Supporting the Education of Children Within the Curriculum - Essay Example

Topic: Supporting children’s learning through the curriculum Introduction Early childhood education requires effective professional development as reflective practitioners that can build and support on government agenda that provides quality program for children and their respective families. This document aims to discuss the role of teachers within the early learning environment of children. It will also look into the child’s social and emotional development; appreciate the significance of literacy; use of information technology to harness their capacity and creativity as young learners of this world. Role in Supporting The Learning Process It can be reckoned that many years ago, leaders upholding the significance of education professed that its takes a universe to make a child and a community to educate them. Heaving context from this agenda, leaders of educational institutions weave collaborative partnership with governments, civil society, parents and of the community as multi-stakeholders in upholding the right of children for quality education. This is because much of a nation’s future rest on the children of today. Thus, by assuming accountability for academic excellence and effective integrated services for children, stakeholders must therefore capture a single comprehensive practice for children’s education and other related interventions that could motivate them to continually attend schools. Miller, Cable, and Goodliff (2009) posit that this millennium will be the most complex and challenging epoch of their profession amid interrelated changes within the social, political, technological, employment patterns, and the impacts of these to school children (p. 1). Due to this, governments are propelled to develop framework and programs to ascertain that needs, problems, and challenges are met adequately. Britain, for instance, established Foundation Stage for early education with integrated plans as schools remodel its system into an Excellence Centers; development of family-friendly workplaces; introduction of Early Years Development and Childcare Partnership; and development of Sure Mart for children beneath four years old (Miller et al., 2009, p. 2). Britain has also developed Qualifications and Curriculum Authority in England inclusive of vocational, occupational and higher level qualifications (Miller et al., 2009, p. 2; Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, 1999). Accreditations were undertaken under this framework. These demand new roles, accountabilities and opportunities for practitioners taking care for early child education which is prominently tagged by professionals as the most gendered job and too diverse in nature (Miller et al., 2009, p. 2). As a practitioner situated within this environ, supporting early child development and learning process will be undertaken with proper planning, much creativity, understanding of the child’s cycle of development, and maintaining consistency with the statutes regulating the exercise of teaching profession. As teacher, there is a need to be sensitive to the cycle of child’s development. Thus, teachings will be creatively innovated that will make a child feel secure, protected and nurtured (Miller et al., 2009, p. 3). The children’s rights, as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, should be practiced within the confines of the center to observe children’s rights, protection, and welfare. Thus, it’s essential that teacher-student relation should be right-centered and any acts violating or perceived detrimental to their welfare should be forbidden. This is what experts pointed that education as a right should not be distorted by policies which make education as a privilege by constantly arguing about the lack of state resources to subsidize state-owned schools (Hammarberg, 1997, p. 5-27). The United Nations have commonly agreed under a convention that education is equally important as the right to health, thus, discrimination shouldn’t be prejudicially applied (Hammarberg, 1997, p. 5-27). It should be realized that education is not only viewed as a phase to prepare childhood to adulthood. It is a value in itself toward the total development of child so that when one is integrated to the society, he/she will be able to pro-actively participate in decision-making affecting his/her right and welfare and in other related democratic processes of governance (Hammarberg, 1997, p. 5-27). Nowadays, people do not only considered education for personality development, It is on it where the future of this world rest since the state-of-affairs demand that business, governance, conflict management, disaster reduction, poverty reduction, and strategizing development require national human resources that are highly literate and educated people to partake on (Hammarberg, 1997, p. 5-27). This world, complex in its totality, cannot rely on ignorance. It is therefore essential that education policies should be formulated for the children’s best interest, which means, their rights to know should be protected from violence and the learning process must be directed to life skills demanded these days and of the future (Hammarberg, 1997, p. 5-27). This means that human rights and democratic values should be emphasized and each child should be assisted to understand the world and his/her connection to it (Hammarberg, 1997, p. 5-27). As the subjects of instruction here are still in the process of developing their psychological and physiological capacities, teacher should value patience and perseverance while encouraging diversity of their thoughts and ideation. New skills and knowledge are required to fit with the development stage and with the unique nature of children while aiming for their progression at the same time. As children came from diverse family with variegated family value-system and orientation, teacher should realize that it’s hard to achieve genuine inclusion and equality of opportunity (Miller, 2009 et al., 2009, p. 3). Moreover, as Britain is also resided with migrants and couples that have intermarriages with other nationals, their offspring, as a consequence, are evidently practicing bilingual language and are molded with dichotomized cultures. Hence, there is a need to be sensitive too to