Child Education - Assignment Example

? of assignment teacher’s ID enrolled Lecturer’s Overview of the Special need Zayan is still at his tender age and as such, it means that he is still developing. The kind of behaviour he shows pose as a great concern and therefore need to be looked at. It takes intensive measures to rectify this behaviour. The effective measure should be entering into a new mode of interactions with the child by the care givers (Beilin & Pufall, 2002). As such, according to Vygotsky’s theory of development of a child, the development of a child is seen through various stages of stable development and as such, the stages are usually marked by periods encompassing crisis (Shaffer, 2008). It is said that irrespective of different social conditions, structural transformations do take place but as such, they happen differently. Therefore, what is seen in Zayaan is as a result of social conditions that he is living within and also that he is at the period of crisis. It is necessary that the adults who give care to such a child should assume a new role and therefore change the underlying situation and as such, development of a child is actualised (Furth & Wachs, 2005). What this child needs is response of the care giver by ensuring that they enter into a new mode in regards to interactions with the child. As such, the child will tend to realize that the situation is a constraint and thereby striving to overcome it (Oakley, 2004). Review of the Literature Early childhood can be said to include a set of; principles, concepts as well as facts. As such, they not only tend to explain and describe the process involved in the transformation of immaturity aspect to the maturity status and functioning but also account for them (Katz, 1996). Development is usually divided into several stages, which include; Physical, social, emotional, cognitive and social developments (Berk, 2000). Bredecamp and Copple claims that, at the age of 6-10 years, a child is usually characterized by gross motor developments occurring in a rapid manner (1997). As such, he is able to reason in a great way, he is able to solve questions, and the fact that he is able to assimilate shows a cognitive development. The vocabulary of the child also increases rapidly. Moreover, his written communication capabilities also develop. In the social aspect, the child starts understanding the perspectives of other people and further, he becomes conscious of fairness and therefore tries to monitor his own behavioural attributes. Influences of Early Childhood Development The practices that enhance the development of a child are mostly influenced by theories addressing child development. According to Berk (2000), a theory is a set of statements, which are integrated and which tend to describe, predict or explain behaviour. A child’s development is a kind of a social constructivism (vygotsky, 1896-1934). He further asserted that a child development is mostly determined by the prevailing culture. According to Berk & Winsler (1995), a certain number of tenets exist in social constructivism. As such, these tenets are usually unique. Practices According to Katz, child development theory knowledge is ideal in guiding educational practices (1996, p. 136). Scott & Bowman, assert that theories addressing child development are essential since they assist a researcher as well as teachers to guide their observations (1997, p. 170). Teaching to Enhance Development and Learning According to Buchanan et al. (2003), the teaching young children should comprise of giving children an opportunity for choice, promoting collaborative attitude in children and use of a variety of strategies for teaching among others. In a study conducted by McCormic and colleagues it was found that the provision of choice in selection of learning materials and activities were essential as they aided in performance of a child. Establishing Reciprocal Relationships with Families The indicators used n assessing the involvement of a family in serving the young children ought to involve communication as well as collaboration. Programs must collaborate with the children’s families in an effort towards designing early experiences for the children. As such, a two way communication is essential during this process (Bredekamp & Copple, 1997). Identification (About the Child) Personal Information Name of the Child: Ibrahim Zayaan Abdulla Sex: Male Birth Date: January 12th 2002 Age: 10 Years Height: 149 cm Weight: 50 Kilograms Education School Attended: Aboobakuru School/ G.D.H Thinadhoo (He left G.D.H Thinadhoo and joined Aboobakuru School after qualifying to enter into Grade One) Grade: 5 Family Information Name of the Father: Hassan Habeeb (He did not know the name of the father. He thinks that his name is Abdulla but it is not) Name of the Mother: Fathmath Waheedha Age of the Father: 60 years Age of the Mother: 40 years Level of education of the father: None Level of education of the Mother: None Father’s Occupation: Fisherman Mother’s occupation: House Wife Personal Interests Ambitions: He aspires to be a football player Hobbies: Feeding his parrot and riding a bicycle Favourites Song: Borderland- Diary of Dreams Favourite Cartoon: Tom and Jerry Favourite Movie: Full Begii (He watches Dhivehi movies as he does not understand English) Favourite food: Noodles (His father, when coming home always bring them with him) Favourite Story: None Favourite Sport: Football Favourite Teacher: Sir Ibbe and Reyshma (According to him, they are good as they help him whenever there is something that he does not understand something) Favourite Subject: Mathematics (He says