17 April 2010
No apologies for childhood
Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: One From The Archives.
[Issues of child development and early childhood education continue to garner great interest, least of all to homeschoolers. In November 2002 I wrote this piece after attending a workshop on Theology of the Child (organised by Baptist Theological Seminary), and hosting a homeschool dialogue, both held on the island of Penang. It's reproduced here as part of our occasional postings from the Homefrontier archives].
WE HAD JUST FINISHED INTRODUCING OURSELVES when a gentleman at the end of the table asked, “Your sons are both ‘normal.’ So why are you homeschooling?”
We get that quite a bit, usually from parents who assume that only ‘special’ kids need home education. At our dialogue on homeschooling held in Penang, a good number of the 12 adults present were parents of children with learning differences or disabilities.
I tried to explain that while homeschooling is probably one of the best things you could do for children with learning disabilities, it works just as well with any child. Perhaps even better. That’s because homeschool recognises that every child is special, each requiring individual attention that is so critical to learning. In a secure home where love abounds, habits of heart and mind find fertile ground to flower.
When we first started to educate Ethan and Elliot – turning 13 and 11 respectively – at home all these years ago, our primary concern then was the state of the education system. The horror stories were universal. Not knowing any other options, many of our friends and relations ushered their children through a wretched rite of passage, setting aside their better judgment while keeping their fingers crossed at the same time. Could there be another way, we asked?
Thankfully we were introduced to homeschooling, and to quote Robert Frost, taking the less traveled road has made all the difference.
7 years later, we’re more a family now than we could ever imagine. We have reclaimed childhood for our children, and I am happy to report that they are both imbued with a lively curiosity and love for learning. They’re no angels of course, but there is a depth of character that we find encouraging. Besides simply fulfilling our adult roles as teacher, we are humbled by what our children have to teach us as well.
All this came home afresh to me as we sat through a workshop on Theology of the Child held in the Baptist Theological Seminary in Batu Ferringhi, Penang. The 2-day dialogue preceded our homeschooling meet during that long festive weekend and thus provided new insights that confirmed personal convictions. While children and childhood are nettlesome to many parents, I saw how the Bible itself was unapologetic in their affirmation.
For instance, after making a study of situations featuring children in the gospels, Dr W.A Strange in his book Children in the Early Church contends that, “The coming of the kingdom of God did not make children into adults, but affirmed their childhood.” Instead, they were held up as models for discipleship, he writes. Dr Strange also notes that “Jesus’ openness to children was for their own sake, not principally for their potential, and it was something unique to his ministry.” Now, there’s food for thought.
As participating theologians, teachers, pastors and care providers talked about the marginalisation of children, we questioned how the church – of all institutions! – continue to erect structures that put kids in their places without considering the negative signals they convey. The separation of children from adults (and their parents) in a worship service is one example, although there have been positive changes in recent times.
We also looked at how society (usually with the connivance of parents) view children as mere commodity to achieve personal ends. Is it any wonder so many fall through the cracks, sapped of all vitality and purpose? They join the ranks of the disillusioned who cannot reconcile belief with practice. Worse still, these same children grow up learning that ‘face’ matters more than faith.
On the other hand, there’s Jesus of whom Luke 2:52 declares, grew “in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and men.” When one looks at the broader context that includes v39, it is quite apparent those qualities were not birthed in the barrenness of good intentions.
Three parties were intimately linked here: Firstly, that Joseph and Mary did “everything required by the Law” provides a significant clue. I’d like to believe Jesus’ parents exemplified a lifetime of daily obedience beyond superficial rites that began with the dedication of their firstborn. To quote Eugene Peterson (who borrowed from Nietzsche), the first task of parenting involves ‘a long obedience in the same direction.’
Secondly, it is the Lord who through his grace and mercy ultimately gives growth. After all, it is the Spirit’s business we are told, to work transformation “with ever increasing glory” in His people (2 Corinthians 3:18). Finally and not surprisingly, the child whose heart is thus prepared grows strong, “filled with wisdom and grace.”
So, am I saying that homeschool is the magic bullet? Of course not. A dynamic tripartite relationship between God-Parent-Child is what counts most of all. But if you are seeking a better way to realize these important goals than that which conventional educational systems offer, you might want to give homeschool some thought, and educate your own children at home .
13 April 2010
Baby brains at risk
Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Child Development.