their feelings and sentiments while working with them. Indeed, its going to be challenging how to apply diversity and multiculturalism in a setting filled with very young children. Creativity can play a huge role here. Arts materials and the like can be utilized to appreciate differences and similarities as unique children. This should be done while importantly valuing their self-esteem. Strategies should therefore be incorporated in lesson planning to capture the challenges and to be able to identify effective measures that could assist them for their growth. Key Elements of Child’s Learning Process In so doing, it’s significant to emphasize the key elements of child’s learning. These are cognitive, emotional, social and physical developments (Child Development Guide, 2012, p. 1). Cognitive development refers to the perceptual ability and retention capacity (CDG, 2012, p. 1). This is inclusive of child’s creativity, discovery, symbolic thought, analytical skills, focus, control behavior and reasoning (CDG, 2012, p. 1). Language and its articulation are included in this development too (CDG, 2012, p. 1). In a week, this can be observed from a child’s inquisitiveness, sharpness of observation, increasing base of knowledge, and quickness to learn from classroom experiences and immersion (CDG, 2012, p. 1). Emotional development, on the other hand, refers to mental health and well-being (CDG, 2012, p. 1). This refers to happiness, appreciation to environment, and emotional strength (CDG, 2012, p. 1). In a week time, this kind of development can be observed from a child’s confidence, motivation, self-esteem, positive attitude, temperance, and sense of self-reliance (CDG, 2012, p. 1). Meanwhile, child’s development refers to the ability of the child to interact and communicate with classmates and friends. The classroom setting provides such setting for child discourses with other children. Through this, they’d learn to recognize necessary behaviors when with others at certain contexts. This is crucial in enabling a child to integrate with his groups and friends—a prelude to the phase when he’d reach a certain level of maturity to be integrated to the mainstream society (CDG, 2012, p.1). In a week time, a child’s development can be observed with good communicative interaction in an expansive environment; family’s interrelation and bonding is tightened; and, the use of language is better appreciated for communication (CDG, 2012, p.1). The child’s physical development can be easily detected as their physical growth is easily observed in height and weight (CDG, 2012, p. 1). Coordination and interrelation of functional mind are shown by their movements. Their motor skills can also be viewed through their participation in many classroom activities (CDG, 2012, p. 1). Growth can likewise be measured by their food intake. In a week time, the child’s physical development can be empirically observed by their physiological changes and their responses (CDG, 2012, p. 1). These four key elements of child development are useful in tracking the child’s progress as learners. These elements are also seriously considered for a well-rounded or balance growth. His/her thoughts, experiences, interactions, reflections and growth are facets in the educative process in the accumulation of knowledge for his/her personality development, too. Early child education, indeed, has more focused on developing the capacity of a child to use language for communication. This passes through stages of speech development. The first 12 months are primarily developed while under parental care. Children here focused on knowing tones, expressing feelings through cries, saying mama or dada, and starts empathizing parental emotions through voices. In the later part of the year, the child will be able to imitate saying words. This progresses in the next succeeding two years. At 3 years old, a child starts to utter few words in an attempt to construct sentences and is able to imitate speech patterns (CDG(a), 2012, p. 1). Queries are constantly raised since most children are inquisitive and curious. They talk to themselves while playing; enjoyed rhymes and melodies are great stimulants for learning (CDG(a), 2012, p. 1). In four to five years old, the child resumes using extensive vocabulary and is able to relate his thoughts in sentences that are at times lengthy. They can be suggestive in this stage as they starts to comment, argue and collaborate as young communicator (CDG(a), 2012, p. 1). Speech becomes intelligible and has more sense. They can already ask questions precisely or sharply and can already describe their feelings. Their sentences are maybe sometimes considered by linguists as grammatically erroneous while their speech patterns are generally childish. They can intelligibly discuss matters with associations to shapes, colors, and figures or numbers (CDG(a), 2012, p. 1). The teacher may therefore utilize nursery rhymes and games to connect with communication development. Repeating these as necessary will also encourage children to reach the level of mastery. Reading stories and introducing them to basic sentences using worksheets or exercises will sharpen their knowledge (CDG(a), 2012, p. 1). More developments are evident for 6 and 7 year old children as they can retain and understand 13,000 to 26,000 words (CDG(a), 2012, p. 1). They can start classifying matters and in determining opposites. They can already be aware with errors and mistakes (CDG(a), 2012, p. 1). Those who are advanced language acquisition and vocabulary retention, can already construct compound or complex sentences (CDG(a), 2012, p. 1). Planning and Organization of the learning environment In supporting the children’s learning, education will be creatively undertaken following prescribed curriculum of United Kingdom which is widely published. The curriculum is blueprint or a framework of planned lessons that will be taught within the classroom (Miller, Cable, & Goodliff, 2009 p. 2-3). It substantially details the process on how lessons should be undertaken; what it aimed to achieve from learners as an outcome; and what resources should be used. Experts opined that curriculum is a procedure with set of courses and contents used for classroom instruction (Miller, et al., 2009 p. 2-3; Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, 