I hated this project! It was the hardest paper/project I've ever had to complete. I felt like we barely had any guidelines and I was confused about it from the beginning. My topic was arguebly the hardest thing to find research on/narrow down. The blog made no sense. Even though it's complete I still have no idea what it was for. I feel like this project came out of left field and I'm glad it's over...
I still enjoyed your class however.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Inquiry final draft/blog post 7
Unintelligent
Intelligence
Child prodigies- we’ve all heard of them, the child who
speaks at eleven months old or the three year old that can already read. Like
most people, when parents hear these stories their brainwaves start formulating
a plan of how to make their children just as smart. Nowadays, there are so many
games, flashcards, DVDs, etcetera that claim to make your child smarter.
However, do these games actually help children or hinder them in the long run? Parents
are on a constant pursuit to find ways to help their children get ahead in
life, but what happened to the days when a kid could really just be a kid?
There was once a time when all children had to do was wake up, eat, go to
school, and play. Now children who can barely count to three are involved in
pageants, accelerated classes, after school programs, competitive sports, and
that’s just the beginning of it. Author Jeffery Kluger brings up a very
relevant point in his article The Quest For a SuperKid, quoting, “Trying
to pump up children’s IQs in artificial ways may also lead to increased stress
on the kids. Keep the brain on edge long enough, and the changes become
long-lasting, making learning harder as kids get older” (Kluger 2). Parents,
and adults in general, need to realize that children will mature and grow
naturally without the over-stimulation of their still developing brains. Not
only does over educating a young child deter their enjoyment of childhood, it
also slows their social development, hinders their ability to learn later on in
life, and adds extra health issues due to stress.
In today’s world the social realm rules all, it is
apparent in everything that goes on. Whether it is the latest celebrity craze,
people trying to make it through school, or even the presidential race, a good
social standing always takes the upper hand. With that in mind, it is hard to
imagine why parents and teachers would want to reduce a child’s play time,
making them socially inept. As time goes on, adults are finding less use for
child interaction, as it is found obvious in the book Child Development and the Use of Technology. Through researching
schools in Los Angeles and New York City authors Laura Case, Kay Reeves, and
Elisabeth Conner found that “In many kindergarten classrooms there is no
playtime at all” (Case, Reeves, and Conner 131). This is causing children to
not develop social skills as easily as before and affecting their ability to
adopt social skills once they grow up. Playtime may seem trivial, but it is the
means by which children “move through social, physical, emotional, language,
moral, and cognitive realms in order to learn” (Case, Reeves, and Conner 132). The
schoolyard is where most children learn how to cope in the real world. By
taking this away, we are infiltrating kids’ minds with the idea of how they
should behave, act, think, and grow, but not giving them a chance to practice
and experience this on their own. This in turn, is causing children to have an
awkward social life later on. Due to the fact that only the analytical
left-brain is being fed more than the creative right-brain, kid’s lack imagination
from the beginning. These kids’ lives are engulfed in an environment that is solely
indoors and individual, therefore they do not have so much as a glimpse of
social life as child. Parental pressure for child prodigies does not only
negatively affect a child’s social game later in life, but their actual
intelligence.
Many schools in China are amongst the top in the nation, and they are deserving of it. In the book Contemporary Debates in Childhood Education and Development, author Yujing Ni explains that the Chinese culture has adopted the method of teaching children educational skills at an early age long before it came to pass in the United States. He notes that while this method does boost children’s factual intelligence, he sees a steady trend of Chinese students not being able to adapt to other learning methods. “Chinese students perform well in mathematics but feel worse than their Western counterparts about their self-concept of mathematics competence and attitude towards learning mathematics” (Suggate and Reese 310). Now we are seeing the same pattern come into play in the United States. Due to the fact that parents and teachers are so focused on forcing their children to learn fast, they forget about the importance of letting nature take its course. When a child is habitually fed information and facts, their brain begins to adapt to this method of learning. They, in turn, stop thinking for themselves. As they grow older, they will rely more on the textbook version of learning and will find it difficult to think outside of the box. Self-teaching is a vital portion of continued intellectual growth. Once a child grows up and is out of school, they need to know how to apply what they have learned to real life situations. When parents, and other adult figures, begin feeding children’s brains with mnemonic educational devices, they are greatly reducing the brain’s opportunity to grow creatively. A child’s brain is in a rapid stage of learning and changing until about age seven, and once this age has arrived the brain’s adaptability levels out. Therefore, if a child has been routinely taught to learn in a specified manner, they will have difficulty understanding topics in other way. Although parents believe that they are doing right by their children, many teachers disagree. Through their many years of experience, teachers have found that children who cope well with social skills are more likely to excel later on in all areas of life. “Kids who come to school with a mastery of these less showy abilities stand a better chance of knocking off not only reading and writing when they are eventually presented but everything else that comes along as well” (Kluger 2). Ironically, all the educational devices said to boost a child’s intelligence is actually hindering it in the long run, but unfortunately, this is not the worst of it all.
