When I Think of Child Development

"The child must know that he is a miracle, that since the beginning of the world there hasn't been, and until the end of the world there will not be, another child like him."
-Pablo Casals

"If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales."
-Albert Einstein

"Play gives children a chance to practice what they are learning...they have to play with what they know to be true in order to find out more, and then they can use what they learn in new forms of play."
-Fred Rogers

Testing for Intelligence?

In my opinion, accountability is the only positive aspect of the current standardized testing requirements.  When I was in high school, before NCLB was passed, I had a few good teachers, but they were the exception.  I had several teachers that would regularly show movies in the classroom instead of teaching because they were either too burnt out or lazy to teach.  I also had some teachers that were well-intentioned, but they had no control over the classroom so they spent most of their time dealing with discipline problems.  In both cases, the students were the ones that paid the price because these teachers were not being held accountable.

Obviously, standardized testing does not currently contribute to viewing children holistically since reading and math are the only areas that are emphasized. Standardized testing should include other areas besides reading and math (and sometime Science) because every child is intelligent in their own way.  I think that if children have to be tested, that the tests should include the multiple intelligences because it will give educators more insight into the child’s strengths.  Furthermore, it may prevent damaging a child’s self-esteem if they are not good in math and/or reading and it would enable the child to understand where they excel.  I do hope that changes will be made to the current system of standardized testing because I have seen how much stress it causes both teachers and students.  As Barrier-Ferreira (2008) stated, “because the stakes have reached disproportionate levels, educators are often forced to abandon all things unrelated to the test and consequently lose sight of what is important: the whole child” (p. 139).

I chose to research how children are assessed in Scotland.  Children are assessed quite differently in Scotland, than they are in the United States.  They use assessments instead of standardized testing and they are not assessed every year.  They follow are program called “Building the Curriculum 5” and children are assessed periodically and when transitioning from one school level to another.  Furthermore, the focus is not primarily on reading and math.  According to the document Building the Curriculum 5: A Framework for Assessment (2011), the purpose of the assessment is the following:

To ensure children and young people are making progress across all aspects of planned learning, assessment will place a greater emphasis on literacy and numeracy across the curriculum, health and well-being, Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and higher order skills, including creativity (The Scottish Government, 2011, p. 7).

It appears to me that Scotland uses a more holistic approach than the United States.

References

Barrier-Ferreira, J. (2008). Producing commodities or educating children? Nurturing the personal growth of students in the face of standardized testing. The Clearing House, 81(3), 138-140.

The Scottish Government, Edinburgh (2011). Building the curriculum 5: A framework for assessment. Retrieved from http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/Images/BtC5Framework_tcm4-653230.pdf

Consequences of Stress on Children’s Development

I was very fortunate to not grow up with any major childhood stressors.  My father-in-law, however, was raised by alcoholic parents and he lived in extreme poverty until he left home at 17.  The alcoholism is what caused the family to live in poverty because his parents would spend all of their money on alcohol instead of food for their children and when he did eat it was usually high fat and high calorie food.  Years ago, my father-in-law told me that there were many times that he went to bed hungry and that there were many times that he was so hungry that he ate lard because there was no food in the house.  As a result, when my father-in-law was 17-years-old he lied about his age in order to enlist in the United States Navy so that he would at least have three meals a day for four years.  Unfortunately, there were long-term affects to the malnutrition that he experienced as a child.  He developed heart problems in his 40’s which resulted in his first heart attack, and then he eventually had two more heart attacks and had to have a defibrillator implanted.  Unfortunately, he passed away last year of Congestive Heart Failure.

In 2012 UNICEF conducted a study of child poverty in the world and found that Romania has the highest rate of child poverty.  Numerous factors were measured in this study, not just the amount of food that the children have.  I also included money, environment, clothing, access to books, and outdoor activities (UNICEF, 2012).

UNICEF (2012). Measuring child poverty: New league tables of child poverty in the world’s rich countries. Retrieved from http://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/rc10_eng.pdf