Thanks everyone for making child development interesting!

 

A child seldom needs a good talking to as a good listening to.
- Robert Brault

 

Children are one third of our population and all of our future.
- Anonymous

Testing Children's Minds and Abilities

    
     
     When testing for children's intelligence, I think there has to be a better way. Why can't the grades that a child makes at school be good enough? Why do the state and federal government keep coming up with more standardized tests? I don't really have a good answer for this question. I feel as others do that one or two standardized tests shouldn't determine if a child is intelligent or not! This last school year more standardized tests in math were given to the students in our schools. Most of the students didn't do well because they have never been taught and tested in this manner before. Now teachers have to teach Math in a way unfamiliar to them and the students. Do all  have schools have to do this dance for the state and federal governments? Now all students have to show and explain every little detail of a math word problem to the point of ridiculousness. Who comes up with these tests? Who decides what needs to be tested? Is it people that have never taught in school before? I really wonder sometimes.....One thing that changed about out standardized tests this year is that these scores were added and averaged into the children’s overall grade at the end of the school year.  I guess it can be a good or bad thing.  At least the scores were only a portion of the child’s grade and not a major part, but also it made the children that don’t try very hard on these tests realize they will be penalized for not trying.  I just hate that teachers get penalized sometimes for children that don’t try.  You can do your best all year teaching, then when it comes to testing, the children that either don’t test well or the children that doesn’t care can then affect a teacher personally in more ways than one.  These type tests are going away in a year or two and I’m not sure what will replace them.  It could be worse or better!  

     I read that in Latin America, children don’t even go to school very often or very long.  There is no standardized testing either.  Teachers make up their own tests for children.  They are trying to change things, but up to this point education in Latin America is still lagging way behind.  Children in Latin America are some of the least educated children when compared to other nations.  Poorly trained teachers and disorganization is part of the problem.  Education is lacking in quality and quantity as well.  This nation acknowledging failure is the first step in fixing the problems.

 

Reference 

The Economist. (2002, May 9). Cramming them in: More Latin Americans are being educated, but not well.  Retrieved from http://www.economist.com/node/1121601

Stress on Children's Development

Stresses come in all forms. Children seem to be the most affected by stressors on the family.  Chaos is a stress that I see in children at school all the time.  By chaos, I mean that the children may move around alot or stay at a lot of different places.  They do not have a stable home.  Some children stay with parents or a parent one night, the other parent another night, or grandparents another night all in the same week.  The moving around during the week is rough on children. They come to school not prepared because someone didn't help them get their homework done or they may have left their schoolwork at another family member's house.  I see this pretty often. It is really rough on the child when the parent/grandparent disagrees with how to discipline the child.  Teachers sometimes have different relatives giving them different directions and that causes major chaos.  The child ends up getting away with a lot because the teacher doesn't want to get in the middle of family drama.  Teachers have to just do their best and make the child follow classroom rules and the child gets in trouble for not having their homework done, for example. 




Water Wars in South America

South America has 29% of the world's fresh water reserves according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.  Thus, the government displaces families at will to get to the water or get the water where it's needed.  This affects children's lives.  By losing their home, children and families become homeless. People are going to war to fight over these waters and some are dying over it.  The government is displacing water to different mines around South America. The government is taking the public waters and using it for mining instead of letting the people use it for drinking and farming. The people are trying to fight back, but it's really difficult against big corporations. All the fighting is causing chaos and stress on the people and families trying to make a living.  The government says it puts the publics need for water first, but that isn't what the people are seeing.  Water for mining has become priority for the government because of the financial gain.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-13/south-americans-face-upheaval-in-deadly-water-battles.html