Many schools in China are amongst the top in the nation, and they are deserving of it. In the book Contemporary Debates in Childhood Education and Development, author Yujing Ni explains that the Chinese culture has adopted the method of teaching children educational skills at an early age long before it came to pass in the United States. He notes that while this method does boost children’s factual intelligence, he sees a steady trend of Chinese students not being able to adapt to other learning methods. “Chinese students perform well in mathematics but feel worse than their Western counterparts about their self-concept of mathematics competence and attitude towards learning mathematics” (Suggate and Reese 310). Now we are seeing the same pattern come into play in the United States. Due to the fact that parents and teachers are so focused on forcing their children to learn fast, they forget about the importance of letting nature take its course. When a child is habitually fed information and facts, their brain begins to adapt to this method of learning. They, in turn, stop thinking for themselves. As they grow older, they will rely more on the textbook version of learning and will find it difficult to think outside of the box. Self-teaching is a vital portion of continued intellectual growth. Once a child grows up and is out of school, they need to know how to apply what they have learned to real life situations. When parents, and other adult figures, begin feeding children’s brains with mnemonic educational devices, they are greatly reducing the brain’s opportunity to grow creatively. A child’s brain is in a rapid stage of learning and changing until about age seven, and once this age has arrived the brain’s adaptability levels out. Therefore, if a child has been routinely taught to learn in a specified manner, they will have difficulty understanding topics in other way. Although parents believe that they are doing right by their children, many teachers disagree. Through their many years of experience, teachers have found that children who cope well with social skills are more likely to excel later on in all areas of life. “Kids who come to school with a mastery of these less showy abilities stand a better chance of knocking off not only reading and writing when they are eventually presented but everything else that comes along as well” (Kluger 2). Ironically, all the educational devices said to boost a child’s intelligence is actually hindering it in the long run, but unfortunately, this is not the worst of it all.
Child diseases have been on the rise in recent times, so
parents have been paying particular attention to their children’s eating and
exercising habits. What they do not realize, however, is that an important
factor in keeping children healthy is their level of stress. When people hear the
word stress they rarely think of children, but unfortunately, because of the
added pressure in children’s lives, stress has become a very prominent issue. Research
has found that “by four or five years old, the brains of stressed kids can
start to look an awful lot like the brains of stressed adults, with increased
levels of adrenaline and cortisol, the twitchy chemicals that fuel the body’s
fight-or-flight response” (Kluger 2). A child’s brain is not equipped to deal
with all the educational formulas that parents are burdening them with. While
growing, a brain needs time to absorb its surroundings, naturally. By forcing a
child’s brain to grow faster than nature was intending, it adds extra
stressors. These stressors create more issues than just discomfort for a child.
In the book Nature and Nurture in Early
Child Development, authors Megan Gunnar and Michelle Loman confirm this
idea, “Overwhelming stress in the face of inadequate physical and emotional [growth]
appears to pose a risk for human development throughout life” (Gunnar and Loman
106). One of the biggest risks for development that is imposed is on a child’s
immune system. As it is known, the immune system is one of the most bodily
systems needed for the body to heal itself. Regrettably, a child’s immune
system is significantly impacted by immense stress. It never fully has the
opportunity to develop properly because of the constant pressure that it is
under. The effects on the immune system can be long-term and may end up costing
a child a lifetime of health issues.
