LifeSpan Psychology- Week Four

Early and Middle Childhood

For this week, our reading was on Chapters 6&7 of our LifeSmart text. 
Chapter 6 deals with early childhood, it's physical and motor development and cognitive development, as well as early childhood education and different developments that happen during this time period.  Chapter 7 also deals with physical and cognitive development, then goes on to highlight critical thinking and problem solving, the changing sense of self, social development and stress in middle childhood.  As with my other blog postings, I will highlight on areas from each chapter that I found of particular interest.

In this text, early childhood is defined as between 2-6 years, and as anyone who has experience with children of this age, there are quite a lot of changes and differences in those four years! As their minds and motor skills begin to develop the number activities (and length of time they can do them) changes greatly from when they were in infancy.  Watching my nieces interact with one another (ages 3, 2 1/2, 2 and 20 mos) you can really see the changes taking place.  For example, page 133 discussed Piaget's preoperational period, saying that "the great accomplishment of the preoperational period is a growing ability to represent, which is how we record or express information."  With the younger nieces, they are just beginning to understand and play imitative and symbolic games while the two older girls have been in love with their doctor kit and grocery cart for some time. 
Later in the chapter they discuss early childhood education.  As someone who works with preschool-aged children, I really believe in these programs.  I have been classrooms based on different approaches, and I believe that head start, constructivist and Reggio Emilia approaches are the most beneficial.  Children in this age group need to be engaged on different levels, and trying to have them memorize names, places and facts at this age is not as beneficial to them.  Having a learning environment with structure and interaction is very helpful for them and children at this age (in my experience) tend to retain information more readily when they believe they have helped "discover" it.  I personally am not as big of a fan of the Montessori approach to learning, as I believe it can leave out some key learning techniques that could be of more value. 

Chapter 7 was on the middle childhood, from about 6-11 years of age.  Children have continued to further develop their coordination in their motor skills and can now accomplish such tasks as being able to dress themselves and tie their shoes, and their sense of responsibility is beginning to grow.  This chapter describes how children continue to develop physically and cognitively, and describes Gardner and multiple intelligences.  This really struck me as being brilliant.  I agree with the information on page 163 referencing his eight equal intelligences.  These can have such a great impact in the classroom.  This theory suggests that children develop and succeed according to their abilities and inclinations, rather than saying they are either smart/good or not.  As educators we need to acknowledge that all children are different.  One child may be extremely gifted in mathematics and ace every assessment, while another child does not have a different inclination and, consequently will not do well on the assessments.  Just because the child does not do well on an exam does not adequately show that they do or do not understand the concepts being presented.  As educators we should strive to keep in mind that a test school does not show the character, complete knowledge or all that a student is capable of.