When I Think of Child Development

This course has taught me that the health of a child is dependent on so much more than healthy eating. Healthy childhood development is dependent on the adequate provision of physical needs like nutritious food and reliable shelter, but also positive, prosocial relationships, cognitive stimulation, an abundance of language, and above all else, an abundance of love.

This is a photo of my healthy, beautiful, younger sister indulging in a special rice crispy treat.
(Photo circa 1998)

"What the child can do in cooperation today,
he can do alone tomorrow."
-Lee Vygotsky, 1934

This is a photo of my husband helping our almost two year old nephew over a bridge in Nashville.  This picture represents to me an example of the Zone of Proximal Development that Vygotsky wrote about and that defines much of childhood development for me.  Here, my nephew may have been unable to champion the bridge safely on his own, but with the help of a loving uncle and a little bit of concentration, he was able to cross over to the other side.

 

"One of the most important things we adults can do for a child is to model the kind of person we would like them to be."
Carol B. Hillman

The identical expressions on the faces of my husband and our sweet nephew here represent so much to me with regards to this young man's healthy development.  Here he is shown surrounded by a supportive, loving, stimulating family in a setting where laughter and exploration are encouraged.  What more could a young boy be offered?

Child Assessments

      Assessing a child's development is a difficult task.  With so many factors in play in any given child's life in each and every developmental domain, the task of classifying a child on some sort of intellectual or educational scale seems contrite and incomplete.  At the same time, however, in an effort to improve educational systems and enable educators to meet the best needs of their students, there have to be some means of evaluating a child where they are at in order to better propel them into their futures.  What does this look like and are we doing this well at the moment?  Ask my sister, just beginning her career as a high school English teacher in rural Colorado, and prepare for an earful on standardized testing and the Common Core.  Man, is this a topic that gets people fired up.
     Personally, I do believe that there has to be some form of common assessment in place to gauge how particular demographics, teachers, and schools are performing and make changes for the improvements of the educational system.  I do not, however, believe that standardized tests should be used to evaluate how individual children are developing.  A child should not be measured or assessed by a list of questions or a few hours of testing.  Instead, dialog between parents, teachers, and community members should remain open in order to continue to evaluate, but not grade, a child's continual development.  Not for the purposes of deciding whether a child is performing well or not, but for the purposes of assessing how best to continue their education.  It is the evaluation of those who are close to a child that can best gauge a child's development and best encourage improvements.
     For this assignment, I took a look at the education system in Switzerland, where I studied abroad for a year in college.  Their system is in many ways, very similar to the United States, but in one dramatic way, very different from the United States.  After the completion of a students sixth year of education (in most Swiss states, called cantons, this will be around age twelve), a child is assessed in order to determine the future track of a child's education.  From these assessments, a child is sorted into either continuing education in a way American's would consider the traditional manner, or beginning vocational training.  This is a huge measure of a child's cognitive development at the end of middle childhood that will drastically impact their future career decisions.
     I also found that a child will begin traditional primary school, usually between five and six, based upon the assessment from their pre-school education.  Appropriately, this assessment is made by teachers, parents, school psychological services, and school medical services, hoping to take a holistic look at the child before determining school readiness (Educa, 2015).  I also found that some cantons, or states, do have either compulsory or optional year-end tests to be used to determine a child's current knowledge and skills or assess their educational performance (Educa, 2015).  These sound perhaps similar to many of the standardized tests in the United States required by individual states, but used perhaps on a more child-to-child basis, rather than at evaluate schools or districts.
      Here is an interesting graphic showing the bottom to top progression through the Swiss educational system.  Of importance to us studying early childhood are the bottom three tiers and how they influence the top of the chart.

     Swiss children begin with 1-3 years of preschool (pictured in pink), then at age 5 or 6, step into primary school.  Primary school (pictured in yellow) consists of education years 1-6.  In the years of lower secondary school, students are separated through assessments into performance based groups that will determine whether students continue with a more philosophical education or a vocation education program.  The first nine years of education after preschool are considered compulsory by Swiss law, and 95% of Swiss children complete these nine years (EDK, n.d.).

Resources
EDK. (n.d.).  The Swiss education system.  Retrieved from http://www.edk.ch/dyn/16833.php

Educa. (2015).  Primary school level.  Retrieved from http://swisseducation.educa.ch/en/primary-school-level