schools

I was privileged today to be able to spend part of a morning in one of the classes at the school that my 5 year old daughter attends. I call it a privilege, because it opened my eyes as to the wonderful people who are called to teach, the wonderful lessons they give and also the hard work our little ones do at school.

Parents drop children off at school, pick them up after school and then expect our child to be a little bit brighter than earlier the morning. We want to know what number did they learn today and what letter did they learn to write. We ask with who did you play today and what did you draw.

It does not occur to us the way the number and the concept were explained to our child in such a way that she is not bored and can understand it. We do not consider the social skills that they practiced during the course of the morning, like responsibility, sharing and respect. Our children are taught that there are certain rules that we have to listen to and that actions have consequences.

Teachers do not walk into the room in the morning and decide today I will just read a story and then the kids will draw something. It takes immense preparation to have a lesson plan that incorporates the concepts that the children need to learn in a visual, auditory and experiential manner. Our children are not expected to sit still for the whole day absorbing information, they get time for free play and interaction with children from other classes. They are exposed to different authority figures – monkeynastics, kindermusic and computer teachers enrich their lives while they are learning important skills. Above all these children are having fun learning!

Our teachers walk into a class of 22 children in the morning – some who had a good nights rest, some irritable from a lack of sleep, some not ready for mommy to go to work and some that are still hyperactive from last nights pudding. They approach our children with respect and love and do not get irritated (or hide it extremely well) when your child interrupts her for the 99th time. I experienced teachers who enjoy teaching and seeing the light bulb flash for the first time. They are involved in our children’s lives and show keen interest in every new discovery and story that gets told.

As a parent, do stop and consider how easily we get upset with our children in the house when they interrupt, fight or do not listen to us. This happens at school as well, but with many more children to handle at once.

I think teachers are special people filled with love and passion, that humble themselves everyday to teach little people who will be the leaders of tomorrow.

Making the Decision to Home School Your Child

By:
Published March 5th 2010, in Education, Home Schooling

It is becoming more and more prevalent that parents make the decision to home school their child or children.  Most’s decision is based upon philosophical and economic reasons.  People find public schooling unstable due to the amount of and unpredictability of teachers’ strikes, leaving their children without formal education for that period of time.  Others complain about public school class sizes – their children do not receive enough one on one attention from the teacher.  Funding cuts mean that the proper equipment and best teachers become unaffordable to the school.  Many people have moral and religious issues with the content of the public school curriculum.  Other parents want to protect their children from bad influences and exposure to illegal substances which are rampant in many public schools.  For many of these parents, it is not an option to send their child to a private school, which meets their expectations, because of being extremely expensive.

Even though the thought of taking charge of your child’s education can be idealized, it is important to take the following factors into consideration:

  • It requires time . Giving your child an education that meets the requirements of your local government, involves spending a lot of time preparing and teaching. There are experiments and projects that need to be done, you have to grade papers, organize and go on outings, give music lessons, etc.
  • Personal sacrifice . You have to realize that home schooling your child will mean that you spend more time with him/her, and have less time to yourself. It is very important to keep a good balance and ensure that you have support structures in place in order to make personal time.
  • Financial sacrifice . It is quite improbable that the parent taking charge of teaching, will be able to hold down a full time job. If you are used to be a two income family – certain adjustments will have to be made in the household.
  • Socialization . Many people are concerned that when you home school your child, he/she loses out on contact with peers. It is a valid concern, which will require you to organize socialization time with other children in the form of outings, sport or other activities and also play time.
  • Household organization . If you are used to having your house spic and span by 9am, you may be in for a shock. As mentioned earlier, home schooling involves you spending alot of time with your child, meaning that the washing and ironing might have to wait while you are teaching your child to build a volcano. It is important that chores get divided and time reallocated to tasks, everyone will have to make sacrifices in order to have the household running optimally.
  • Agreement . Both parents have to agree on the decision to home school their child. They have to be in agreement over how it will affect the household and how to deal with it. It is also important that if only one parent is taking charge of the education, that the other parent acknowledge the need for social and emotional support.
  • Willingness . Lastly it is extremely important that your child is willing and enthusiastic about being schooled at home.

Fortunately, home based education does not mean that you as the parent are left to your own devices to formulate a curriculum and try to copy what you learnt at school.  There are many structured programs available which ranges from online programs to virtual schools.  Groups have been formed to give support and advice to other parents.  Cooperative home schooling involves families getting together for a couple of hours a week, where the parents can share their expertise with the children as a group in a certain subject.  Sometimes experts are brought in to teach more involved subject matter.

