2 more philosophies on education....

Continuing on from several posts back, here are the summaries of a couple more early childhood educating pioneers* - 

Jean Piaget - Switzerland, born in 1896.

& Lev Vygotsky - Russia, born also in 1896.

Jean Piaget

As epistemologist (someone who studies the nature and beginning of knowledge), Piaget asked the question how children learn, rather than focus on the what and when.

He said that learning is either intrinsic -- coming from the child, or extrinsic -- imposed by the environment or taught by adults. Piaget preferred seeing children try to make sense of their world and would say, "construction is superior to instruction." From this, he meant that children learn far better when it is hands-on, building upon Montessori's work.

Like Dewey, he believed that children learn when their curiosity isn't fully satisfied, so KEEPING CHILDREN CURIOUS is what drives learning, is what he theorized.

Piaget developed stages of Cognitive Development that looked like this:

Birth to 6 months --- Stage: Sensorimotor -- Behaviours: learning through senses, reflexes, manipulate materials

18 months to  6 years - Stage: Preoperational -- Behaviours: Form ideas based on their perceptions, can only focus on one variable at a time, overgeneralize based on limited experience

6 years to 12 years - Stage: Operational -- Behaviours: Form ideas based on reasoning, limit thinking to objects and familiar events

12 years and older - Stage: Formal Operational -- Behaviours: Think conceptually, think hypothetically.

Advice for teachers of young learners:

- Provide large blocks of free play time

- Provide real world experiences

- Plan open-ended activities like planting seeds' ask open-ended questions to support cognitive development

* * * 

Lev Vygotsky

Vygotsky's greatest contribution is called the theory of the "zone of proximal development", or ZPD, defined as:

The most difficult task a child can do alone and the most difficult task a child can do with help. He believed that another person, teacher, classmate, etc., can help a child learn a new concept - through the process of scaffolding.

Just like offering a painter something that is out of reach, a peer or teacher can offer the child new information to reach a new understanding. It means that teachers must be keen observers.

To apply ZPD, teachers should 

- observe children carefully and plan curriculum that encourages their emerging abilities

- pair up children who can learn from each other.

Language development

Vygotsky encouraged conversations with children, as well as social interaction among children who can help each other learn new things.

Summaries from the book "Theories of Childhood: An introducation to Dewey, Montessori, Erikson, Piaget and Vygotsky", written by Carol Garhart Mooney.

How to make a difficult subject fun!

At a recent meeting the presentation was about how to make a difficult subject fun and interesting, for the mom and the child! Although the subject matter was general, we ended up talking about math mostly as for some of us math is challenging and we don't have nice memories of studying it in school. Here are some tips on what to do when you're frustrated with a subject in your homeschool:

Difficult to teach? Hard to Understand?

• Go back a grade level to review the steps to learning the skill until all the basics are there
• Recruit help from dad, grandparents, other family, older siblings
• Relax and enjoy teaching and put aside your own bad feelings about the subject
• Discuss the subject matter outside of class during the course of the day
• Don't push! There doesn't need to be any pressure for your child to finish all of the subject areas at a certain grade level all at once. Enjoy the freedom that homeschooling gives you!
• Use helpful vocabulary. Difficult>challenging Hard>takes more effort

BO-ring?

• Buy toys or games on the subject, or off the subject that can be made to play on subject.
• Computer games
• board games
• card games
• manipulative toys
• Get up and move (esp. boys), use song or rhyme. Look in the library for rhyming educational poems, we've gotten some fun ones from there, or modify popular tunes to set them to the vocabulary you are studying
• gamesforlearning yahoo group is a great resource for turning everything into a game, and they have templates in the groups files, from the author of the book "Games for Learning"
  
• involve food preparation, shopping, travelling, in the subject area

Child hates the subject

• Find what your child likes and relate the difficult subject through that theme
• Example: fashion girl
• Math: how many dresses do you like. Make a fraction showing the number of dresses to those that you would wear
• English: How does it make you feel when you have a new outfit on? What was your favorite outfit and why did you wear it for the first time?
• Science: Natural fibres vs chemical fibres and why those in top fashion would need both to create their fashions
• Social Studies/History: How clothing has changed for women over the years, and why
• Arabic studies: What are the terms for the clothing in Arabic, describe the ideal outfit in the Arabic language

And of course ask Allah to help in any situation and Allah will give you ease in your work. Remember always the goals of homeschooling that you have set out, and remember that your children must enjoy the school experience to get the most out of it, and you will burn yourself out pushing too hard on a subject that you are frustrated with as well.

