We have touched on many topics over the course of the last couple of months. Some topics had me questioning as to why they had to be taught, whereas others I found critical for future educators to know and be familiar with. Overtime, I began finding the answers to my questions. Although some topics were similar to those I have learned in previous education classes, in this class we dissected these topics to expose the roots and their importance. Furthermore, we took previous knowledge and created a deeper understanding of them by looking into how they all connect, what problems or issues they may carry, and how they will help us as pre-service teachers. In this paper, I will be highlighting three of the major takeaways I had from this section of the course – The issue behind developmental theories, risk and resilience versus grit, and culture and diversity in the classroom.
Theorists play a huge role in education systems; they have influenced curriculums, educational approaches, and developmental theories. After obtaining my early childhood education diploma through Saskatchewan Polytechnic and taking a couple education courses here at the University of Regina, I have learned so much about theorists and theories and how they have impacted education. After completing the first reading on cognitive development and foundational theories, I began to develop a more open-mind towards theorists and their theories. I also began to reflect back on the previous knowledge I have gained regarding them. This is when I began to realize that although they do help in better understanding child development, the research done behind the them lack diversity, therefore creating flaws and biases. Throughout this section the course, I learned to accept that theories could be critiqued and that critiquing them is crucial to be able to fully understand them.
Prior to this class, I never stopped to question child development theories, as I thought that they were perfectly accurate. I now understand that it is critical to stop, think, and question – why do these theories exist? What influenced these theorists in creating these theories? Do these theories really apply to everyone? Who is missing from these theories? Furthermore, it is important to keep in mind that these theories were created decades ago by scholars who were primarily white, middle-class men, meaning that they were developed under the influence of westernized perspectives. A specific example is Jean Piaget’s cognitive development theory. This theory is one that has impacted our understanding of cognitive development. This theory has also provided a framework that has helped in shaping and developing curriculums in schools. Although his research and theories have been influential in education, it has been shown that his work only included studies and observations of his own children and children of his colleagues who are all Europeans that come from families of high socioeconomic status. With that, this theory and many of the other theories used in education tend to disregard all the other cultures, races, genders, and people with diverse abilities. This suggests that children who do not fall under the white, middle-class category or those who do not follow the linear process that most theories do (such as Erik Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development) are “not normal” or are delayed in their development. To avoid this, we must understand that these theories do not necessarily apply to everyone and that not everyone will follow these theories step-by-step. In addition, we must also unlearn the grand narratives created by these theories by learning to understand perspectives of other cultures by looking into the various backgrounds that affect each child’s development, rather than just generalizing them into broad groups.
The second topic that resonated most with me is the idea of risk and resilience and grit and how they differ. Seeing that both risk and resilience and grit play huge roles in accomplishing goals and student success, I have always assumed that they were the same thing. The day we discussed risk and resilience in seminar, I learned that they are different, but work together and affect each other. Furthermore, resilience refers to an individual’s confidence and ambition in overcoming obstacles and accomplishing goals, whereas grit refers to the individual’s perseverance and motivation. In other words, resilience is the act of remaining strong despite any setbacks and grit is the drive that keeps us going.
Although grit is something students are responsible for, teachers can play a big part in influencing the students’ effort and work ethic. It is the role of teachers to provide students with opportunities to grown, learn, and develop. To be able to do this, we must set expectations for our students. Setting high expectations without being too harsh or too easy on the student is crucial in their learning. We must also keep in mind that grit is created by learning from mistakes. With that, rather than sheltering our students from mistakes, we should allow them to make them and learn from them. On the other hand, it is also important to realize that without resilience, there is no grit. In the event that a student does lack resilience, something an educator can do to build resilience is to develop strong and healthy relationships with their students in order to support them. One of the key aspects of resilience is positivity and support. In this case, support from educators can create positive school experiences, which can then motivate students to do better and encourages them to pursue higher education, thus demonstrating that understanding where resilience and grit is developed from influences teaching practices, as well as student success.
In addition to student success, another way to ensure it is by creating safe and welcoming learning environments. One way to do this is by ensuring that culture and diversity are appropriately and well represented within the space. In the section on diversity, we discussed a concept that has impacted teaching practices in terms of what culture really means; this concept is called the iceberg model of cultural diversity. The iceberg model refers to the diversity of culture and how so much of it people tend to miss because what people generally tend to think of when it comes to culture are the basics; such as, food, clothing, music, language, and holiday traditions. When we focus on only the basics, we miss out on what else cultures have to offer; like childrearing beliefs, rules of eye contact, roles of men and women, conception of cleanliness, concept of personal space, facial expressions, definitions of respect, etcetera. With that being said, if we want to teach cultures in our classrooms, we should not just focus on the tip. Instead, take the time to learn and teach what is below the surface, as well. In addition, some mistakes that a lot of schools do when trying to incorporate cultural diversity in classrooms include having once-a-year multicultural potlucks, teaching a single unit in social studies and doing a project component that touches on “tip of the iceberg” material, or having multicultural day or week. Although these sound like fun ways to incorporate cultural diversity, celebrating cultural diversity should be something that is done everyday, not just in a single week or even just a single unit. Moreover, this can be done through simple things and actions such as having books, toys, or other materials in the classroom that includes diverse characters or even have days in which people of different cultural backgrounds come and share more on their culture – this could even be done by the students’ parents.
Diversity itself is a diverse term and therefore does not only refer to culture. In this section of the course, we also discussed diversity in terms of socioeconomic status. A couple of facts that stood out to me was that one out of seven students in Canada and fifty-seven percent of children in Saskatchewan live in poverty. I believe that as teachers, knowing and understanding that students in our own communities and schools may fall into these statistics is important as poverty affects children developmentally, medically, socially, and academically. The textbook mentions that students who come from low socioeconomic statues families are twice as likely to fall behind or be held back in school than those who come from average or higher socioeconomic status families; This is because students who come from low socioeconomic status families are sometimes seen as less capable or less intelligent and are therefore given lower expectations – resulting in lower quality education. This discourse is something that should be broken as it negatively affects student success. In other words, a person’s socioeconomic status should not interfere with the quality of education they receive. Rather than lowering expectations, teachers should keep the same expectations, but instead find ways to help support the student.
This section of the course is called “Constructions of the Learner”, with that I believe that it was meant to teach us the importance of understanding the background of our students and how it affects them, their learning, and academic success. However, when it comes to education, the student is not the only learner – It is also important for teachers to be life-long learners. By means of this, I believe that this section has taught me the importance of critical reflection when it comes to the discourses of child development, teaching practices, and student success. Moreover, I have learned the importance of questioning and critiquing theories that have impacted education, rather than just looking at the surface of them, as they tend to marginalize or disregard certain groups of people. I have also learned more on how diverse the term culture really is and ways to incorporate diversity within the classroom. Finally, I have also learned more on the importance of getting to know all students and their backgrounds in order to support them and help them reach their full potential.
Reference:
Woolfolk, Winnie & Perry, Educational Psychology Sixth Canadian Edition, Pearson: Toronto, 2016.