The
child: psychological and pedagogical considerations
Child development and learning: some considerations
Development means many different things
to different people, and whatever definition we give, it will not be
universally accepted. So, development refers a) to the changes in the structure
and characteristics of behaviour which take place in the course of a lifetime;
b) in part to the way individual talents, circumstances, events, and encounters
interact to determine various routes to maturity and beyond; c) to a series of
qualitative transformations, as though the developing person at different
points functions in completely new ways. For others, the same principles govern
behaviour at all ages, and development is simply the accumulation of additional
skills.
Growth and development occur
unevenly yet concurrently in the physical/motor, psychosocial, cognitive, and
language domains. Inherent in much of this growth and development is the
acquisition of knowledge and skills in the academic domains of literacy, math,
science, social studies, and the arts. Recognising this, professional early
childhood educators take a whole-child perspective that observes and
facilitates growth, development, and learning in all these areas. Hence, they must pay attention to the fact that,
although there are major similarities in the cognitive capacities and in the
personality characteristics, we may
find significative differences between boys and girls concerning mathematics,
visual, spatial and verbal competences, as well as in aggression (Maccoby e Jacklin,1974; cited in
Neto, A. and all, 2000) . It seems that it is more difficult for girls to be
competent in the spatial field but they have greater analytic and speech
capacities (Cândido, Joaquim, 2002). These differences can be observed in that
children of around two years old, when choosing toys and activities, vary in
two inverse tendencies with age. In fact, girls aged four or five years dont
show new tendencies, but this does occur with boys, whose performances become
more and more stereotypical. This is important, since three to four year old
children know much about their gender characteristics and act according to
them.
We can work from the assumptions
(Puckett and Black, 2000) that young children: a) have an innate need to know
and, therefore, are competent, eager, and trustworthy learners; b) can initiate
and direct their own learning, within a supportive and enriched setting; c)
construct knowledge while interacting with adults, with one another, and with meaningful
materials and realia; d) develop physically, emotionally, socially, and
intellectually at different rates. However, at the same time, we should take
their sex into account, as children tend to prefer playing with children of the
same sex. This is more evident at the age level of four to five years (Silva,
A. and all, 2000). In fact, until four years old, children learn the
characteristics associated with each gender; from four to six years old,
children develop more complex associations with the information about their own gender; but from six years old on,
each child learns relevant associations regarding the opposite sex (Martin, et
all, 1990).
The first eight years are critical ones for overall development, so
it is important to implement quality and appropriate teaching for young
children. As all learning has its foundations in early childhood, it is vital
to recognise that there are different intelligences involved in learning:
linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic,
interpersonal and naturalistic (Gardner, 1993). Learning proceeds from the
concrete to the abstract through (1) active exploration and inquiry (2)
enriched learning environments, (3) social contexts that encourage interaction
among learners, and (4) scaffolding by an adult or older child. The mind must
be engaged if learning is to occur, whether we are dealing with a boy or a
girl. Considering the Gender Problem, and relating it to the above mentioned
process (1) of active exploration and inquiry, we must refer to the quotation
from E. Rostand: «The fact of having played with dolls or with little lead
soldiers is as important as the hormones in the psychic differentiation between
man and woman» (cited by Tap, P., 1985). As for the social contexts referred to
(3) that encourage interaction among learners, we may mention the research
undertaken by Christine Morin (in Acioly-Regnier et al., 2001), who concluded that boys had significantly better
results when they worked in a mixed group, than when they were in a homogeneous
group of boys. A similar effect was not observed in the girls. So the author
concluded that the mix factor was clearly positive for boys, but not for
girls. Elena Belloti also (cited by Tap, P., 1985,) reflected on girls development process, when she observed that
two years boys and girls were very similar, liking and doing the same things,
but that three years later each sex group was already following the social
rules.
In synthesis it is possible to affirm
that a) knowledge is rooted in language, beliefs, and customs of different
cultures; b) different kinds of knowledge exist: physical,
logical-mathematical, and social-conventional (Piaget, 1952); c) both products
and processes are important to the acquisition of knowledge; d) problem solving
should supercede rote learning of facts if knowledge is to be meaningful and
lasting; e) new knowledge builds on
prior knowledge and experience and is influenced by the individuals
perceptions; f) knowledge is more efficiently acquired in meaningful contexts;
g) the acquisition of knowledge is a lifetime process; h) boys and girls
neither behave nor learn in the same way, and do not even develop the same interests.
Surprising advances in recent years in the fields of neuroscience
and technology have resulted in new knowledge about the brain and how it
develops, and have revealed that the
human brain becomes wired at an astounding rate during the early months and
years of development, and is dependent on specific types of experiences during
certain developmental periods. Findings from this research have focused
attention on the importance of the early childhood period -particularly the
first three years- in fostering this development. Plasticity is greatest during
this period. The first three years are critical, and until about age ten the
brain continues to create complicated neurological connections (Caine and
Caine, 1994, Shore, 1997; Sylwester, 1995). During the early years the brain
produces more connections than it needs, and those that are not used are
eliminated. This creates both opportunities for learning in a variety of areas,
and vulnerability to impoverished and adverse environmental conditions.
So it is essential to create specific
types of experiences during certain developmental periods, the windows of
opportunity. For example, at the age of one to five, in the domain of
mathematical and logical thinking, the following are crucial
·
playthings and curriculum materials that encourage mathematical and
logical thinking: i.e.., materials that can be manipulated, arranged,
rearranged, sorted, grouped, sequenced, counted, and used to create and
construct in a variety of ways;
·
adult- child interaction that employs inquiry, reason, logic and
analytical thinking;
·
many and varied opportunities to solve real-life problems; formulate
hypotheses; experiment with solutions; the eliciting of answers;
·
daily/weekly schedules and routines that are predictable.
Here we should also take into account
the fact that girls are inherently more curious and logical.
