Thursday, June 27, 2013

Children quotes with a word of "Thanks"

Children need models more than they need critics.
JOSEPH JOUBERT, Pensées


If a child is given love, he becomes loving ... If he's helped when he needs help, he becomes helpful. And if he has been truly valued at home ... he grows up secure enough to look beyond himself to the welfare of others.
DR. JOYCE BROTHERS, Good Housekeeping, Aug. 2010


Children are the boldest philosophers. They enter life naked, not covered by the smallest fig leaf of dogma, absolutes, creeds. This is why every question they ask is so absurdly naïve and so frighteningly complex.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN, On Literature, Revolution, Entropy, and Other Matters
Emma Goldman
No one has yet realized the wealth of sympathy, the kindness and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure.

As we continue our professional growth I would like to take this opportunity to say THANK YOU to all my colleges. You have shared some insightful articles on Child Development  from  Europe,  the USA, to the seas of the Caribbean. Through each other's lens we were able to value and embrace this wonderful field of studies. I hope that we could continue  to support each other as our unremitting passion guide us  on the roads least traveled, with the acceptance that we are the foundation that shapes the  future.

Saturday, June 15, 2013

Standardize Testing

Do you think standardize testing gives every child a fair score? I don't think so. Children are all unique, some are fast learners others are slow to warm learners. There's one standardize testing that use to bother me during my childhood years in Jamaica. It was the infamous Common Entrance Examination presently known as the Grade Six Achievement Test(GSAT). Children with hidden special needs/learning disabilities suffer the effect of these testing. Physical disabled children escape the wrath of rigorous study habits and constant rote learning. The agonizing preparation was a stressful experience for children whose coping mechanism lack the positive and nurturing support of the dynamic system. Children are force to prove to their parents, teachers, and their entire community that they are smart and not dunce(name given to children who didn't pass these test). These tests have cause controversy among educators and other private sectors. In addition to controversy, children suffer the wraths of their parents verbal and physical abuse  for not being successful. The Common Entrance examination were originally designed for preparatory school it was not until the later years after Jamaica Independence(1962) that poor and wealthy children could compete to attend a prestigious high school. Two articles from the daily gleaner shared a horrify tales  about a disappointed father, a stress out mother and a child:
THE WHOLE country must be scandalised at the report of a father mercilessly beating his daughter because she did not get a place at a traditional high school in the recent Grade Six Achievement Test. His frustration is understandable: the life chances of thousands of Jamaicans are often determined by the type of secondary school they attend. But why take it out on the child? Frustrated parents and children must learn to direct their frustration in the appropriate direction.At Independence in 1962, we had 41 traditional high schools and 8 senior schools. Only at high school could one take the Cambridge GCE Examinations, which would allow entrance into higher education, but space in those 41 schools was limited. At the same time, we had the Grade 6 students of the 672 All-Age Schools and 21 Junior Schools competing to enter the traditional high schools.The first problem was addressed by the introduction of a competitive examination called the Common Entrance Examination (CEE), where selection would be on the basis of performance, and not wealth. Here for the first time, rich and poor would compete in the same examination for entrance into the same schools, and cracks began to appear in Jamaica's rigid class- and colour-conscious social structure. In 1959, 24,819 students sat the CEE and 1,916 students were placed in the 41 high schools. Those who failed to get a place in a high school went to the senior schools or remained in all-age schools until Grade 9 when their school careers would come to an end.
Parent Experience:
"Last night, he told me he wanted to bang his head on the wall. He can't take it anymore," she says.
The boy, one of the estimated hundreds of GSAT candidates who react in this way to the exam pressure, recently started having migraine headaches and suffers every night from complications, such as swollen temples and neck glands brought on by bronchitis, according to his mother. Emotional problems started surfacing several weeks ago, and this prompted her to consult a child psychiatrist.
"Nobody must fail in that school," the mother remarks angrily. "They put them (to sit) in different averages, like 90s sit here, 80s sit here, 70s sit there and then the 90s criticise the 70s and the 60s which my son is in. They (classmates) tell them they are dunce and they are going to gunman school.

This is just a tip of the iceberg displaying the ramification of standardize testing, who is  the true  beneficiary, parents, educators, students, or examination councils? These tests unfairly assess academic performances on one level when all children does not learn at the same pace. Improvement is necessary in preparation of these tests so that children are assessed  not only on their academic performance but on the overall development of the child.


Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/56730_Ghost-of-Common-Entrance-haunts-GSAT#ixzz2WLW0Mv8N

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Jamaica

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20020703/cleisure/cleisure2.html
http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20070221/letters/letters1.html
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/56730_Ghost-of-Common-Entrance-haunts-GSAT

Saturday, June 1, 2013

Divorce

Divorce is an emotional stressor that affect young children. Some children may have a high resilience to cope with the change while others shows signs of trauma. In most divorce cases, children are caught in the middle of a custody battle in which they feel as if their life is left in the toss of a coin. Young children often feel guilty if they choose a parent of preference to live with or the court often make the decision in the so call best interest of the child/children. In places like Jamaica where marriages are not quiet common as a   common law relationship. Separations do take the same effect on the child/children as in the nature of a divorce. Children who are caught in the midst of these broken union are force to readjust their life, that is, changes in their financial support and the dual parenting network. From my personal experience of a broken union, losing one parent to another relationship was a very difficult experience. It was  the unexplained reasons behind the broken union, my parents never include the children in their decision to separate. Even though both of my parents lived in separate homes, visitation was a daily routine, so I guess there was no need for a judge's decision as who was right for the children. There was no cultural guilt or shame as it was a norm in my culture. However in China before the early 1970s children of divorced parents suffers societal shame. A recent  research show that children from divorced families suffers anxiety and depression.  Fathers are often given custody of their children but if the mother gain custody, the children suffer financially and lives in  poverty, sometimes their education get affected. Divorced or common law bond when children are in the midst of these broken relationships, they need to be inclusive of the decision making. Parents need to realize that their children emotion is just as valid as theirs. Parents ought to be civil about building a healthy relationship so that their children could inherit a healthy life.

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20060918/flair/flair9.html


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