Quotes

These are the quotes I chose.  I chose them because I learned that children are programmed to develop by exploring the world and interacting with people, so what adults should do is making a lot of aspects of the world available to children to learn in this limited period by believing in their potentials.  I feel that the job of  teachers in early education is more like guiding than teaching.

1. "Free the child's potential, and you will transform him into the world."
- Maria Montessori

2. "Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed."
- Maria Montessori

3. "Tell me and I forget. Show me and I remember. Involve me and I understand."
- Chinese proverb

4. "Experts tell us that 90% of all brain development occurs by the age of five. If we don't begin thinking about education in the early years, our children are at risk of falling behind by the time they start Kindergarten."
- Robert. L. Ehrlich

Source

http://www.successdegrees.com/inspirationalquotesaboutearlychildhoodeducationandteaching.html

Below is a collage of pictures of my elder daughter (my younger daughter is in the bottom one too). I can see she has developed by exploring by herself while having me nearby.

To everyone,

Thank you very much for being a role model of a hardworking student and an early education professional.  I learned a lot by reading your posts in our discussions and the blog assignments.

Have a Wonderful Holiday Season!

Aya

Emotional Intelligence

I am interested in emotional intelligence. According to the website I read, self-awareness, managing emotions, empathy, communicating, co-operation and resolving conflicts are the examples to be considered.  I believe such social skills and morality should be measured because I feel that these are essential for people to live together with less trouble and conflicts. To me, these are what I want children to learn first and best.

In Japan, we have IQ tests and many subject-tests which are done nation-wide by private companies so that we know where each child stands.  This makes business sense because parents who try to enroll children into famous private preschools or elementary schools by training children for the entrance exams are increasing. So the parents pay to understand their child’s strengths and weaknesses.

As to the moral education, we do not have a test but elementary school has morality classes once per week. I personally like this approach since I think education that is focused on making children proper adults is more important to me than only teaching subjects.

Reference

McCluskey. A. 1997. Emotional Intelligence in Schools. Retrieved on December 8, 2011, from http://www.connected.org/learn/school.html

Dealing with chaos

I have not experienced, nor known anyone who experienced any of the stressors.  So I decided to research what happened to children who experienced the Hanshin-Awaji (Kobe) earth quake which occurred in Japan in 1995, where 6,434 people died and 43,792 people were injured. I found a story about a boy referred to as Kazunori who lost his father when he was 12 years old because of the disaster.  He experienced much more stress because he was the oldest child in his family and he had to take over his father’s role in the house for his mother and three younger siblings.  He says he couldn’t cry for his father’s loss in front of his family.  Instead, he felt he had to teach what he had been taught by his father.  He also shared that he hid the fact that he lost his father to his friends until he was in high school.  He told them that his father was on business trips because he felt nobody understood his feelings.  He coped with his tragedy by being responsible. Now that he is 21 years old, he is trying to study abroad in Brazil.  He says he wants to work for people dealing with difficulties outside Japan. 

I think many children in Japan now are experiencing stresses similar to those that Kazunori went through because of the Higashi Nihon Daishinsai (East Japan Earthquake/Tsunami/Nuclear Event) last March that killed 15833 people died and has left 3671 people missing.  Even though Kazunori did a great job for his family and grew up to be an ambitious man, I feel that a lot of children who experience such huge stress and grief will have more negative outcomes. They might have troubles which come from stresses such as lost appetite, stomach problems, headache, and trouble sleeping.  Those are directly related to children’s biosocial development.  In addition to these issues for biosocial development, the lack of a sense of safety, and less time with parents will slow the cognitive development in these children.  I think these children will also suffer from long-term issues in psychosocial development such as indifference, depression, and a lowered ability to cope with future stressful situations.

Reference

NHK Online. Fukushi Network. Retrieved on November 26, 2011, from http://www.nhk.or.jp/heart-net/fnet/arch/thu/40115.html