Quote about Child Development

The child is made of one hundred.
The child has
a hundred languages
a hundred hands
a hundred thoughts
a hundred ways of thinking
of playing, of speaking.

A hundred.

Always a hundred
ways of listening
of marveling, of loving
a hundred joys
for singing and understanding
a hundred worlds
to discover
a hundred worlds
to invent
a hundred worlds
to dream.

The child has
a hundred languages
(and a hundred hundred hundred more)
but they steal ninety-nine.
The school and the culture
separate the head from the body.
They tell the child:
to think without hands
to do without head
to listen and not to speak
to understand without joy
to love and to marvel
only at Easter and at Christmas.

They tell the child:
to discover the world already there
and of the hundred
they steal ninety-nine.

They tell the child:
that work and play
reality and fantasy
science and imagination
sky and earth
reason and dream
are things
that do not belong together.

And thus they tell the child
that the hundred is not there.
The child says:

No way. The hundred is there.

-Loris Malaguzzi
Founder of the Reggio Emilia Approach 

I chose this quote about children because it seems to explain how simple yet complex they are.  When given the tools to succeed and experiences to make up their own mind great things will happen.  

I would like to say Thank You to all of my colleagues here in Child Development 6160.  Thank you for your continued support through blog and discussion responses.  Thank you for enhancing understanding through your life experiences and guidance.  Thank you for being friendly and professional from places far away.  Thank you for being you.

Danielle Frick

Assessments - good and bad, but how?

What should we assess about children? This is truly a struggle I have had with myself since beginning my teaching career.   Do I think we need assessments? YES! How would be we know where children are and where they need to go next in education without them? Do I agree with all assessments – NO!  Many are very one-sided where they measure student’s academic ability in written form but some children do better verbally and visually.  How should we assess children? Ultimately I think they should be assessed in the form they do best with – verbal, visual, written, computer etc. 

What should be measured? In a school setting, children in the kindergarten-1^st grade age group should be monitored  (but not limited to…):

Letter formation and recognition

Sound acquisition

Sight word knowledge

Counting skills (1’s,2,5,10, even odd)

Reading ability

Writing

Fine motor/gross motor skills

Social domain (friend ships, role play/situations)

As much as I think assessment is good and bad, I also think the assessments should show growth as in how much the child has attained over time to not only show if the child is learning, but is the teachers teaching style working? These assessments should be done in a variety of direct and indirect measures including anecdotal observations, written (from children), check lists, event counting, etc. 

“Whenever a measurement is applied to a group of people of any age, especially a group that is diverse in background, experience, aptitude, development, culture, language, and interests, some will rank higher and some lower than others on any item assessed. All measures yield such differences, and it is thus statistically impossible for all those subjected to the same assessment to be above average!” (Katz, 1997). Children should not be marked with a letter grade but with the possibility of: Distinguished, Proficient, Apprentice, Novice. 

 Dr. Katz also suggested allowing children to assess their own work and to make their own goals in education.  While teaching in Kentucky, we were starting this “goal setting” in the district I taught for and it was really interesting to see children striving to reach their own goals! Of course we as teachers guided them into the realm of what was appropriate but the children were taking ownership of their learning.  

Consequences of stress on a child's development

I have been fortunate enough to have not been affected by the stressors listed above.  My father, on the other hand, born in 1960 was very young when his brother went to Vietnam and died.  War was a stressor then, and is now for so many families.  My father has lived hating war. As much as he hates it, he cannot get enough of it – he watches endless hours of documentaries about Vietnam for what I think – is to catch a glimpse of his brother he hardly got to know – Francis A. Lautner, Born May 31, 1946 Died May 31, 1968. My dad was 8.  

My Grandma never got over the death of her son, and therefore things were most likely stressful for my dad and his siblings.  My dad said there were no real resources for him except for family, friends, and faith. Frank’s buddies would come and pick my dad up, take him for rides, do something with him, and keep him out of my grandma’s way. He would also stay with one of his older siblings (my dad was the baby and had cousins the same age as him!) for a week or more at a time.  “We didn’t talk about it much, but we could see what mom and dad were going through.  My bother built a memorial to put all of his medals, awards, pictures, and flag into.  We went to church every Sunday” (Personal communication, June 1, 2013).  My dad relayed that he can’t remember it being stressful and that there was no grief counseling or anything like that available – just friends, family, and church.  

Although my dad doesn’t think this time was stressful, he still has an emotional response to Vietnam and war in general.   Each of his brothers before him and his own father had enlisted for our country but he would never even have considered it knowing what my grandmother had already gone through.  He is proud of other family members that chose Military as their career, but when a recruiter came to my brother in high school, my dad words aren’t appropriate for this blog, but you can imagine NO. 

Being that Vietnam was a stressor for my dad, I chose Vietnam to see what stressors are for children there.  Stressors for children in Vietnam include: child poverty (extreme), unsafe drinking water, communicable disease, and malnutrition. 

To help with the extreme poverty facing Vietnam’s children, “with support from UNICEF, Viet Nam recently developed its own child-specific approach to poverty, based on basic needs like education, health, shelter, social inclusion and protection. Using this method to go beyond monetary poverty, rates show that, in 2006, about one third of all children below 16 years of age, or seven million children, can be considered poor” (UNICEF, 2013).   Most children facing extreme poverty are in the rural areas of Vietnam versus the city. 

J. Lautner. Personal Communication. June 1, 2013.

UNICEF. (2013). Children in Viet nam. Retrieved from http://www.unicef.org/vietnam/children.html