Phases of Learning according to Erik Erikson

Born in Gernmany, in 1902, Erik Erikson would study in Austria and the United States to develop important observations about children.

While he was at Yale University, as a researcher, he wrote "Childhood and Society", considered a classic by those in the related fields.

He came up with an idea called the "8 stages of man", summed up here from a website on childhood development*:

Erikson's Eight Stages of Development

1.  Learning Basic Trust Versus Basic Mistrust (Hope)

Chronologically, this is the period of infancy through the first one or two years of life.  The child, well - handled, nurtured, and loved, develops trust and security and a basic optimism.  Badly handled, he becomes insecure and mistrustful. 

practical suggestions: hold babies close, respond to crying babies right away

2.  Learning Autonomy Versus Shame (Will)

The second psychosocial crisis, Erikson believes, occurs during early childhood, probably between about 18 months or 2 years and 3½ to 4 years of age.  The "well - parented" child emerges from this stage sure of himself, elated with his new found control, and proud rather than ashamed.  Autonomy is not, however, entirely synonymous with assured self - possession, initiative, and independence but, at least for children in the early part of this psychosocial crisis, includes stormy self - will, tantrums, stubbornness, and negativism.  For example, one sees may 2 year olds resolutely folding their arms to prevent their mothers from holding their hands as they cross the street.  Also, the sound of "NO" rings through the house or the grocery store.

suggestions to foster independence by: giving children simple choices, don't give false choices, set clear, consistent, reasonable limits, accept children's swings between independence and dependence and reassure them that both are okay.

3.  Learning Initiative Versus Guilt (Purpose)

Erikson believes that this third psychosocial crisis occurs during what he calls the "play age," or the later preschool years (from about 3½ to, in the United States culture, entry into formal school).  During it, the healthily developing child learns:

 (1) to imagine, to broaden his skills through active play of all sorts, including fantasy 

(2) to cooperate with others 

(3) to lead as well as to follow.  

Immobilized by guilt, he is: (1) fearful (2) hangs on the fringes of groups (3) continues to depend unduly on adults and (4) is restricted both in the development of play skills and in imagination.  

Suggestions to support children's development of initiative in the third stage, educators can: encourage children to be as independent as possible,

focus on gains as children practice new skills, not on the mistakes they make along the way

set expectations that are in line with children's individual abilities

focus curriculum on real things and on doing

4.  Industry Versus Inferiority (Competence)

Erikson believes that the fourth psychosocial crisis is handled, for better or worse, during what he calls the "school age," presumably up to and possibly including some of junior high school.  Here the child learns to master the more formal skills of life: 

(1) relating with peers according to rules 

(2) progressing from free play to play that may be elaborately structured by rules and may demand formal teamwork, such as baseball,

 and 

(3) mastering social studies, reading, arithmetic.  Homework is a necessity, and the need for self-discipline increases yearly.  The child who, because of his successive and successful resolutions of earlier psychosocial crisis, is trusting, autonomous, and full of initiative will learn easily enough to be industrious. However, the mistrusting child will doubt the future. The shame - and guilt-filled child will experience defeat and inferiority. 

5.  Learning Identity Versus Identity Diffusion (Fidelity)

During the fifth psychosocial crisis (adolescence, from about 13 or 14 to about 20) the child, now an adolescent, learns how to answer satisfactorily and happily the question of "Who am I?"  But even the best - adjusted of adolescents experiences some role identity diffusion: most boys and probably most girls experiment with minor delinquency; rebellion flourishes; self - doubts flood the youngster, and so on.

