As a professional in the system already, I look at the whole child and all their developmental areas to start with. I feel by looking at the whole child, a person will have a better sense and knowledge about the child and how to support them with the progression of their development. By understanding the whole child its helpful to support a child's development; I believe the multiple intelligence helps support this idea because it focuses on all areas of development. I feel the best way to assess a child is through observations and their daily interactions with peers, teachers, and their families.
In Japan they strive to have quality, high standards, and efficiency for all children in all grades. The have a system known as MEXT that supports the above statement for their children in schools of all ages. Japanese children have some much knowledge in all areas of development, they sadly lack the thinking and learning by themselves or to apply their knowledge. These children are focused on groups and lack individual motivation. The Japanese school system is changing its focus from group motivation to individual motivation to support and encourage the children to motivate their individual self.
This quote stood out to me: "I strongly believe that the lack of discipline from parents at home is the cause of our children's issues, not the performance of our teachers."
It amazes me that people are finally understanding that a child's first teacher is their parents or families, before their teachers. I am surprised to know that in the Japanese culture that they would suggest this statement because of research in the Japanese culture families are very in-tune with their children's education and development.
References:
http://mabryonline.org/mglc/japan/archives/2006/10/japans_assessment_of_japanese.html
I agree with the importance in looking at all of the developmental areas for a child. I think this is especially important in early childhood because so many areas are developing. I also agree that a child's first teacher is his or her parent or families. I find that helping a child is most difficult when the parent or family is not willing to put in the extra time to help at home.
ReplyDeleteCourtney
I also agree that by looking at the child you can get can a better sense of their development. Standardized testing is a poor way of assessment. There are students like myself that know the knowledge but are just bad test takers, because of that it shows that we don't the knowledge.
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