Ch. 3 - Personal and Social Development - Personal Development

Personality is the consistent behavior of a person. The nature vs. nurture argument applies here. A child's personality is influenced by heredity as well as the environment. Temperament on the other hand is a child's tendency to respond to and deal with the environment that is determined by genetics. The difference between to the two terms is that temperament is genetically determined. Some different temperaments are adaptability, persistence, adventurousness, outgoingness, shyness and much more. Children with a more outgoing temperament has a good chance to learn social skills and also form beneficial relationships. 

                              

(Andy Griffith has an excellent personality/temperament.  He is witty, keen, an exemplary policeman,, a good husband and he has other great qualities) 

A child's temperament indirectly affects academic success. If a child is social then it will be easier to obtain help from someone with a problem as they would probably have a successful relationship with the teacher and other children. There is no best temperament that makes a good student says the author. But my thought would be a student who is social in the right crowd, dedicated and motivated, has good ethics and philosophy and other qualities. Teachers should know that a child's temperament has a genetic origin and sometimes can't be helped. This does not say that bad behavior is accepted but teachers should have sympathy on them.

Ways to Accommodating Diverse Temperaments:

• For students with high energy they could be assigned chores such as erasing the chalk board, sharpening pencils, cleaning art supplies, etc.
• For shy students teachers need to be warm and attentive. They could do group activities that would put the shy student under the other students' wing.
• For students who have trouble adapting to new situations talk about them in advance by having an activity related to it.
• If the ruckus in the lunch room is too much to deal with try to offer your classroom as a place for them to eat. I don't know about doing this.
• Find ways to teach students self-control strategies. For a student who constantly interrupts the class or answers questions without letting others get a turn, have them count the number of times they do this. The student should learn to speak when it's important and maybe make a number that they should answer questions and have that be the limit.

Diversity in Cognitive and Linguistic Development

As mentioned before about Piaget's Theory, it's not completely accurate but the rate of learning usually comes in those steps. There also may be intermediate stages such preoperational and concrete operational thinking occurring at the same time. Teachers need to tailor their teaching to the unique cognitive and linguistic abilities that exists. Mexican children may have exceptional conservation skills in the preoperational stage because at a young age they make pottery which includes making correct decisions with the various sizes and shapes to put water in. In some cultures science, math and literature are not important. Because of difference cultures in a country there are different speaking styles, dialects.

                                       

(The Tango is important in the culture of Argentina where it originated.

It is an amazing dance)

 Inner-city African Americans can have an advanced understanding of figurative language with its rich oral tradition. In one scenario when a child asks his Mom how the church service was she replied "Son, by the time the minister finished preaching, the men were crying and the women had passed out on the floor." As mentioned before, bilingual education should be used for those who are non-English speakers in an English area. Students should be eased into the English language. Incorporating students' culture boosts their academic success. Students with special needs need to be accommodated with. There's a great chart in here how to deal with this.

Learning a Second Language

We all know that knowledge of a second language is important because of globalization.  Despite the sensitive period for learning a language as mentioned before a person can become fluent young or old but it is better to start at a younger age.  People who learn at a younger age more often have positive attitudes towards those who speak a second language and are more likely to enroll in foreign language classes. At least half of the world is bilingual.  Wow I didn't know this statistic.  American Sign Language could be another foreign language addition to a person's language repertoire.

 

  (We are connected like never before.)

Being bilingual has many advantages as they appear to have a head start in their metalinguistic development. A higher level of this development may cause a student to have a head start in reading ability and perform better on intelligence and creativity tests. To teach a English-speaking native a foreign language they should be totally immersed in the language. They don't have many opportunities to speak it outside the classroom so they need all they can get in class. On the other hand, for a non English-speaking person in an English territory, they should receive bilingual education. With this a student would excel by having class instruction and work in their foreign language and then being taught English. If bilingual education is not done, they may lose their foreign language because of all the English that is spoken around them.

Because of all the advantages of learning a second language, teachers should really promote bilingualism for students.

Linguistic Development

Language can be difficult because we need to articulate vowel sounds, consonants and consonant blends such as "buh" and "duh".  Children excel in learning a language when it's spoken around them.  Children do not just absorb the language but construct their opinions on word meaning and structure, as Piaget's theory suggested. As you've probably heard there is a sensitive period where children learn language rapidly. This occurs between age 5 and 10. However I learned in another educational psychology class that it's still possibly to learn a foreign language even when you're old at an efficient rate. In this book there's a nice word semantics which means meaning of words and word combinations.

I like how this book says read,read and read to help children expand their vocabulary. Reading helps vocabulary because you might remember a certain passage that will trigger the vocabulary word. Rules of syntax allow us to put together sentences. Syntax is how to put words together into sentences (this is usually done unconsciously). The development of syntax and semantics help listening comprehension. Some times I can be really bad at this. Children in the early elementary years believe listening is simply sitting still and being quiet. Some cultures such as in Asian and Mexican ones believe it to be offensive to ask a question for clarification.

                                                          

(A good book to read about an unknown in history

who has made important contributions to the US. )

Children don't listen well because they use the context of the situation more and use their preconceived beliefs in what someone is saying. As children grow older they base their listening less on the context. As children grow they can go beyond a literal interpretation such as with the phrase "don't put all your eggs in one basket". During the preschool and early elementary years children have a hard time pronouncing sounds s and th and other sounds. By age 8 or 9 most students have mastered the sounds of English. Even in the upper elementary level students do not take into account what someone else knows. Another nice word is pragmatics which means knowledge about cultural-specific social conventions that includes initiating a conversation and picking topics to talk about. This is another important component in linguistic development. A person who changes the topic frequently or interrupts people may have others become irritated or annoyed. 

