Week 8: Theories of Childhood - Roberson

I can't believe we went through all the stages of development in just eight weeks! I have recommended this class to other students because I really enjoyed the content and the structure. The text for this class was easy to navigate and I feel that I took a lot away from our weekly blogs and feedback. I did not expect to pull such great meaning from this class, and I am pleasantly surprised! Great class, I hope the rest of you agree.

I decided to do my final blog on the Mooney text, Theories of Childhood, to get some ideas for the final project. 

John Dewey:
Dewey was a supporter of progressive education, in which education shifted to be more child-centered. He contributed a lot to what we know about educational psychology and theory (Mooney, p. 2). His thoughts about education were:
1. it should be child-centered
2. it must be both active and interactive
3. it must involve the social world of the child and the community
He believed that children learn through doing, and that lessons should include experiments and real-life scenarios to help independent thinking. He also thought that it was an additional task of the teacher to prepare children for how to live in society. Teachers should be confident in their abilities and base their curriculum around student interests and abilities. He got some negative feedback about his thinking. Some people believed that the children had too much freedom with not enough guidance (Mooney, p. 6). There has been a big shift in the classroom I work in that completely relates to Dewey's thoughts on progressive education. Instead of each student having a one-on-one aide as they had previously, now they see a different person for each literacy station. There has been a lot of pull-back from the employees for reasons such as increased responsibility with no compensation, fear of a decline in quality of education, and insufficient time to plan. Like the parents of Dewey's time, we were reluctant to change what had always worked for a method that might foster more independence in the students. He believed that it was up to the teachers to make sense of the world for their students, while planning a curriculum around things that are meaningful to them. 

Maria Montessori:
She opened a Children's House in the slums of Rome because she was interested in the development of children and how educators were failing to effectively "reach" them. She would pull in children off the street and turn them into eager students. Schools started following her teaching methods in America. "Her research into young children and what they need to learn has affected the fundamental ways early educators think about children" (Mooney, p. 23). She placed a strong emphasis on the environment that students need, from the furnishings and materials from that space and the people they spend time with. I learned that Montessori was one of the first to introduce sensory play and that is something that I experience all the time. I have witnessed the therapeutic effects of sensory "breaks" for students that are becoming heightened. Montessori's thoughts about early childhood education were:
1. teachers should provide real tools that work
2. teachers should keep the materials easily available to the children and organized so they can find what they need
3. teachers should create beauty and order in the classroom. 
When I was reading about Dewey, I had it almost made up in my mind that he is who I would do my final project on, but I really appreciate Montessori's theories as well. I am big on organization and I firmly believe that a neat, colorful, and warm atmosphere contributes to a student's ability to perform. She was also known as an excellent observer, and I think the aspect of observation in education is crucial. Whether or not students are meeting standards is important, but things like their mental health and disposition can be just as important. 

Erik Erikson:
What a small world, Erikson married Freud's daughter. I didn't remember that from the other text. He specialized in child psychoanalysis in Germany, but later came to the United States and enrolled in medical school. We discussed his theories a lot throughout this class, so I won't go into as much detail. His "Stages of PsychoSocial Development" span from age 0 to old age and involve an "identity crisis" at each stage. There is a strength associated with each stage that is supposed to have developed in response to the crisis. He talked about the importance of holding and cuddling a baby and how it allowed the child to know that he/she is important. I think that Erikson's theory on letting a child "cry it out" is interesting. I have always thought that it is cruel to let a child cry without a response, but I also think that it would have to decrease with time. It is funny when parents compare their toddlers to terrorists. Erikson believes that children at this stage are struggling between wanting to let go and holding on to parent guidance (Mooney, p. 46). I've also heard parents refer to their toddlers as "Three-nagers" and that they are 3 going on 16. That's something to look forward to! It is so interesting to read the psychology behind these common occurrences in children. Parents and educators can help foster this need for independence by:
* giving kids simple choices
* not giving false choices
* setting clear, consistent, reasonable limits
* accepting the struggle between independence and dependence and assuring the children that it is normal
Another thing that I think is important to point out about Erikson is that he thought it was important to focus on gains and not mistakes (Mooney, p. 55). It is important to let kids know that it is okay to make mistakes so that they are not afraid to. 