Erikson believes that during successful early adolescence, mature time perspective is developed; the young person acquires self-certainty as opposed to self-consciousness and self-doubt.  He comes to experiment with different - usually constructive - roles rather than adopting a "negative identity" (such as delinquency).  He actually anticipates achievement, and achieves, rather than being "paralyzed" by feelings of inferiority or by an inadequate time perspective.  In later adolescence, clear sexual identity - manhood or womanhood - is established.  The adolescent seeks leadership (someone to inspire him), and gradually develops a set of ideals (socially congruent and desirable, in the case of the successful adolescent).  Erikson believes that, in our culture, adolescence affords a "psychosocial moratorium," particularly for middle - and upper-class American children.  They do not yet have to "play for keeps," but can experiment, trying various roles, and thus hopefully find the one most suitable for them.

6.  Learning Intimacy Versus Isolation (Love)

The successful young adult, for the first time, can experience true intimacy - the sort of intimacy that makes possible good marriage or a genuine and enduring friendship.

7.  Learning Generativity Versus Self-Absorption (Care)

In adulthood, the psychosocial crisis demands generativity, both in the sense of marriage and parenthood, and in the sense of working productively and creatively.

8.  Integrity Versus Despair (Wisdom)

If the other seven psychosocial crisis have been successfully resolved, the mature adult develops the peak of adjustment; integrity.  He trusts, he is independent and dares the new.  He works hard, has found a well - defined role in life, and has developed a self-concept with which he is happy.  He can be intimate without strain, guilt, regret, or lack of realism; and he is proud of what he creates - his children, his work, or his hobbies.  If one or more of the earlier psychosocial crises have not been resolved, he may view himself and his life with disgust and despair.

     These eight stages of man, or the psychosocial crises, are plausible and insightful descriptions of how personality develops but at present they are descriptions only.  We possess at best rudimentary and tentative knowledge of just what sort of environment will result, for example, in traits of trust versus distrust, or clear personal identity versus diffusion.  Helping the child through the various stages and the positive learning that should accompany them is a complex and difficult task, as any worried parent or teacher knows.  Search for the best ways of accomplishing this task accounts for much of the research in the field of child development.

     Socialization, then is a learning - teaching process that, when successful, results in the human organism's moving from its infant state of helpless but total egocentricity to its ideal adult state of sensible conformity coupled with independent creativity. 

* originally appeared at http://www.childdevelopmentinfo.com/development/erickson.shtml

Suggestions from "Theories of Childhood", by Carol Garhart Mooney

Montessori's secrets to succesful learning

The Visionary*

Maria Montessori was born in Italy in 1870. After spending her youth committed to learning, she would emerge as the first female in her country to graduate from medical school in 1986.

It was working with young children diagnosed as "unteachable" that her fascination with the learning needs of children emerged.  She would go on to open a children's home for underpriveleged children who would blossom under her dedicated tutelage - her methods became a model for schools around the world. She was nominated for three Nobel Peace Prizes. 

Her success lay in her ability to create environments that suited the needs of children - furnishings that were just their size. Tools that fit easily in their hands. A place where children were in control and could easily initiate activities on their own. 

Child-Centered Environments

Montessori wanted teachers to create pleasant sensory experiences for children. She also believed that if their play was beautiful, orderly and matching their small bodies, children would learn better.

She said early childhood teachers should:

- provide real tools that work (sharp knives, good scissors, woodworking and cleaning tools)

- keep materials and equipment accessible to the children, organized so they can find and put away what they need

- create beauty and order in the classroom

Competence and Responsability

- Montessori encouraged educators to let kids do as much for themselves as possible

- Also, that repitition creates a sense of confidence and a real chance to develop skills

- The teacher's role is to prepare the environment and then step back for the children to go ahead and do what they will

Accordingly, educators should:

- give children the responsability of keeping space clean and orderly

- offer big chunks of time for free work and play, where children structure their own time

- offer children lots of opportunities to do "real" work, and to "help" as they so often ask to do

- help build skills -- increase a child's competency

Secret ingredient for any succesful educator:

OBSERVATION: Take time for careful observation and reflection and use these observations to guide your environment and curriculum planning.

CHILD-LED learning sums up Montessori's approach to a tee.

Thanks for reading! The next profile will be of Erik Erikson - stay tuned! 

*Summaries derived from Theories of Childhood: An Introduction to Dewey, Montessori, Erikson, Piaget and Vygotsky, written by Carol Garhart Mooney.