Some years ago I picked up an article in TIME expressing concern over the driven child, children – and babies – pushed to artificially pump up their IQ. Looking back (the piece was first published in 2001!), this disturbing trend has continued and many homeschoolers with young children or infants have not been spared either. Tell me if this piece is outdated or unfounded. Titled The Quest For A Super Kid, here’s an excerpt and link to the whole article:
THE PHENOMENON OF THE DRIVEN CHILD has been coming for a while, but it was in 1994 that the new breed was truly born. That was the year the Carnegie Corp. published a 134-page report describing a “quiet crisis” among U.S. children, who it argued were being ill served by their twin-career parents and their often failing school systems. The report’s findings were worrisome enough, but buried in its pages were two disturbing paragraphs warning that schoolkids might not be the only ones suffering; babies could be too. Young brains are extremely sensitive to early influences, the report cautioned, and the right — or wrong — stimuli could have a significant impact on later development.
Those paragraphs went off like a grenade in the otherwise unremarkable study. The press ran alarming stories about blameless children being left behind. The White House called a conference on childhood development. Parents snapped up news of both, hoping it wasn’t too late to undo whatever damage they had unwittingly done to their kids. “Every parent began to worry,” says John Bruer, president of the McDonnell Foundation and author of the book The Myth of the First Three Years. “They thought, ‘If I don’t have the latest Mozart CD, my child is going to jail rather than Yale?’”
In order to make up for their feared lapses, parents indeed started buying the approved kinds of music — and a whole lot more. A study conducted by Zero to Three, a nonprofit research group, found that almost 80% of parents with a high school education or less were assiduously using flash cards, television and computer games to try to keep their babies’ minds engaged.
Child-development experts, however, consider these sterile tools inferior to more social and emotional activities such as talking with or reading to children. These specialists agree that the only thing shown to optimize children’s intellectual potential is a secure, trusting relationship with their parents. Time spent cuddling, gazing and playing establishes a bond of security, trust and respect on which the entire child-development pyramid is based. “We have given social and emotional development a back seat,” says UCLA’s Tyler, “and that’s doing a great disservice to kids and to our society.”
Trying to pump up children’s IQs in artificial ways may also lead to increased stress on the kids, as the parents’ anxiety starts to rub off. By four or five years old, the brains of stressed kids can start to look an awful lot like the brains of stressed adults, with increased levels of adrenaline and cortisol, the twitchy chemicals that fuel the body’s fight-or-flight response. Keep the brain on edge long enough, and the changes become long-lasting, making learning harder as kids get older.
But the fact is, the kids don’t have to feel so pressured — and neither do their parents. It is true, as the marketers say, that a baby’s brain is a fast-changing thing. Far from passively sponging up information, it is busy from birth laying complex webs of neurons that help it grow more sophisticated each day. It takes anywhere from a year to five years, depending on the part of the brain, for this initial explosion of connections to be made, after which many of them shut down and wither away, as the brain decides which it will keep, which new ones it will need and which it can do without. During this period, it’s important that babies get the right kinds of stimulation so their brains can make the right decisions. The right kinds of stimulation, however, may not be the ones people think they are.
Asked in a recent study what skills children need in order to be prepared for school, parents of kindergartners routinely cited definable achievements such as knowing numbers, letters, colors and shapes. Teachers, however, disagree. Far more important, they say, are social skills, such as sharing, interacting with others and following instructions. Kids who come to school with a mastery of these less showy abilities stand a better chance of knocking off not only reading and writing when they are eventually presented but everything else that comes along as well. “Intelligence is based on emotional adequacy,” says child-development expert T. Berry Brazelton. “The concept of emotional intelligence is at the base of all this.”
[Read the rest of the article here]
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Other related posts that might interest you:
A child’s work is play
Life in the fast lane
Finding balance in a hurried world
Preschool for a headstart?
13 January 2010
Who’s minding our child minders?
Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Child Development.
With all the talk about expanding preschool enrolment in the country is anyone asking what’s being done about the danger of child abuse and how to keep these centres safe? While the growing numbers of reported child abuse did not necessarily take place in kindergartens and playschools, recent news of an alleged sex offender operating a kindy raised alarm.
In Malaysia the thriving business of kindergartens, playschools, and daycare for kids provide an invaluable service catering to young parents whose busy careers leave little time for junior. The Child Care Centre Act regulates this army of childminders although kindergartens and nurseries operated by the Education Ministry are governed by a different Act.
