Testing for Intelligence?

I feel that measured a child through holistic development allows a child to fully develop all areas. Below are areas in which a child should be assessed. I feel like today we are trying to fit our children into a bubble and have them develop into ways that are not them. We do not allow kids to be kids anymore, with technology and things we are pushing them in the opposite direction from when we grew up. We now have standards and goals to meet for kids that. A child is not one part of any development but the whole child should be assessed.

Holistic development is a process of self-actualization and learning that combines an individual's mental, physical, social, emotional and spiritual growth. The term can be used to describe forms of alternative education that are based on the more humanistic and democratic outlooks.

 

Holistic development in children focuses on addressing all of the needs of a child's life: emotional, physical, relational, intellectual, creative and spiritual. This perspective to development encourages caregivers and teachers to look at the child as a whole and not focus on the individual parts.

Brought into popularity in the 1960s and 1970s, the holistic approach to child development has steadily become more common and led to the development of alternative approaches to education, such as the Montessori method. In this approach, traditional fact memorization and passive learning is eschewed for a more open and explorative method of learning and development.

To nurture the child as a whole, the holistic approach encourages learning through engagement of the environment. Each child is looked at as an individual and will find different learning opportunities through different paths. According to ECE Educate, at any given moment, the child’s emotions, physical needs and creative openness will contribute to his development and learning, furthering the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. A holistic caregiver will give children opportunities to engage in open-ended play while building warm relationships and recognizing the importance of the child’s spiritual and cultural development. Through this holistic approach, the caregiver can focus on the unique aspects of the child.

Methods for Implementing Holistic Approaches

While there is clearly no one method, Miller (2006) after review of a number of different holistic teaching methodologies, describes four key aspects of holistic approach based teaching:
1.       Learning is organic, emergent, experimental and based on cooperation.   Pre-planned teaching is facilitated only so far as to initiate open ended questioning and inquiry;
2.       There is a strong sense of community and engagement between children, parents and educators where those members feel strongly to care for one another
3.       There is a great respect for children’s interior life,  with methods ranging from environmental spaces that facilitate time out of competitive nosier environments, to time to ask deeper questions about the meaning of life and spirituality.
4.       There are strong connections to nature,  with the care and connection to the environment incorporated throughout the curriculum.
In another interesting article by Ron Miller he describes the aspirations of the holistic educator:

Holistic education aims to call forth from people an intrinsic reverence for life and a passionate love of learning. This is done, not through an academic "curriculum" that condenses the world into instructional packages, but through direct engagement with the environment. Holistic education nurtures a sense of wonder. Montessori, for example, spoke of "cosmic" education: Help the person feel part of the wholeness of the universe, and learning will naturally be enchanted and inviting. There is no one best way to accomplish this goal, there are many paths of learning and the holistic educator values them all; what is appropriate for some children and adults, in some situations, in some historical and social contexts, may not be best for others. The art of holistic education lies in its responsiveness to the diverse learning styles and needs of evolving human beings (Miller, n.d).

In the UK, some believe that if a child starts school to early then they could damage their learning for life. Children who start school around the age of 6 or 7 are believed to have developed theory-building and meaning-making capacities, giving them the confidence to explore their environment in a way that has real meaning and context for them.

Reference:
 https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2013/dec/10/school-starting-age-five-six-uk-eu

http://www.raiselearning.com.au/blogs/news/5818384-exploring-holistic-approaches-for-early-childhood-educators

Stressors in Children's Development

As a child, I was born in the late 70’s where racism and discrimination were still very heavily pointed out. My mother is Korean and my dad was black. As a child, I was told that I did not fit a particular group in the right way. I was not Korean or Asian enough or black enough to be accepted by my peers. Funny thing is that growing up I was not really ever close to my mother. I wanted to be around my dad all the time. I was looked at and treated like daddy’s little girl. So, this meant I needed to prove to others that I did belong with the black kids. I saw and felt a stronger connection to them. I got into a lot of fights growing up proving myself constantly. After a while I grew up with an attitude and a mouth. Because my father was an educated man he instilled an importance of intelligence in me. He had a degree in History which also kind of carried over to me. As a kid, when I was with my older cousins; we were all told to pick out what we wanted to be when we grew up. I chose to be a lawyer since I was the age of 6 or 7. The Huxtables were on TV and I loved watch Cliff and Claire. They were a good positive influence on me. Since I didn't want to go to college for 8+ years to be a doctor and look at blood regularly, so I chose to be a lawyer. I figured if I was going to continue to be treated like a second-class citizen in life that I needed to be smart to fight the injustices I felt in my life because of the color of my skin. We all deserve to fit in and not be told we can’t be friends just because I don’t look exactly like you. Don’t get me wrong this type of thinking was not in everyone’s mind, but I faced a lot of it growing up. Even today, I get this same type of attitude, from people who just should know better but open their mouths without any kind information. Let me also point out that I have friends of all colors. I love and adore all my friends and all that cross my path.

Even when I started dating my husband, the first question out of my mother-in-law’s mouth was “is she white?” The reason being not because she is racist but because during her life, she faced many times where she was discriminated against because of the color of her skin and in recent years prior to dating my husband an incident involving the law and the fact that a family member was black occured. They are just cautious people. However, their thinking has since progressed, and in fact we have a few family members on that side who are dating outside their race. It is widely accepted now without any of the questioning I faced.

The one time in my life that I did not have to prove myself and was accepted is when I went away to college. I grew up in Florida and decided to attend college my freshman year at a HBCU in Charlotte, NC; Johnson C. Smith University, I had to get away from my mom because at this point my father had passed away and I had a lot on my shoulders and needed some relief. At college, not once did I have to argue or get into any kind of altercation to prove I belonged there. I made friends immediately. Not because they wanted something from me other than friendship. I had an overall time of peace in my life. I enjoyed this period of time in my life and it still holds great memories for me. It is that kind of feeling I want to pass on to my children because they look like mommy and will and have been discriminated against because of their skin color.

This type of stressor helped shaped my character. It gave me thicker skin. It showed me that I was more than what you saw on the outside but what I have on the inside. I do still have an attitude and a mouth at times, but with age I have learned how to control it. I still see and face this type of treatment and it bothers me because even in today’s age with the United States being a huge melting pot that it is, we still treat others like second class citizens.

 

I currently have a friend deployed in Afghanistan. Currently with the things going on people forget there are children there. With conditions the way they are, they face stressors that may be foreign to us.  A great number of families are impoverished and lack the necessities such as food and shelter (Catani, C., 2009, p. 163)” As a result children suffer from “war experiences, malnutrition, and ill health (Catani, C., 2009, p. 163).” There is also a great deal of family violence reported by children but could be related to the fact there is poverty, exposure to war, and child labor prevalent in Afghanistan.

 

 

 References:

Catani, C., Schauer, E., Elbert, T., Missmahl, I., Bette, J., & Neuner, F. (2009). War trauma, child labor, and family violence: life adversities and PTSD in a sample of school children in Kabul. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 22(3), 163-171. Doi: 10.1002/jts.20415