Students need real civics lessons: educator

Current teaching methods don’t encourage critical thinking

 By Joanne Laucius, The Ottawa Citizen, March 26, 2009

 

OTTAWA-If you want to know education researcher Joel Westheimer’s opinion of civics in the school system, just check out the title of his recent paper and a lecture he will be giving Thursday night: “No child left thinking.”

Westheimer, who holds the university research chair in democracy and education at the University of Ottawa, will speak tonight at Lisgar Collegiate Institute on “testing, accountability and the threat to Canadian democracy.”

While North American schools talk about good citizenship, they have done little to kindle critical thinking, he says.

“The kinds of goals and practices commonly represented in curricula that hope to foster democratic citizenship usually have more to do with voluntarism, charity and obedience than with democracy. In other words, ‘good citizenship’ to many educators means listening to authority figures, dressing neatly, being nice to neighbours, and helping out at a soup kitchen — not grappling with the kinds of social policy decisions that every citizen in a democratic society needs to learn how to do,” he wrote in No Child Left Thinking.

Sure, it’s important to feed hungry people and act morally and ethically, says Westheimer, who taught grades 6, 7 and 8 — what he calls a “crazy and amazing age” — in New York City during the ’80s. But the next step is the harder one: find the source of a problem in society and think of ways to solve it.

A community food drive illustrates the three types of “good” citizen. The “personally responsible” citizen will contribute if asked. The “participatory citizen” will organize the drive. The third type, the “justice-oriented” citizen doesn’t see charity and volunteerism as ends in themselves and instead asks why people are hungry. That type of citizen is rarely nurtured in the schools, he says.

(For the record, yes, Joel Westheimer is the son of that other Westheimer, sex therapist Dr. Ruth. “It’s less interesting than you might think. She wasn’t Dr. Ruth when I was growing up,” he says.)

After Westheimer left the classroom in New York, he headed for Stanford University. He taught at New York University, and has lived in Ottawa for the past seven years.

In the past two decades, civics have become more formally woven into the curriculum along with increased standardized testing.

It’s not necessarily a good thing, says Westheimer. The focus on literacy and numeracy have forced other kinds of learning to take a back seat.

“We can test math and reading skills, but it’s harder to test critical thinking,” he says. “We end up caring about what we can measure instead of measuring what we care about.”

In Ontario, civics is now a mandatory course in Grade 10. Westheimer believes it actually turns students off civic engagement because it’s dull.

“Kids really want to get involved. But they’re involved in such superfluous ways, they get disengaged.”

Two years ago, Ontario also mandated “character education” for all schools in the province. In an editorial for Orbit, the magazine of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, the writers noted that research in the U.S. has demonstrated character education has a positive effect on student discipline and achievement. Teachers are also happier because student behaviour and the tone of the school is improved.

Maybe character education improves discipline, but so does beheading, jokes Westheimer. Critical thinkers are not easy to teach. “Everyone likes to teach critical thinking, but no one wants to teach a class of critical thinkers.”

He argues that the time and resources spent on character education would be better spent in creating a stimulating curriculum. When students are engaged, then discipline problems are reduced.

“They’ll cause trouble for the right reasons,” he says. “Some forms of trouble are the engine of democratic society.” 

Quick primers on pioneering theorists of early childhood education: Part 1

Sound exciting? 

It actually is.  Read this, and upcoming posts, and you'll discover that it's fascinating to understand the roots of modern thinking around early childhood education. Here is the first profile of five that will explore the thoughts of some of the most influential thinkers on child development.* 

John Dewey (American, born 1859; PhD in philosophy, significant contribution to education - "My Pedagogic Creed", a document published in 1897 by the Progressive Education Association)

Quotes:

-"[T]rue education comes through the stimulation of the child's powers by the demands of the social situations in which he finds himself."

- "The school life should grow gradually out of the home life. . .  It is the business of the school to deepen and extend the child's sense of values bound up in his home life."

- "I believe that education, therefore, is a process of living and not preparation of future living."

- "I believe, finally, that the teacher is engaged, not simply in the training of individuals, but in the formation of a proper social life."

