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Preschool
Teacher - Could That Be You?
Your
Unique Role As Your Child's First And Most
Important Preschool Teacher
"A
teacher can only lead you to the threshold of your own mind."
Kahil
Gibran
The
intimidating truth is that as a parent you
not only lead your child to the threshold
of his mind, you also help create it.
Whether
you like it or not, you are your child's
first and most influential preschool teacher.
Now
listen to this . . .
"The new developmental research shows that this historical
consensus about children was just plain wrong. Children are not blank
tablets or unbridled appetites or even intuitive seers. Babies and young
children think, observe and reason. They consider evidence, draw conclusions, do
experiments, solve problems, and search for the truth."
from "The Scientist in the Crib"
Learning
how to learn effectively transcends subject content.
It is the most important
skill a child can acquire and the term 'learn to learn' is already commonplace
in progressive educational circles.
The
reason many children fail is through no fault of their own.
Dr Howard Gardner's theory
of multiple intelligence's has done much to dispel the myth that the measure of
a person's intelligence is left-brain orientated. We all possess a variety of
intelligence's, bodily-kinesthetic,
naturalist as well as mathematical-logical to name but a
few.
Children need to recognize this fact in order to feel good about themselves.
Making your child feel good about himself
is absolutely crucial to your role as preschool
teacher.
Without
self esteem there is no motivation and lack of motivation is a kind of death in
itself. A preschool teacher must play many parts, but probably the most important role of
all is to be a guide and mentor for the child in his /her
care.
ACCELERATED LEARNING, LEARN TO LEARN, WHOLE BRAIN
LEARNING, are all terms that refer to
developments in the field of brain-based educational research (another term!).
The early years, indeed
the pre-school years of a child's life are the most crucial
years. As a parent you simply cannot avoid being a preschool teacher.
This, according to Betty Hart
of the University of
Kansas
and Todd Risley of the University of Alaska,
is the period when intellectual differences occur. In a research study of
forty-three Kansas
City families one key factor in
promoting intellectual development in young children stood out. TALK .
Not parent's social status, or
education, or wealth. What affected children's I.Q. scores most was how
much they were talked to and interacted with. It's the most important aspect
of your role as a pre-school teacher.
In this
particular study it was revealed that parents who talked to their children most
tended to praise their child's accomplishments, respond to their questions,
provide guidance rather than commands, and used many different words in a
variety of combinations.
Talk is also one of the best ways
of assessing an older child's understanding. Simply ask a child to explain
something in his/her own words and they will reveal the depth of understanding
they have at that particular point in time. The issue for working parents is
finding a day care center, individual or pre-school teacher who can give their child the kind of
stimulation only talk can provide. Never
has it been more important to find the right
pre-school teacher.
Developmental programs should emphasize talk.
That is
why praise, questions, guidance and the provision of new vocabulary are integral to Ensure
Your Child Succeeds At Math.
Between
the ages 4 and 12 a third critical restructuring of the brain
takes place. Amazingly, as a result
of work undertaken by neurologist Harry Chugani of Wayne State
University, it is now possible to see this happening. The technology used is
called PET ( positron emission tomography) scans that measure the brain's
consumption of sugar which, in turn, indicates the energy cells use to carry out
their work.
During
this period the brain is creating a structure that your child will
inhabit for the rest of his/her
life. Depending on the experiences he/she receives it can be a palace, vast and rich, or a shack,
cramped and
bare.
This is a heavy responsibility for you or anyone else who will
share your role as a pre-school teacher.
By
age 12 it can be too late.
TALKING TO OUR BRAINS
We are
now developing tools that can help us
consciously communicate with our
brains. The work undertaken by Tony Buzan has lead to the development of mind or learning maps.
Powerful note making and learning tools because they reveal how our brain
thinks.
These
tools are being adapted by people like Eva Hoffman (Learn to
Learn) for young children.
Ghugani is pretty forthright in his
views. He observes:
"Who's the idiot who decided children should learn foreign
languages in high school? We're not paying attention to the biological
principles of education. The time to learn languages is when the brain is
receptive to these kinds of things, and that's much earlier, in preschool or
elementary school. . .There should be more emphasis on earlier education for key
areas - language, music, math, problem-solving."
Print this page.
The
whole area of brain-research and education is opening up new horizons
for our children. Our innovative
math program Ensure
Your Child Succeeds At Math
is not simply the best way of introducing
math to young children but a developmental
program that enables your child to 'learn
how to learn'.
Click
Here
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