that he is interested in all subjects but he understands mathematics the most) Most Ideal Person: His neighbour (He is kind, helpful in all aspects and also generous) The most loved person: Mother (According to him, she assists him a lot and provides him with anything. He also loves his father but due to the fact that he is always away, he does not have that close relationship with him) How he passes time: Watching TV, reading, going out with friends and playing badminton with his brother Desired place to visit: Male, the capital city of Maldives Reason: He wants to meet with his cousin Profile Developments In any human being, there are several stages that he passes through, that is, there are several stages in between the Conception and death of a person. Development of a human being is usually divided into several life aspects that includes; emotional, physical, social as well as cognitive development. Physical Development In regard to the Zayaan case, he is a fat boy. Compared to other boys of his age, his weight as well as height is much finer. As such, he weighs 41 kilograms and has a height of 149 kilograms. The child is physically fit. This is evidenced by the fact that the gross motor of the child are sufficiently good further, his mother are in a continuous growth and as such, they continue to be much stronger as he develops. Moreover, the child shows signs of forward development by manifesting diversified abilities which include; ability to run, hopping, climbing, jumping and also participating in spot games. According to the mother, he is helpful to the family according to his capacity. As such, he is obedient as he goes shopping when told to do so by his parents and also helps his mother in cleaning the house. He showed signs of development at a very tender age. For example, at exactly one year, he shows efforts to stand where he did so with the support of a chair. According to me, Zayaan performs excellently in sporting activities. Communication and Child development At the age of 10 years, it is not normal that Zayaan can only express himself inadequately using speech. As such, he makes use of simple as well as short sentences. He shows an indecent behaviour as he only tend to follow some commands and don’t to others. When I ask him a question, he gives answers but relevant to the asked question. According to my investigations, he never reads and that’s why he answers irrelevantly. Social Development Zayaan is good at sports as well as in songs competitions. The teacher is very interactive as he relates with them cordially. For instance, he helps the children in completing the art work, whereby they were making an art tree. Zayaan is poor in relating with others. Asked to bring materials, he brought none and during the art tree making exercise, he was just wandering around in the class. He takes the teachers pen drive from his bag without the knowledge of the teacher. It was later found out that he was the one who had taken the pen drive as observed by other children. Zayaan does not base his self concepts on the feedback that he receives from the teacher. He is not aware of how his abilities as well as achievements tend to compare with those of the other children. Zayaan, after the incident of the pen drive, he becomes rebellious to his peers to a point that he says bad words unto them. He develops a tendency to hang around with kids not of his age. Cognitive development Zayaan shows an egocentric kind of behaviour. He steals the teacher’s pen drive which contains vital teacher’s information. As such, this is an egocentric kind of behaviour (Durand & Heinemann, 2008). The fact that he does not use logics in his course of actions results to this egocentric behaviour. He does not demonstrate intelligence and therefore it can be concluded that Zayaan has not had a cognitive development and if he did, it was insufficient. Emotional development Zayan tries to cunningly obtain the pen drive fro the teacher. As such, he does not realize that there are more effective and better ways in which he can obtain what he wants instead of throwing tantrums. He seems highly stung when the supervisor says that he will use a light detector, a reason that makes him cry loudly. Zayaan is not sufficiently adaptable and therefore, he faces massive irregularities in the routine. When faced with such a situation like the one on stealing the pen drive, he responds in a negative way. His parents are not that supportive and as such, he does not receive much of the guidance. He is adamant to avoid high risk behaviours which are the basis of emotional development. According to the teacher, Zayaan is very emotional but sometimes, he becomes rude to the teachers. About his mother The mother is a house wives but she loves Zayaan. According to the information given by the child, she is very helpful and caring as she gives whatever the child needs despite the fact that she has no job. Zayaan is affiliated to the mother for this kind of affection shown unto him. About the Father He is a fisherman and spends much of his time away from the family. In fact, he comes home only once in a year. According to zayaan, the father does not relate with his family in an adequate way as he is always away. He lived separately for a period of eight years. He does not like his wife and often says that her work is to ensure that care is given unto the children. He can’t sacrifice his work for the sake of his family. His main focus is towards money. Problems at home/ Difficulties at home According to the responses by Zayaan, it is evident that there exist serious problems at home. First and foremost, he does not