Professionals in the field of education must keep in mind that all children are different and that it is every educator’s challenge to celebrate their differences. Too often, educators and caregivers are caught in convenient generalizations, labeling children’s behavior and progress with scientific words instead of first describing the situation and later offering a diagnostic.
“I can remember the frustration of not being able to talk. I knew what I wanted to say, but I could not get the words out, so I would just scream”. Temple Grandin
Educators and caregivers must remember that anger and “bad” behavior indicate issues that have not been verbalized. Would signing the language a palliative to inhibited verbal expression?
I have become a big fan of sign language since I learned that non hearing infants can communicate their feelings through signing the language much earlier than their speaking peers.
“Men should learn to live with the same seriousness with which children play.” Nietzsche
I love Nietzsche’s approach to life because it feels like abstract art: the artist decomposes and offers the individual’s mind to make sense of the painting by putting pieces together in their own way. Each one must find the answer or own interpretation of the writing or the painting.
“Play is the highest form of research.” Albert Einstein
Dr. Gopnik emphasized the importance of play and offered to explore computer programs, saying that good programs provide an exploration time and also an exploitation time such as those found in play. Adults are competent in exploitation but no longer in exploration. Einstein compounds these two ideas with the term research where the scientist explores a hypothesis until they can exploit one experiment and turn it into a theory.
References
http://www.great-quotes.com/quotes/author/Temple/Grandin?full_site=0
http://www.childsplaymagazine.com/Quotes/index.htm
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/286612-play-is-the-highest-form-of-research
Marie, I agree that all children are different and often times we can easily forget the special accomodations that are needed for children wirh moderate to severe disabilities. This topic plus others you have posted have been insightful and educational without being boring. It has been a pleasure working with you these past eight weeks. Some people that you meet in a online setting, seem to know your character as a human and expand on it. This is the repoire I have with you, I wish you the best in life. You will make a great leader in chidcare development areas. God bless!
ReplyDelete