Word play such as rhymes, chants, and jokes help students master a language.  While doing these activities they develop metalinguistic awareness, the ability to think about language.  This process seems to develop slowly.   

Analysis of Vygotsky's Theory

One fault with Vygotsky's theory is that often he didn't mention specific ages that the abilities would occur.  His emphasis on culture makes his theory important as the culture shapes a child's development.  As mentioned before in Vygotsky's theory, social interaction is important and adults attach meaning to objects and events for them.  But it should be noted what I learned in my first blog post.  Remember this in the survey?

"4. Although students initially have many misconceptions about the world, they quickly revise their thinking once their parents present information that contradicts their existing beliefs.
This is too good to be true.  Actually students hold strong to their misconceptions even with contradictory truth.  One of the biggest challenges of teachers is to help discard their erroneous beliefs.''

So whenever the adults attach meaning it may not stick with them.  Adults help students through a process called scaffolding.  Think of how a scaffold holds a person up when they're working on a building.  As the building is becoming closer to being constructed the scaffold is needed less.  Scaffolding in terms of cognitive development is when a person provides needed assistance for a task.  Some ways to provide a scaffold is to help students develop a plan for dealing with a new task, demonstrate the proper performance of the task in a way that students can easily imitate and also divide a task into small steps.

                                    

                              (Real scaffolding on a building in Cincinnati.  

                         We need to remove the scaffolding from 

                 people so we can conquer a task!)

A teacher in the book Ms. McManus provides scaffolding to help her students write better.  She gave them graphic note-writing sheets that help with brainstorming and organize their thoughts before they write.  Plus she provided a variety of criteria that they should consider while writing.  Almost every cultural now involves children participating in adult activities so scaffolding and adults attaching meaning is important. An intensive form of guided participation is called apprenticeship. I think this word has been understood well by people.  Also there is cognitive apprenticeship which is not just about learning the task but thinking about it correctly.

Apprenticeships are clearly labor intensive and not usually used in the classroom.  However apprenticeships from an expert can be emulated by using the guidance they give.  For example, a student may use the same writing prompts that an expert would use.  Peer interaction is important for 4 reasons.  One is that by discussing the issue they can get a more complete view of it. Two is that by agreeing and disagreeing a child can see multiple perspectives.  Three is that they can provide scaffolding for each other.  And finally the children learn valuable social skills such as how to reach an agreement and coordinate different roles.  The group needs to be aware of groupthink. This is a vocabulary word that I heard through my classes at Marshall University.  I have two different definitions in my textbooks.  To me it is where a group reaches a decision that is not well thought out because people do not want to argue and make people feel uncomfortable. 

Piaget and Vygotsky have "a profound influence on contemporary views of learning, thinking and cognitive development."  They  may be said to compliment each other because Piaget's theory tells about how children reason on their own and Vygotsky's theory tells how children think through social interaction.  Many contemporary theorist agree with Piaget and Vygotsky that language is important and possibly the most important factor in cognitive development.

Vygotsky's Theory

Lev Vygotsky had a premature death so didn't fully develop his theory. Even so his ideas still have a significant impact in child development. Vygotsky has a sociocultural perspective which is a perspective that emphasizes society and the culture of cognitive development. Seeing socio and cultural makes that obvious but sometimes it's tough to articulate the obvious. Piaget didn't emphasize social interaction to be important but Vygotsky does. Adults attach the meanings of objects and events by social interaction. This doesn't need to be done just by conversation but also through art, mathematical symbols, music and literature. An adult could convey what war meant by a picture of people getting fired at and dirty faces and bodies.

 

 (Mr. Vygotsky)

Language evolves from self-talk to inner speech. By around age 2, thought and language becomes intertwined as children start to speak what they think. Children use self-talk, where a child talks to their self verbally to guide them through a task. Eventually self-talk evolves into inner speech, where a child speaks to their self mentally instead of verbally through a task. Research has supported the progression from self-talk to inner speech. As mentioned before, children learn through social interaction. This social interaction causes complex thinking that eventually can be done independently.

Actual development level is the upper limit of tasks that a child can perform by their self. A child's level of potential development is the upper limit of tasks that a child can do with the assistance of a more competent individual. To measure a child's cognitive development we should consider both development levels. Performing tasks at the upper limits of a child's abilities maximizes cognitive growth. The zone of proximal development or ZPD is the range of tasks that a child can perform with assistance and help. Play is another way to boost cognitive growth. It is not a waste of time because it provides valuable training for the adult world. The author talks about her son and his friend playing with a fake restaurant kitchen. The adult roles such as restaurant manager, waiter and cook prepares them for these roles when they grow older.

Analysis of Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development

That children construct their own knowledge, relate new experiences with previous ones and challenging circumstances trigger children to change their views "...have stood the test of time".    Physical environment interaction is not as important as physically disabled children are able to learn simply by observation.  Social interaction has shown to be more important than Piaget states and the 4 steps of cognitive development sequences have proven to be true.

An adolescent may show concrete reasoning in some areas while in others they are able to think abstractly.  Training and experience may cause a child to ascend quicker.  For example, a child could have manipulated task materials often and had someone to talk to about how conservation works.  If so then the child may show conservation in the preoperational stage.  Some contemporary theorists believe that there shouldn't be stages but trends.  They further suggest that theses stages tell what children can think not actually what they will think because of different contexts, content areas and culture.