have a chance to relate with his father as he spends most of the time with him. He spends very little time with them and as such, Zayaan does not get to feel the fatherly love. Again, the father is very much into his businesses such that he does not fulfil the crucial part of fathering. Moreover, the father is not in good relationship with the mother as he says that he does not like her as she has no manners. We come to knobs that he is fed up with her as it is after they got the five children that he begins to say so. Education The biggest issue facing the teachers is children’s education. Teachers as well as the children’s parents need not only think but also care for the needs of the children. As compared to some few years back, Zayaan has shown that he is a below average student recently. As such, he is a slow learner and this may be the reason why he is not interested in any of the subjects offered. According to the child’s mother, he developed that attitude immediately he began the learning process. The only thing that interests him is sports as he is usually active in them and scores good marks in sporting events. Through various sporting activities, he learns fast. He is usually has the ability to pronounce one syllable words. Still, he can recognize pictures and thereby naming them. He is lazy when it comes to reading long stories. Further, he does not follow what the teacher asks him to do. For this child to perform in school, then it is necessary that measures are taken so that his habits are transformed for the best. Attitude The family members of his family love the child since he is the last born of a family of five. In turn, he is very much into his mother as she provides him with whatever he needs. Moreover, she assists the child up to her capabilities. Still, other members of the family do show love to him as they also provide him with anything he requires. The child also show love to his brother as he shares thing with him and also feels good when he plays badminton with his brother. He also adores his cousin as when asked where he would wish to visit, he says that he would love to go to Male, the capital city of Maldives to visit his cousin. Further, despite the fact that he does not have a close relationship with his father, he still adores him. Observations I have been observing the child and noticed that he does certain unusual things both at home and at school. At school While Playing with Classmates One time, while he was playing with his classmates in a game of football, one child hits his leg resulting to Zayaan’s fall hurting. On seeing this, all the children except the one who had hit him, stopped the game and assisted him. In another incident during a PE session, the same child hit him on the same leg. He did not react but instead cried loudly and ran to the teacher to report him. Later, he put all these aside and went ahead to play with the same child. What can be inferred from this is that, Zayaan gets along perfectly with his friends and as such, he is very cooperative while playing with them. While doing the work I have assigned I have observed that when I give a task with sufficient instructions to the children to be completed, he is usually not interested and at that particular moment, he keeps looking around the class. After giving them the instructions, he takes a pencil and started doing the exercise. When I turn my attention to another student to assist him, Zayaan stands up and approaches his best friend. He stays with him for ten minutes and during this time; he disturbs another student and then returns to his desk. When I go to check what he has done, I find out that he has only done two questions and claims that he does not know the rest. Concerned, I give him counters to assist him in counting. Immediately, he becomes interested in playing with the counters and in fact comes with the right answer to the sum he previously had claimed that he didn’t know. This therefore creates an inference that he becomes interested in learning when it comes to learning using variable strategies. While he is doing his work In regard to practical works involving arts, I have observed his attitudes. At one time, I issued him with clay soil and a piece of an A4 paper. I then gave him the instructions on what he is supposed to be done. He listened to those instructions carefully and hence, he took red and pink colours and thereby coming up with a nice puppet. I was so surprised to observe that a person who does not have an interest in his studies could develop such creative and innovative ideas. While eating I have made an observation on his eating habits when eating with his grandmother. At one time, just before they started eating Roshi and Fried fish with his grandmother, he washed his hands. While eating, the child observed manners as he did not utter a word even when his grand mother asks why he is so quiet. Irrespective of these eating manners, I did observe that he ate very fast and within five minutes, he was through. After finishing the meal he proceeded to the washing place where he was about to wash his place but his mother told him to jeep his plate. He did not hinder to the mother’s instructions and instead went ahead and washed the plate. He then puts water in a glass and thereby drinks it. I then decided to ask him why he washed his plate and he says that he has a tendency of always washing his plate after finishing the meal. He further adds that he does this since he always sees a need to help his mother. According this situation, it can be said that the child indeed loves to assume responsibilities. CONSERVATION TEST I did this