Jean Piaget:
Before Piaget became a psychologist, his job was to study the nature and beginning of knowledge. Other people were asking what children know or when they know it, and Piaget thought it was more important to discuss how children arrive at what they know. He began his work because he noticed a trend in wrong answers given by children at specific ages. More recently, people have criticized his theories. Some teachers think that he focused too much on thought processes and not enough on feelings and social relationships. Mooney reveals that a lot of Piaget's observations were done on his own three kids (Mooney, p. 60). While his theories do tell a general framework for thinking in young children, his credibility suffered because of that. I don't necessarily disagree with his idea that "construction is superior to instruction." He believed that children construct their own knowledge by giving meaning to things in their worlds. It makes sense that children would respond to instruction that was based around concepts they are familiar with. He was like Montessori in that he thought children thrived on automaticity and should "experience" their learning. He was like Dewey in that he believed that children learn when their curiosity is not satisfied (Mooney, p. 62).  His theories asked teachers to be someone that nurtures independent thought. While Piaget is not one that I agree with the most, I enjoyed reading about his attention to the importance of play in education. We have just recently started to act out scenes from our novel study, and the students respond to this method much more than group readings. 

Lev Vygotsky:
Many of Vygotsky's theories are based around his discovery "that in a group of children at the same developmental level, some children were able to learn with a little help while other children were not" (Mooney, p. 81). He also did not agree with the idea that children's abilities should be measured by intelligence tests. He thought observation of the student was just as, if not more, important than formal testing. As a person who enjoys taking standardized tests, it has always been hard for me to understand how it is hard for other students. I have always been a supporter of traditional education, though, and the educational field is shifting away from that in many ways. Vygotsky's studies also showed that social and cognitive development work together and build on each other. Teachers had always thought that education centered around the students' personal experiences, and Vygotsky introduced the idea that a student's life is shaped by families, communities, socioeconomic status, education and culture (Mooney, p. 83). Like Piaget, he focused on the importance of play. His attention to language helped lead to the discovery that increased social language contributes to how a child constructs knowledge. One thing I like about Vygotsky is that he thought that teachers should plan challenging curriculum to stretch competence (Mooney, p. 86). When I see that a student is mastering a concept, I am ready to re-assess and plan more difficult curriculum. I think that when I become a teacher, I will need to develop a more realistic idea of what should be covered in a school year. I don't want to cause anxiety for my students, but I do want to challenge them based on their abilities. 

Week 7: Dying and Spirituality - Roberson

How depressing was this week's reading?! I had already thought that the end of this class would be depressing when I read the syllabus, and prepared myself for it. In the last year and a half, I lost my first grandparent. My dad's mom passed away after a short battle with dementia, and rocked our little family. She was a strong matriarch that had endured many things not meant for her, and I was shaken by the empty void she left. I related to this week's readings when the legal definition of death was discussed. The legal definition is unreceptivity and unresponsiveness, no movements or breathing, no reflexes, and a flat EEG reading that remains flat for 24 hours (Fiore, p. 282). When I was in high school, my grandmother had a massive heart attack and essentially "died" on the operating table. The doctors and nurses resuscitated her and she would eventually tell the story of the "purple light" that she saw. I handled my grandmother's death better than I would have expected, I think because I knew her death was inevitable. When dementia kicked in, she steadily declined in cognitive and memory-related abilities. I was pleased that the dementia did not cause her to become mean, as happens in some cases. Her core personality was present until her death, and I have fond memories of her up until the end. "A person's age and corresponding level of cognitive development influence that person's perspective of death and dying" (Fiore, p. 282). As much as I hate the concept of death and would prefer not to think of it, I know that there is a natural progression of things that has to take place.

Another aspect of this week's readings that I felt compelled to discuss was the idea of Death with Dignity. This is a topic that I have extensively researched since I first heard of it. Euthanasia is defined as the act of ending a life in a painless manner to relieve or prevent suffering (Fiore, p. 288). Passive euthanasia would be used to describe something like turning off one's life support because there was no expected further recovery. Active euthanasia refers to intentionally ending a life, either by directly killing the person or by physician-assisted suicide (Fiore, p. 289). I have seen documentaries on this topic and I have somewhat strong opinions on it. If I were diagnosed with a terminal illness and doctor's informed me I had no chance of survival, I would want the option of Death of Dignity. Aside from the religious implications of it, I personally don't think God intended for people to suffer to that degree. If I were terminally ill, I would not want to leave the responsibility of taking care of me to my family. I love the idea of ending your life with dignity if otherwise faced with death, and I would move to an accommodating area if that circumstance happened to me.There are probably members of my family that would not agree with me, but I feel strongly about this.