Dewey believed that teachers must:

- have a strong base of general knowledge as well as knowledge of specific children

- be willing to make sense of the world for children on the basis of their greater knowledge and experience

- invest in observation, planning, organization and documentation

Advice:

- Observe children closely and plan curriculum from their interests and experience.

- Don't be afraid to use your knowledge of the children and the world to make sense of the world for children.

When planning activities, teachers need to ask:

- How does this expand on what these children already know?

- How will this activity help this child grow?

- What skills are being developed?

- How will this activity help these children know more about their world?

- How does this activity prepare these children to live more fully?

An experience, according to Dewey, can only be educational if:

-It is based on the children's interests and grows out of their existing knowledge and experience.

- It supports the children's development.

- It helps the children develop new skills.

- It adds to the children's understanding of their world.

- It prepares the children to live more fully

How can early childhood educators use Dewey's criteria?

- Do not accept "it's fun" as a justification for curriculum, but ask how an activity will support the children's development and learning

- Invest in organization and documentation of the children's work.

*summarized from "Theories of Childhood: An introduction to Dewey, Montessori, Erikson, Piaget and Vygotsky", written by Carol Garhart Mooney

What every parent should realize when it comes to their child's education

One of the great scholars of Islam, Imam Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali said it best when he described the child as "a trust (placed by God) in the hands of his parents,
and his innocent heart is a precious element capable of taking impressions."

With these thoughtful words in mind, Muslim parents know
they face an important responsibility in guiding their children on a path of
learning that will impress upon their hearts sound knowledge.

Where are they getting that knowledge? Muslim students are attending all sorts of classes in a variety of environments. The majority of Muslim students in Canada attend public schools where there is little opportunity for Islamic learning. Other Muslim children and youth are taking classes in Islamic schools and high schools. Here in Ottawa, for example, there are
Muslim elementary schools as well as one of Ontario's few Muslim
high schools (Ottawa Islamic School) and a small minority of Muslim
children are at home, taught by their own parents, which is legal in Ontario.

So who among our children is gaining sound knowledge?

Any Muslim parent or educator would agree that first, and
foremost, a child must understand what it means to be a Muslim. At the
outset, this is a simple exercise, but the goal is to raise a child who is
aware of Allah Subhana'wa Taala in every action and who looks to the
final Messenger, Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) as an example.

This kind of outcome can only come about through constant
effort by parents regardless of where the child spends the school day.

To be aware of Allah Subhana'wa Taala requires knowledge of
the Quran. Islamic tradition encourages children to memorize the Quran
between the ages of 7 and 9. It may seem like a daunting task to adults;
however, most children are quick to absorb information. The Prophet
(peace be upon him) said that on the Day of Judgement, crowns of light
await the parents of a child who has memorized the Quran.




Memorizing and understanding the Quran would require
knowledge of Arabic; an important skill for anyone who sincerely wants
to gain sound knowledge. But are Muslim parents placing as high an
emphasis on learning Arabic as say, learning French?

Compare these two assessments of the Quran by two British
men. Marmaduke Picktall described the Quran as, “That inimitable symphony, the very sounds of which move men to tears and ecstasy."

On the other hand, Thomas Carlyle dismissed it with the following words: "As tedious a piece of reading as I ever undertook, a wearisome, confused jumble, crude, incondite --
nothing but a sense of duty could carry any European through the Koran."

In his anthology of Islamic literature, historian James Kritzeck wonders
and then concludes,

"How could two sensitive and intelligent men
of very similar backgrounds differ so markedly concerning a book which
everyone knows is a wold classic? The answer is complicated, but it can
be made simple: Pickthall read Arabic and Carlyle did not."

Learning Arabic also opens up many new worlds to our children,
because vast tracts of Islamic literature remain untranslated from
Arabic. It offers the student an opportunity, too, to read the words of Prophet Muhammad, (peace be upon him), in their original form.

Sources: Anthology of Islamic Literature "From the Rise of Islam to Modern Times" selected, edited and introduced by James Kritzeck, 1964 Canada, Holt, Rinehart and Winston of Canada, Ltd. Western Education vs. Muslim Children by Khadija Anderson at www.jannah.org/articles/ westernedu.html

This article first appeared in the Muslim Link, Sept. 2003.