test to see whether Zayaan has the capability of conserving whether he is in concrete or operational stage. First, I show him two statements and ask him if he agrees with the statements He agrees with this statement. I then ask him why he agrees to it and he says that it will indeed break. I then ask him, “So, what happens to the glass? Why did it break?” He retorts that it broke. I ask him why he said that he did not know the meaning of the hammer. He does not understand all these but when I explained my queries in Dhivevi language, he immediately gives answer and he says that the hammer is hard and that’s why the glass broke. I then showed and read to him another statement. I ask him if he agrees to this statement. He says that the glass will break. I then ask him why he said that when hit with a feather; the glass will fall and break. Then, asks him what will be happening to the glass when John hits the glass. He says that it will break easily. This is after I gave him a hint. I then ask him what will the feather cause to the glass after hitting it with it, he says that nothing will happen to the glass. I asked him why this was the case. He explains that the glass will never break because the feather is soft. Next conservation to check his mathematics At first, when I asked him the sum of 4+4, he gave the correct answer, that is, 8. I then asked him the sum of 2+2 and he said 4. I then asked what would be the answer if 3 were subtracted from the result and he said 7. He said that when 7 were multiplied by 5, then the result would be 32. He said that if 2 were added to 32, the answer would be 36. Next, I asked him the answer to 6+6 and he said that it was 12. I asked if -3 were subtracted from the answer, he thought for a long while and said that the answer was 9. Then, I asked him if another 3 was subtracted from the answer, he gave the correct answer. General Knowledge Questions and Zayaan’s answers Conclusion In the light of this case involving Zayaan, it is evident that the development of a child in a positive way is dictated by the way the people close to him relate with him. If they can not relate with him, then most of the stages of a child development will just go unnoticed and as such, that child will tend to develop an aspect of redundancy. At such tender age like of that of Zayaan, it is suitable that the child is close monitored to detect any deviation from the normal development and thereby correcting the child (Oakley, 2004). The kind of behaviour that this child show poses as a great concern and therefore, it necessitates an intervention. The parents and the teacher should enter into a new mode of interactions with the child so that he can feel he is loved and hence a sense of belonging (Beilin & Pufall, 2002). As such, according to Vygotsky’s theory of development of a child, the development of a child is seen through various stages of stable development and as such, the stages are usually marked by periods of crisis (Shaffer, 2008). It is said that, irrespective of different social conditions, structural transformations do take place but as such, they happen differently. Therefore, what is seen in Zayaan is as a result of social conditions that he is living within and also that he is at the period of crisis. It is necessary that the adults who give care to such a child should assume a new role and therefore change the underlying situation and as such, development of a child is actualised (Furth & Wachs, 2005). What this child needs is response of the care giver by ensuring that they enter into a new mode in regards to interactions with the child. As such, the child will tend to realize that the situation is a constraint and thereby striving to overcome it (Oakley, 2004). References Beilin, H., & Pufall, P. B. (2002). Piaget's theory: prospects and possibilities. New York, NY: Routledge. Berk, L. E. (2000). Child development (5th ed.). Needham Heights, MS: Allyn & Bacon. Berk, L. E., & Winsler, A. (1995). Scaffolding children's learning: Vygotsky and early childhood education. Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children. Bredekamp, S., & Copple, C. (Eds.) (1997). Developmentally appropriate practice in early childhood programs (Rev. ed.). Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children. Buchanan, T. K., Burts, D. C., Bidner, J., White, V. F., & Charlesworth, R. (1998). Predictors of the developmentally appropriateness of the beliefs and practices of first, second and third grade teachers. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 13, 459–483. Durand, V. M., & Heinemann, M. (2008). Helping parents with challenging children: positive family intervention: facilitator guide. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning Furth, H G., & Wachs, H. (2005). Thinking goes to school: Piaget's theory in practice. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press Katz, L. G. (1996). Child development knowledge and teacher preparation: Confronting assumptions. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 11, 135–146. McCormick, K., Grisham-Brown, J., Nellis, L., Anderman, L., Privett, N., & Williams, A. (2003). Characteristics and attributes of effective primary schools and classrooms. Lexington: University of Kentucky and the Kentucky Department of Education. Oakley, S. (2004). Cognitive development. New York, NY: Routledge Shaffer, D. R. (2008). Social and Personality Development. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning. Scott, F. & Bowman, B. (1996). Child development knowledge; A slippery base for practice. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 11, 169–183. Read More