Since its implementation, this provision requires home-based centres that receive less than 10 children and any institution that has more than 10 children to be registered before they are allowed to operate. Unfortunately enforcement is so lax and the need so great few parents suspect their children may be left in the care of strangers in unregistered centers. A report in The Nutgraph looks at the cabinet-approved Child Protection Policy (CPP) rolled out in July 2009 and examines how implementation falls short of its intentions:
Notwithstanding the government’s efforts, PH Wong (child advocate and Childline Malaysia project director) says a large number of childcare centres and kindergartens are still not registered with the authorities. She says the number of registered centres has almost halved from five years ago. This means that many children are attending unregistered centres.
And even for registered centres, there is no formal accreditation. “We have been pushing for a national quality accreditation system for early childhood centres for more than 10 years, but that has not been implemented yet,” says PH Wong, (child advocate and Childline Malaysia project director).
(United Nations Children’s Fund representative to Malaysia) Youssouf Omar says that parents and guardians must play their part and ensure they do not put children in situations where they could be at risk.
“Parents and guardians should be proactive and ask to check the centre’s licence, as well as ask whether it has a formal child protection policy. In addition, [they must also be] aware of changes in children’s behaviour and look out for signs that the children may not be well protected or cared for in the centre,” explains Youssouf.
By requesting to see a centre’s child protection policy, he says it would create a demand for such policies. “By boycotting places that are not registered, parents can influence the practices of childcare centres and kindergartens,” he adds.
Read the whole story here.
For a brief write-up about kindergarten licensing procedure go here.
8 July 2009
Site of the Day: Meet Me At The Corner
Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Site of the Day.
We all know YouTube, but I’ll bet lots of you have not heard about Meet Me At The Corner. Meet Me At The Corner (MMATC) is a YouTube-like site, except that videos aren’t all there is. And unlike YouTube, it’s entirely educational in content and completely dedicated to kids.
This interactive site features episodes of videos that are either submitted by children or produced by the site owners for children. According to children’s author and founder of MMATC Donna W. Guthrie, the site aims to build a community of children that will utilize video for storytelling and self-expression.
And why not, when you consider that more and more young children are consuming online videos than ever before. The good thing about this site is that it’s clear about what it wants to do and what it offers kids – providing a safe site for net-gen kids to meet and interact. In the process they get to expand their horizons and that should whet their appetite for learning.
Video episodes on the site have featured an interview with a cookbook author Abbey Dodge, a clip on International Year of Astronomy 2009, and pop-up book artist Robert Sabuda. These videos are all helmed by kids, which is great. Right now, a lot of the episodes come from the US, but MMATC hopes to go global and feature real submissions from kids everywhere. That would be cool. Kids sign up for a free account with MMATC (activated only after parents have been informed), and get to send in their own shorts and video clips.
Every video episode has extended learning activities designed by educators as well as links for kids to go a little further. Visit the feature on Queens Botanical Gardens and you’ll be linked to the Gardens website, instructions on building your own worm bin, and a Discovery Kids page titled, The Yuckiest Site on the Internet. The other neat stuff would be links to Contests that invite submissions – poems, poster designs, etc.
The thing about MMATC that may put some folks off is, almost all of the links lead to commercial sites hawking products, publishers of homeschool curricula (sample pages!), or those that limit access to members, or unless subscription is paid. For instance Recommended Books links you directly to Amazon, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing really. After all it is the biggest bookstore online with possibly the largest range of books available on earth! We’re all so used to free stuff online we forget that good websites can’t keep on giving; sooner or later, someone’s got to pay. So while MMATC is free, you’ll have to navigate through other sites and links that aren’t.
But there’s still loads that give kids (and parents) free access, and lots of educational stuff to keep a child occupied. MMATC is designed for kids 7-12 years and I do think the videos the stuff that will keep them coming back. Pay the site a visit and tell your friends about it.
6 February 2001
It’s challenging!
Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Guest Writer; Parenting.
GUEST WRITER: Celine Leslie
When most of us first started homeschooling, it became clear very quickly that the most challenging task was not the one we had anticipated. We would have asked many questions about covering the academic subjects. We would have had sleepless nights wondering if we were up to teaching physics and chemistry (or even Standard 6 Math!). We would have harboured fears about the child missing out on socialisation. We questioned our ability to draw up (and stick to) an effective daily timetable.