Although parents have the best intention in mind when
they chose to begin teaching their children at an early age, they need to
research the effects that this will really have on their kids. To some, the
lack of social development that is caused is enough to make them reconsider it
alone. Others find the fact that it hinders their ability to learn later on in
life completely defeats the purpose. Add on the extra health issues due to
stress and parents are realizing that over-stimulating a child’s brain may
actually employ more negative results than positive. No matter how hard a
parent tries a boost a child’s intelligence, every kid will eventually settle
into their own pace. Nature will automatically take its course at some point in
life; parents just have to decide when they are willing to accept it.
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Annotated Bibliography/blog post 5
Annotated
Bibliography
Gopnik, Alison.
“What do babies think?” TED. July
2011. Web. 19 Nov. 2012.
In this video, Gopnik talks
about her research on children’s brains. She compares human babies to bird
babies and found some similarities. She finds that in both cases, even when
both human and birds are just babies, they pick up on their surroundings. If
they see their parents doing something they assume it is good and apply it to
their own lives. She also found that children pick up and learn complicated
matters, such as statistics, better than adults. Overall, she comes to a
conclusion that although people think babies and young children do not pay
attention, they are actually paying too much attention. They pick up on
everything whether we realize it or not. This was a great video for me to
watch. I had actually stumbled upon it a couple weeks ago when I was just
starting out, but I just had the opportunity to watch it in full today. It
doesn’t fit in with my original inquiry question exactly, but it confirms my
idea that children learn the most at an earlier age.
Kluger, Jeffrey, and Alice Park. "The Quest For A
Superkid." Time. 30 April 2001. Web. 19 Nov. 2012.
This
article focuses on how jumpstarting your children’s education will impact them
later on in life. Kluger and Park collaborate in this article to back up their
opinion that letting a child grow without added educational pressure is the
best method. They research the differences between kids back in the day (before
there were flashcards, intelligence games, parental pressure for a child
genius, and etc.) and kids now. They find that as children grow up, they are
smarter in the areas that their parents pinpointed. However, they are less able
to adapt to other learning styles and are less social. I found this article
incredibly helpful. I was struggling to narrow down my topic and this helped me
do so. It helped showed me a different path that I can take with my topic,
which is how early learning affects your child.
Kuhl, Patricia. “The
linguistic genius of babies.” TED. October 2010. Web. 19 Nov. 2012.
Like Gopnik, Kuhl researches how
early babies learn and how it effects them later on in life. She finds that
everyone is virtually a genius until they reach age seven. She focuses on how babies
learn language and finds that babies that are taught multiple languages at once
use “statistics” in their brain to separate the two. She finds that babies can
learn almost any amount of language while under their genius stage and it will
all stick. She also finds that babies need human interaction in order to learn
new languages. This video did not help me out as much as I hoped it would. It
was good information, but it was really similar to that of Gopnik’s so I did
not learn anything new from it.
Szalavitz, Maya. “Measure of a Mother’s Love: How Early Neglect
Derails Child Development.” Time. 24 May 2012. Web. 19 Nov. 2012.
In this
article, Szalavitz argues that early neglect hinders a child’s development. She
begins by talking about how young monkeys that are left alone at a young age
have trouble fending for themselves later on in life, while monkeys that are
nurtured turn out great. From this, she goes on to talk about research that she
did in orphanages. She found that the babies that were never nurtured when
young showed slow mental and physical growth, even though orphanage owners
denied it. I originally looked into this article because I wanted to look at my
research topic from a different perspective. I have been looking into how
intelligent children fare later in life, so I thought it would be helpful to
see how neglected kids did as well. I am not sure if this article helped me in
terms of my essay, but it was an interesting read.
IP Research Proposal/blog post 3
How does a person’s IQ connect with how
early they learned to talk?
**Why I am
interested: I babysat 2 kids back in Indiana, a 3 year old and 1 year old. The
3 year old had the IQ of a 6 year old while the 1 year was struggle to make any
advances. It made me wonder what these 2 boys would be like as they age.
Average IQ is said to be between 85-100, but…
1- How accurate is an IQ test really?
·
Same score every time, every test would be ideal but is not the
case
·
Normally test what is culturally significant, not one’s core
intelligence
2- Is a child
that speaks late a late learner?
·
Alison Gopnik: What do babies think?
o
·
Babies who cannot speak were able to tell what a person did or
did not like (crackers vs. broccoli)
3- Did those we
consider “geniuses” learn to talk at an early age?
·
Albert Einstein
o
Slow learner, parents even consulted doctor
o
Tended to think in pictures rather than words
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