Quotes about Children and Education

"They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel."

                                                                ~Anonomoyous

"To be a teacher in the right sense is to be a learner.  Instruction begins when you, the teacher, learn from the learner, but yourself in his place so that you may understand what he understands and the way he understands it."

                                                                 ~Soren Kierkgaard 

"The important thing is not so much that children should be taught, as they should be given the wish to learn." 

                                                                  ~John Lubbock

Assessing Children in the United States and in Australia

     I believe that in order to assess the child holistically we as educators must be able to look past what is bubbled in on an answer sheet.  Here in the United States, the No Child Left Behind program made it almost impossible for educators to teach what children were interested in; for example, teachable moments are often times passed up because of the fear that something that the child will be tested on will not be covered.  I think that NCLB has it's uses, but assessment of children as a whole should not be it.  
     I believe that children should be tested on skills that are going to be important to them later in life as well as the content of the curriculum that they are studying.  Students should be able to reason, to show that they have thought processes beyond bubbling in A, B, C, or D.  Students should be assessed on mathematical skills that they will need in a real world environment.  Students should also be required to be able to communicate effectively not only electronically, but in face to face situations as well.  Children who leave the educational system today are masters at memorization, but in the years to come, all that was memorized will be a faded memory.
    In Australia the children are assessed differently.  They are given a series of assessments that measure their knowledge in numeracy and literacy, science literacy, civics and citizenship, and information and communication technology.  These assessments are not the kind of teach-to-the-test assessments seen in the U.S.  The students are tested in third, fifth, seventh and ninth grade.  The goal of the assessments is to prove that the children will graduate the school system able to be productive members of society that have the skills needed to make a positive impact on the world. 
     In my opinion, there is too much emphasis placed on testing in the United States.  One of the key faults in the system are that children are not assessed in a variety of ways; in the classroom I am able to assess the students verbally, with a written assessment that allows the student to think and show understanding of the concept and through modeling.  the second issue that the assessment processes here present is that the creativity is taken from the classroom.  Students do not have time to do the fun, creative art projects that were found in the classroom before all of the rigorous testing regulations came about. 

Consequences of Stress on Children

As a child, I was exposed to a great deal of domestic violence.  My father, who is bipolar and a maniac depressant, would come home from work and take his daily frustrations out on my mother and myself.  There were days that I was afraid to go to school, fearing that my mom would not be there when I got home or worse, that something terrible had happened to her.  I was by no means a perfect child, I tried my parents and pushed the boundaries just as any child would do, except the consequences for my actions would be harsher that most would ever know.  My teachers never suspected or at least they never said anything about it; I think this led my father to feel like he had gotten away with it.  I took the blame for things that I did not even do many times to keep my sisters and my mom from having to deal with the abuse that would always follow.  I coped with the stress by making school my social outlet; I stayed in trouble in middle and high school because I was bored with the work and I talked way too much.  I also found that music and poetry were great outlets for the emotions that I had to deal with. 
     I researched how children in Afghanistan are affected by war in their country because war is an ugly form of violence.  The children their are scarred deeply by the daily attacks that they see and the stressful environment in which they live.  Many children there have psychological issues because they have been forced to grow up with no family or they themselves are victims of things like blasts that don't kill them ,but that permanently disfigures them.  Many of the children have no "daily routine" other than trying to stay alive.  My thoughts would be that the children from this country and others where war is a constant issue experience severe set backs in all areas of their development.  If you have parents who are concerned with their safety as well as yours on a day to day basis, that does not leave much time for the bonding and the learning that should take place.  Attempts are being made by the country to develop a program that will focus on keeping women and children safe so that they will have the necessary tools to develop into productive members of their society.

References
Zulfiqar,Bhutta. (2002). Children of war: the real casualties of the Afghan conflict. BMJ. 2002 February 9; 324(7333): 349–352. Retrieved September 26, 2011.