Steve Moitozo is an avid supporter of home schooling and feels the advantages of home schooling can be summarized into four main points:
1.   Religious and Philosophical convictions . People with strong convictions can build these convictions and beliefs into every aspect of their curriculum and therefore take charge of  topics and subject matter.  This is one of the biggest advantages – the ability to teach your child according to your belief structure.
2.   Socialization . With home schooling socialization becomes community based and not classroom based.  Children learn to interact with not only the children in their class, who are the same age, but also older and younger children.  Being schooled at home, expose them to real world problem solving.  They see their parents dealing with household and social problems and learn from that.  The children do not sit isolated in a class room being mostly exposed to theoretical problems.
3.    Academic excellence . Home schooling gives the parent the opportunity to focus academically on the child’s own level of mastery, versus a class room where he might be held back by his peers or left behind.  It gives the child the chance to work at his own pace – it is not a bell that indicates the time allocated to a certain subject.  The parent can work with the child’s own learning style in opposition to children at school who only get exposed to the teacher’s teaching style.
4.   Time as a family . The family get to spend more time together, without their child sitting in  a school environment for six hours a day from the age of 5 or 6.  The family get to be the influencing party, without the child being exposed only peers most of the time.

Home schooling can be a wonderful experience for both the parents and the children, but it is important to take it one year at a time.  The decision to send your child to school again can be just as difficult to make than the original decision to home school.  It is important at all times that the best interest of the child (socially, emotionally and cognitively) be kept in mind.

Children at Play

By:
Published March 1st 2010, in Development, Social Development

Children’s work is play. Through every type of play, your child is honing one or the other skill.  The description “child’s play” might not be so apt, because while spending time at play, your child is learning how to control and interact with his environment. Play can be challenging emotionally, socially, intellectually and physically.  Playing evolves over time, becoming more mature as certain skills are acquired.

We find 6 different kinds of play , but elements of these types do overlap with each other.  This classification makes it easier to identify toys and tools that would assist in these kinds of playing.

  1. Active Play : As the name indicates, active play involves moving and physical activity. When children are active, they are running, riding, building, swinging or even kicking. During active play the child gets physically challenged. Through active play the gross and fine muscles are exercised and an integration of muscles, nerves and brain functions takes place. Toys that promote physical activity are balls, bikes, bats, playground equipment, trampolines, jumping castles and rackets.
  2. Cooperative Play : Cooperative play happens when two or more children interact in game that gives mutual pleasure.  This involves group play and can be inside or outside. This type of play is important in your child’s development, seeing that children learn through watching other children interact in a positive social manner.  Children learn acceptable social interaction through pretend play.  Type of games that require cooperation are sports, board games and pretend play.
  3. Creative Play : This type of play includes all kinds of imaginative games, constructive games, music, dance, building, painting, molding and other crafts.  Play dough, pencils, paint, building blocks and musical instruments will stimulate creative play.  Do make sure to provide the appropriate equipment and environment, otherwise your little painter might use your walls for his masterpiece. Creative play is the type of play which gives children a sense of accomplishment and empowers them to become good at manipulating words, ideas and concepts.
  4. Dramatic Play : Again, this type of play is built on the imaginative powers of the young ones.  It entails make-believe, dress-up, dolls and puppets.  Through dramatic play children start role-playing often imitating social interactions and scenes that they have seen before.  Dramatic play requires flexible thinking and future oriented thought.  Children can live out their experiences and dreams in a risk free environment.
  5. Manipulative Play : Manipulative play involves the development of hand-eye coordination and finer motor skills.  Children use tools to color and cut and manipulate pieces of a puzzle to fit.
  6. Quiet Play : This is the type of play that gives parents a breather.   Children intellectually engages in reading or paging through books, building puzzles or blocks or maybe even beading.  Quiet play gives your child a chance to think and reason, with his mouth closed and his mind open.

Children’s play develop through different stages:

  1. Uninvolved Play : During this type of play the child does not seem to be playing, but merely keeps himself busy through watching anything that he finds interesting.  If he cannot find anything in the environment that fascinates him, he will play with his own body, climb on and off furniture or just sits in the room looking around.
  2. Solitary Play: Here the child plays on his own with toys and does not try to make contact with other children.  He carries on on his own, despite what other children might be doing.
  3. Spectator Play : The child watch other children playing.  Even though he might be asking questions and talk to these children, he does not participate in their game.
  4. Parallel Play : Here the child plays independently next to other children, but not with them.  They might even be playing with similar toys, but no interaction takes place between the children.
  5. Associative Play : Finally the child starts playing with other children. Talking is the most common activity, but the passing of toys to each other and also following each others cars or dolls take place.  The child still does what he feels like, not taking the other one’s wishes into consideration.
  6. Cooperative Play : Children play in groups organized to reach a certain goal – the making of something or winning a formal game (hide and seek).  The children accepts certain role responsibilities and sees the group as an exclusive group with its own identity.

Even though play might from the outside look meaningless and a frivolous spending of time, different types of play equip children for the expectations held for older children and adults in our society.  It is therefore important to encourage a variety of play, maybe even  a variety of playmates to help children develop optimily.  Play is hard work for children.

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