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| Andrea, on the left here as a child, wrote our final entry on chapter 5. She's pictured with her mom, who was helping ("as usual!," Andrea said) in her kindergarten class. |
Every time you enter a Babies-R-Us, or similar stores, you are bombarded by games and tools designed to make your child more intelligent. Over the past decade, there has been a boom in the “Baby Genius” market. There are flashcards designed to teach your one-year-old how to learn the alphabet and video games designed to teach your toddler how to read. Parents are encouraged to do as much as they can to give their children a leg-up going into school. However, this contradicts much of what we are taught about how children learn; Mary Gordon, author of Roots of Empathy, agrees.
Gordon believes that children make neurological connections through experiences rather than a set of flashcards. It is through these experiences—and play—that children learn not only academic skills, such as math, but learn empathy and love. This part of the chapter really stuck out to me. While observing in different classrooms, I have noticed how much the classroom has changed since I was in elementary school. Back in 1995, Maple Creek Elementary School was all about play and discovery. I looked forward to going to school because I thought I was playing for a majority of my school-time. Yes, there was work involved, but I was able to excel on exams because I had learned the concept without necessarily being explicitly taught the material; we experienced it. Now, kindergarteners are expected to know their sight words and move up quickly to higher reading levels. The focus is no longer on imagination, but on test scores. This worries me and poses the question: Are the children really learning? How different are sight words from the childhood game “Memory” where you had to match the picture of the card with its pair? That is a very scary thought.
As Gordon states, children create neural connections through experience. Their first experiences in life are in the context of their relationships with their caregivers. These relationships will affect their future relationships when they grow older. I was lucky enough to be raised in a home where reading was encouraged and love was abundant. Reading the different examples of how parents foster those connections in their children really lit a light bulb for me. I began recognizing the different things my parents did when I was younger and how they shaped the person I am today. My sister and I both have fairly high emotional IQ’s and I know that is not a coincidence—it goes back to how my parents interacted with each other and with us. I believe that the Roots of Empathy program is extremely beneficial because it can foster emotional intelligence in children who did not necessarily grow up in a nurturing home. Seeing those connections firsthand teaches students about neurological connection. Whether it is between the mother and the baby or the baby making a connection by learning how to roll over, they are able to witness that connection being made in the baby’s brain. It doesn’t matter if they’re in kindergarten or eighth grade, the concept is universal.
I feel like this book is not only beneficial for teachers, but is a must-read for parents. I feel like this chapter especially is imperative for parents to read. How children formulate connections and learn starts with the parents, way before they enter school.
I can tell you’re a reader, Andrea, because your writing is so good. And I appreciate the way you’ve expanded here on important points made by Gordon. It’s important to note, too, that Gordon’s belief that babies and young children make important neurological connections through experience rather than abstract items like flashcards is based on empirical brain research – we know it’s true! Given the heavy marketing on materials like flashcards and videos for even the youngest children, I think it seems counter-intuitive to parents that something as simple as face-to-face play would be more beneficial than something technologically or “academically” based…but we know it’s true. I appreciate, too, your mentioning the “sight words” required of kindergarteners. While it’s true that recognizing words by sight does help facilitate the process of reading, if we teach sight words in the absence of the child’s true understanding of “signs” (Piaget’s term for an arbitrarily assigned representation of an object – the word CAT for the real animal, for instance) the child will be unlikely to appreciate the function and meaningfulness of the process of reading. And, of course, I hope you share this entry with your parents, as I’m sure they’ll appreciate that you recognize what a wonderful job they’ve done with you and your sister! ~ Kathie
ReplyDeleteAndrea, I totally remember you looking like this! How cute! Ah, the good ol' Maple Creek days! You're right, Maple Creek did an excellent job fostering a love of learning through play and discovery. I remember all the great science-based and hands-on fun field trips we went on. We were even required to participate in plenty of social activities in and out of the classroom. (Remember in 6th grade we learned square dancing for a couple of weeks? At least in my classroom we did this.)
ReplyDeleteI definitely believe that you have a high emotional IQ (you were a peer counselor in high school, after all!) :-)