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Early Childhood Education Philosophy

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How do children’s experiences and natural abilities impact their performance in school, and how should this influence teacher’s philosophy of education?
A Child’s ability to learn and perform well in school can depend on many factors. Their culture, socioeconomic standing in life, things they may experience in the home, the parenting styles of their parents or care givers, how much the parents are involved in the child’s development, and in some cases, their natural ability to learn and retain information they are exposed to and being taught in a way that is best for them personally. Some children learn by doing, some learn by watching and some learn better when they understand how what they are learning can be used in their everyday lives. …show more content…

The studies were comparing learning through observing and pitching in versus lessons out of the context of productive activity. Most of us did not grow up with our parents carrying us around throughout their day when we were infants but that is exactly what happens in many families in traditional indigenous communities of the Americas. As they are being carried around they are observing the adults going about their day, doing various things such as working in the fields, talking to other adults, and just about every other activity that goes on within their community. Even though most of these events or activities are not directed toward the children or designed to instruct them, at the end of the day they were ultimately learning some valuable things just by being present. These all can be considered to be “experiences” they had at a time when they were growing and developing. Experiences could be described as things that the children learn from situations and interactions that are not actually addressed directly to them. Things such as listening to others speak, they learn some aspects of language and learn to emulate things that are seen on …show more content…

If they are in a home that is full of stress, or a poor neighborhood and experience violence or poverty where food is also sparse that could also affect them in a negative way. One of the biggest culprits that can negatively affect a child’s performance in school though seems to be growing up in poverty. In the New York Times article “Overcoming Poverty’s Damage to Learning”, after the attacks of 9/11 child psychiatrist Pamela Cantor who specializes in trauma, was enlisted by the New York City Board of Education to lead a team studying the impact of the attacks on the city’s public school children. What she discovered was shocking. Even though the schools were not clustered near Ground Zero and therefore not necessarily attributable to 9/11, many of the children in the city schools exhibited symptoms of trauma. In fact, according to Cantor, one-fifth of the children met criteria for a full-blown psychiatric disorder. The percentage of children who had been exposed to prior trauma sufficient enough to impair their functioning in school was an alarming 68%. While visiting a school in Washington Heights, Cantor was taken aback by how unsafe and chaotic the atmosphere of the school was. Once she dug deeper in to what was actually going on, she found out that there were many kids with varying degrees of stress. When this happens, all it takes is one kid to act out to disrupt the whole

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