Yet, for many of us, the greatest challenge to emerge has been that of coping with the daily frustrations of dealing with our child’s behaviour. Your child may be utterly untidy and leave trails of belonging to show where he or she has been. Or he/she may have a fussy temperament that insists everything is done his/her way or the whole world knows about it! Perhaps your child doesn’t have the initiative that you wished he/she had, preferring to dreamily stare into space instead of “getting down to work” like you know all diligent children should. Or maybe little Chong Beng doesn’t take correction too well. Sulking and pouting for hours, he punishes his instructors for their adherence to the Word of God in correcting their child when it would have been easier to ignore the misdemeanor (read sin). Maybe it is the lack of respect shown that gets you boiling. You get the picture.
Sometimes we even begin to wonder whether we have got it right. Are our expectations too high? Is there something drastically wrong with this child? Am I reaping dysfunctional behaviour for my lack of correction or ignorance in the past? Is this a phase my child is going through? And if I listen to all the voices that are eagerly trying to get my attention, well, I would have to consider what my sister-in-law (the school teacher), mother, neighbour and uncle have all got to say. The trouble is, they are all shouting different solutions, and they can’t even agree on the problem!
I believe that we can turn to our loving Father for solutions. Over Christmas, I began to realise afresh what our perfect Father did to reach the heart of His children. We were defiant, rebellious, independent and altogether despicable in our attitude towards God. If God were like us, He would have been tearing His hair out. We would have yelled, screamed and threatened in anger and frustration. Indeed the Old Testament resonates with His pleadings, warnings, promises and shouting (holy ones!) in an effort to correct and change us.
Christmas reminds us of what He thought of us when He did what we were unwilling to do. We did not have room for Him, but He prepared rooms for us. We were unwilling to go into His presence, but He willingly entered our world. To save us, He became one of us. He EMPATHISED with us even as He instructed, corrected and showed us the way out of our mess. In the same way, I believe that parents, while they have the Biblical mandate to educate their children, earn the respect and gain the permission needed to change the hearts of their children when they show a willingness to enter into their world.
Parents, let’s follow our Father’s lead. Enter into the world of your child. No, that doesn’t mean being childish but it does mean being child-like again. (Remember your own childhood?) See things from your child’s perspective. What is the personality of your child? How has God made your child unique? What are his strengths and weaknesses? What makes your child tick? What does he/she absolutely fall in love with, and what does he/she detest? As a homeschooling parent, you have the privilege of being able to observe your child in many circumstances. That’s right – step back and study your child. Watch his/her reactions. Ask him/her why he/she reacted in a certain wayand listen, not merely to the words, but also to the heart. It may take time, but eventually, the heart of your child will become clear to you. All the while you are building the relationship, allowing kindness and respect to rule.
ENTER, EMPATHISE, ENCOURAGE. I am personally learning that these are the keywords. For if we do not enter, we will not be able to empathise. And without empathy, encouragement is not possible. Without encouragement, a child’s heart will not be open to hear your instructions. What about correction, you ask? Certainly punishment, correction, warnings and rebukes are all necessary. However, a parent’s authority is much more respected and received when the child is assured that the parent has taken the trouble to enter into his world. That child knows that the parent understands what he/she feels (that’s empathy) and that the last word will always be encouraging. I often tell myself that for every negative word spoken, I need to compensate with at least four positive ones.
Therefore, do correct and discipline, but make sure that you have first entered his/her world so you can understand where he/she is coming from. Perhaps Jenny is not so much messy as creative and creativity certainly causes mess. Perhaps the creativity can be encouraged while mess dealt with pre-determined rules. Maybe Johnny’s strong will is something the Lord can use for His glory in the future, providing he learns to obey and submit to the right authorities. It may take great patience to subdue his will, but when you empathise with him (it’s hard for him, you see), the frustration lessens while the motivation increases as you appreciate the work you are doing for the Lord in building and shaping his character.
We may even discover that we are the ones at fault. Maybe life wasn’t meant to be so serious – maybe we need to learn to laugh at ourselves. Perhaps Ai Ling hasn’t been deliberately “disobedient” in being silly and laughing – she was simply enjoying life! So let’s push ahead in entering their world. It may be God’s way of overcoming some of the frustrations of constantly being at loggerheads with our little ones. And that can be most challenging!
About the writer: Celine and her family live in Adelaide