When I think of Child Developement

When I think of Child Development

I believe that child development is  rarely straightforward. I feel that so many factors plays a part. For example, it is what happens during pregnancy and delivery, what skills and abilities our children are born with, and the way he/she is stimulated while they are being raised in the home, child care, and school. I feel that heredity and the environment interact to make our babies into their unique, special individual who have his/her own contribution to make to this world.

Children are like wet cement. Whatever falls on them makes an impression.- Dr. Hiam Ginnot

"In early childhood you may lay the foundation of poverty or riches, industry of idleness, good or evil, by the habits to which you train your children. Teach them right habits then, and their future life is safe.”- Lydia Sigourney

"We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today."- Stacia Tauscher



Week Assignment Testing Intelligence

 

 

 

Testing for Intelligence

Whole child can be define as understanding that children grow physically, emotionally, and intellectually, in other word we expect our school system to teach and reinforce our children  in all of these areas of growth.   We as teachers and caregivers should teach our children how to become motivated about them and to express their creativity, imagination, along with showing developing their social and emotional skills. The term holistic education can be defined as improving how the child adjusts to living within their community and natural ecosystem.  Researchers stated and suggested that the purpose of the holistic education to help make it possible that children will have the opportunity to be what they can be or what is describe by Maslow (1954) as “self-actualization.  Holistic education mainly deal with the development of all individual  intellectual, emotional, social, physical, artistic, creative, and spiritual potentials.. The significant for holistic education to see that the educational process and environment work for the developmental path of the individual, rather than the individual make changes to accommodate their environment. As we are aware in  today’s society and this  era of standardization of curriculum student assessments, educational setting, and expected grade-level progress our schools systems do not display any or not that much encouragement for individualization based on the needs and post school goals of the student.  Instead the main focus is on these standardize test such as how well they will do on reading, writing, and math. It is okay to want our children to do success or be successful but when we have expectations that really doesn’t show or reflect what they know about real-life differences, such as how to interact with others. Then this will play a factor is why so many of our children have difficulties in adapting to the standards, so therefore they are being left behind.

An article I read suggested that, the United States focuses more on using tests as a means of holding educators and school districts accountable, Finland--which is one of the top performers on international tests--has gone in the opposite direction. Instead in Finland,  the few tests students take are low stakes, stated Finnish educator, Jari Lavonen in a presentation . They use their  assessments as a tool for professional development and to help teachers gauge student growth, never for accountability.  Finnish students do exceptional well on these standardized exams with lack of practice. The article stated that they are ranks consistently near the top in math, reading and science in the Programme for International Student Assessment ), which is a standardized test taken by students in dozens of countries.

Finally, I feel  that here in the United States if we would follow Finland strategies just may be our students will perform better on these standardize test if so much pressure is not put on the students along with teachers then we could have a difference outcome.

Reference:

Johanson, R.  (2012). Standardized Test A foreign Concept in Finland with World’s. www.huffingtonpost.com/../standardized_testing_a_n_2145623html.

Retrieved on 12/06/2013