When I Think of Child Development…

As our last week of class comes to an end, a few of my favorite quotes come to mind when thinking of child development and its importance. As a closing note, I would like to express my deepest thanks to all of my colleagues that have gone on this journey with me. I am so thankful to experience this educational journey with you all and hope that we can continue to do this together throughout this entire program. For those of you who have been with me from the beginning, can you believe that we have completed our second course? It won’t be long now until we have our degrees under our belts. For those of you who I have just met through this class, it was truly a pleasure. Everyone’s comments and feedback has been well received and appreciated. Good luck to all of you!

"No one has yet fully realized the wealth of sympathy, kindness and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure." ~ Emma Goldman, author

“You are worried about seeing him spend his early years in doing nothing.  What!  Is it nothing to be happy?  Nothing to skip, play, and run around all day long?  Never in his life will he be so busy again.”  ~Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, 1762

“If our American way of life fails the child, it fails us all.”  ~Pearl S. Buck

Testing for Intelligence

I’m not 100% sure on how I feel about standardized testing for young children. From a personal perspective, I tested very well on standardized tests when I was a child. That lasted up until about when I was in high school. Around that time, I became very anxious about test taking and always seemed to do poorly regardless of my study habits. Unfortunately, this also followed me throughout college; however, I was able to make up for my poor testing abilities in other areas. I don’t think that most standardized tests fully cover where a child stands developmentally. If a child is just tested on science and math, and isn’t flourished in either of those subjects, that particular child may not produce high test scores. Does this mean the child is experiencing cognitive delays? I don’t believe so. I would be nice to see our school take an approach from and individuality standpoint. Perhaps not in the same way as Montessori schools, but just enough to where we can grasp where a child really stands cognitively. I think there are several subjects that could be addressed other than the basic things we already look at. Reading and writing are important but I think finding a way to measure a child’s understanding of words would be good. Also maybe using art to measure their thought process, or even music. There are so many characteristics that make up the mind of a child, it is important that we look at everything, not just certain things. In Germany, students are required to test on many different things beginning at a young age. This includes a second language, Latin, art, music as well as reading, writing, math and science. It seems like a lot, but my German peers when I was a child always seemed to be a little ahead of the game.