1999). It considered sets of academically required subjects. It must consider all aspects of the student life, the learning needs of students, the time available for the sessions and the teachers’ idea, capability and workload (Miller, et al., 2009 p. 2-3). To cite an example, the teacher may commence the class with a playgroup, an art work, or by reading short stories that could be utilized for children’s reflection and discourse to draw in the lessons which is desired to be achieved as an outcome. Other creative activities can include drawing, painting, sketching, visualizing, singing rhymes, and other group dynamic activities—depending on whatever is practicable on the subject at hand. Teacher should be aware that educative process should be undertaken not only within the classroom. It is most important that processes should be articulated to the parents too, as a collaborative strategy, so that children are still monitored at home if they are able to work for their assignments. Parental observations will also help teacher evaluate the learning progress of a child and how the learning process impacted to them. The progress should be documented in a scale to ascertain the child’s milestone. The latter should be measured in accordance to the standard curriculum adopted for classroom instruction and be gauged to performance appraisal and learning outcomes (Miller & Devereux, 2004). Aside from documenting every child’s progress, the teacher should also make a reflection to evaluate successes and gaps to enable him/her to craft recommendations as next steps. The documents will also become evidences in classroom performance management. Thus, lesson plans should draw upon what is prescribed under KU1, KU5, KU6, CS2, CS3, PS1 and PS3 to achieve goals and to attain consistency in translating standards or policies in actual classroom instruction. Such meant that the fundamental teaching for language and communication in early child literacy instruction should be focused on nurturing knowledge and understanding using creative and diverse methods or techniques of instruction (Miller, et al., 2009 p. 2-3). As earlier discussed, the teacher should use arts and innovative visual aids to support the learning process. The lessons plan must be consistent to the prescribed standard of curriculum approved by duly constituted authorities of the department of education (Miller, Hughes, Roberts, & Staggs, 2003). Following consistently this means taking into practical side the recommended standard under local and national frameworks, whether these are statutorily mandates or enforced only via administrative orders. These two provide the general setting and methodology upon which early education is undertaken by professionals to ensure that quality education is achieved for academic excellence and for children’s welfare. Only when these are genuinely made practicable inside the school that institutions could truly say that policies and provisions which uphold the democratic and universal rights of children has positive impact to the learners. Lessons should therefore be designed in a way that encapsulates the key elements of child developments: cognitive, emotional, social and physical. Aside from creative process, it’s highly recommended, if school could afford, to utilize information communication technology to advance the learning process. ICT is very much helpful for visual aids and arts. Children would love to see colorful figures, letters and caricatures as instruments in the introduction of the fundamentals of learning. This should be skillfully managed with time to evoke more participative and interactive learning process. But like business management, teacher’s performance should be subject to the regular appraisal of performance to pave the way for recommendatory actions and for improvements. Appraisal can also assist in identifying other essential needs to improve the teaching-learning process. Each institution should have a standard performance evaluation to measure the effectiveness and efficacy of the teacher in transferring knowledge to the learners. This should be instituted in a constructive feedback mechanism process to give birth for more improvements of classroom instruction. It will also help assist in determining factors that could motivate the teacher to scale up creativity and innovation in teaching. Reflect on your own learning This assignment is interesting because it reaffirmed the fact that education is not purely an institutional endeavor but a collaborative undertaking of multi-stakeholders: parents, teachers, administration, state and local government. The difficult part of this writing is that the study demanded a comprehensive understanding of the teaching-learning process which is time-consuming and mentally exhausting. In writing this assignment, I learned that teaching is a difficult profession, thus, made is noble. I also learn that teaching is a process. References Child Development Guide (2012). Learning the four key elements of child development. Child Development Guide.org, Future Success Company. http://www.child-development-guide.com/key-elements-of-child-development.html Accessed: April 5, 2012. Child Development Guide (a) (2012). Language and speech development from birth to 8 years old. Child Development Guide.org, Future Success Company. http://www.child-development-guide.com/speech-development.html Accessed: April 5, 2012. Hammarberg, T. (1997). A School for Children with Rights. United Nations Children’s Fund, International Child Development Centre, Florence, Italy. p. 5-28. Miller, Linda; Cable, C., & Goodliff, G. (2009) Eds. Supporting Children’s Learning in the Early Years, Routledge: London. p 256. Miller, L. & Devereux, J. (2004). Supporting Children’s Learning in the Early Years. David Fulton Publishers & Open University, London. pp. 1-67. Miller, L., Hughes, J., Roberts, A. & Staggs, L. (2003). Curricular Guidance and frameworks for the early years, In: Deverux, J. and Miller, L. (eds). Working with Children in the Early Years, London: David Fulton Publishing. Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) (1999). Early Years, Education, Childcare and Playwork Sector: A framework of nationally accredited qualifications. London: Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. Read More