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Friendship as Thinking
April 4, 2008
Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in getting up every time we do.
-Confucius
-Confucius
"I suspect that most of us have the rather naive view that friendship comes about because of like interests or good feelings. We fail to understand how much thinking and problem solving is involved in forming and holding onto friendships. Just think about the issues that even young children have to resolve: When they are new to a classroom, they have to figure out how to behave until they have a friend. When someone approaches, they have to work out how to engage that other child. If there is a fight or a struggle, children must find out how to win back a friend who is angry or hurt. Figuring out any one of these issues takes quite general problem solving skills. Children have to analyze what the problem is, they may have to solve it in steps, they may have to try several approaches. These complicated human situations also require keen observation �" what worked last week with Robert may not work today with Beth.
"Too often in classrooms we act as if inquiry and analysis are skills that belong exclusively to science activities or mathematical thinking. But we must recognize that just as children are building up ideas about volume, number, and what makes something sink or float, they are building working models of their social world. Every day they are building up a picture of themselves, what makes people tick, what causes a relationship to run smoothly or turn sour. That information is the engine for all later learning because it is the source of self-esteem and a child's trust and interest in other people. Without that kind of personal esteem and social trust, other forms of inquiry go flat.
"Despite all this, in very few preschool classes do children have the chance to take part in a genuine discussion about social and moral issues. Instead, they often meet with flat-footed rules: 'We don't hit here.' 'Be nice and she'll be nice back.' 'Take turns.' As teachers and directors, we know how to ask probing questions about what makes blocks balance or rocks sink. So why not invite children to inquire into their social world? Why not talk to them about friendship? Why not help them examine actively what makes a friendship continue or break down?"
Connecting: Friendship in the Lives of Young Children and their Teachers is one of the resources you can obtain in the customer-friendly priced Curriculum Took Kit. Other resources included in this Tool Kit are:
- Beginnings Workshop Book #5 �" Curriculum: Art, Music, Movement, Drama
- Beginnings Workshop Book #4 �" Curriculum: Brain Research, Math, Science
- Hearing Everyone's Voice: Educating Young Children for Peace and Democratic Community
- The Wonder of It: Exploring How the World Works
- Out of the Box Training Kit: Recognizing the Essentials of Developmentally Appropriate Curriculum
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Comments (3)
Displaying All 3 CommentsClaremont, CA, United States
This article takes our thinking about friendship further into the mind of the child and how complex their lives are. What strategies can we use to get this thinking into the minds of the politicians and policy makers who are contiuing in the 'testing' mode' and trying to mass produce citizens from early childhood on?
We talk to each other. How are we speaking to those in power?
cambridge, mA, United States
great article.
i also think that many of those preschool classrooms that are busy helping the children's minds develop along 'mathematical' and 'scientific' lines are missing out on the natural growth of the intellect in free play, which is often shunted to the edges of the day.
watching kids figuring out how to conduct themselves with each other is an eye opener. They are using their intellect strenuously. Once they hit grade school, especially in the climate that we have now in the US with all the testing, they won't have the same time to focus on their social skills.
I often think back on the childhoods of those of us who are over 40 or so. We had the freedom of the outdoors with other kids. We were in continual contact with simple 'science' experiments, observations and interactions. Ditto for 'math'. But mostly we were learning about ourselves and others. We were learning how to use time, and loving the richness of the lives we created and recreated on a daily basis.
It is minds created in this way that helped build this complex world we live in. Minds created in this way developed modern medicine, transportation, telecommunications, the educational system and everything else.
Why do we forget this and feel like kids now need to be inside with teacher led activities, sitting in circles, and having no access to true free time, real connection with the out of doors, and deep long hours playing on their own terms with other kids?
When will we wake up?
PARENTS FORUM
Cambridge, MA, United States
This is an excellent article, as so many of your postings are. Certainly emotional awareness underlies and accompanies social thinking in young people, as it does in adults. Parents and teachers alike need to develop our own emotional awareness if we are to foster it in young people. Keep up the wonderful work you are doing! Eve Sullivan, Founder, PARENTS FORUM, Cambridge, Massachusetts
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