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Providing Unobtrusive Help
June 28, 2010
Children everywhere, when they are free to do so and have plenty of playmates, spend enormous amounts of time playing. They play to have fun, not deliberately to educate themselves, but education is the side effect for which the strong drive to play evolved.
-Peter Gray, Psychologist
-Peter Gray, Psychologist
"Children can accomplish some tasks on their own after trying hard. Others are too easy or too difficult. Children get restless and bored when toys or tasks are too easy. They feel frustrated when tasks are too challenging. The Russian child-development theorist Vygotsky taught that teachers are priceless in supporting child learning and accomplishment when a task is just a bit too difficult at the child's present level of development. Then a teaching adult provides just that bit of help that will result in further child learning and satisfaction. Vygotsky used the term 'zone of proximal development' for the difference between what a child can do on his or her own compared with what the child can do with adult help. With the assistance of an adult, a child will be able to succeed at a cognitive or social learning task beyond what he or she could have accomplished alone."
Alice Honig's insightful book, Little Kids, Big Worries: Stress-Busting Tips for Early Childhood Classrooms, is now available from Exchange. Research shows that stress in the crucial early years of a child's life can pose dramatic, lasting challenges to development, learning, and behavior. This is the practical book early childhood professionals need to recognize stress in young children — and intervene with proven relief strategies before pressures turn into big problems. Developed by celebrated early childhood expert Alice Sterling Honig, this guidebook helps readers address the most common causes of stress in a young child's life, including separation anxiety, bullying, jealousy, and family circumstances.ExchangeEveryDay
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Comments (2)
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A great little reminder of the fine balance that the teacher must recognize and manage in their day to day duties. There are also times when the obsticle for the child is not a physical one but an emotional one. I've periodically seen teachers stand and watch children have an emotional melt down over putting shoes on, and refuse to help bacause the child "knows how to do it".
I'm more of the type that would recognize the child's emotional limitations or situation and do my best to support that and let the shoe issue take a back seat. Helping with one shoe and watching while the dhild attempts the second one will often do the trick.
P.S. I also open doors for my wife even though she is very able to do it herself. Seems like a nice thing to do for a friend or someone you love.
Shishu Vikash Kendra
Kolkata, West Bengal, India
""Go with the child don't take child with you " Let them learn to do themselves not help them to do .
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