When I Think of Child Development “Quotes”

"Children are great imitators. So give them something great to imitate."

Anonymous

"Safety and security don't just happen, they are the result of collective consensus and public investment. We owe our children, the most vulnerable citizens in our society, a life free of violence and fear."

Nelson Mandela, former president of South Africa

“Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, I will try again tomorrow”

Mary Anne Radmacher

These three quotes I found to be very powerful when I took the time and mediate on them. Therefore when I mediated on them here is what I heard. As educators we know children are great, but what part do we play in making them greater. We want the world safe for our children, but what part do we play in making them safe. Our children are strong, so why do we not have the patience to let them try again tomorrow.

 

A Note of Professional Thanks and Support

I want to thank everyone through out this course for the support and feedback on the discussion board, and through our our blogs. Your comments and words of wisdom gave me a greater insight from a professional perspective. There is nothing more gratifying than to have a colleague share an experience and how they handled it, to help make life easier for both you as the professional and the child.

Testing for Intelligence?

In examining how children should or should not be measured or assessed, I believe children should be provided the learning tools that can help them succeed in and out of their school environment. By succeed, I mean to be able to provide in their own words what information they do understand with in the learning environment. I believe that children should be measured on what they can do, and the information they can connect with. Therefore not necessarily on what they do not know or can not do. In order words if it is something that they can not do, when being assessed, why not say they are in progress of learning what ever it is they have not mastered yet. Why should we just plain out say children can not do something when we as educators understand that every child learn at their own pace.

In all reality some children respond and develop on how we as adults, teachers, and professionals view them and express our beliefs in them. When we praise children for what they can do, children then have the self confidence to strive to do their best in all areas of development.

In assessing how school-age children are assessed overall in other parts of the world I wanted to do some comparison of the United States to other countries. “The chart below presents the findings of this Report Card in summary form. Countries are listed in order of their average rank for the six dimensions of child well-being that have been assessed.1 A light blue background indicates a place in the top third of the table; mid-blue denotes the middle third and dark blue the bottom third”(Unicef, 2007).

Also if you would like to view and compare other countries I have provided the link below.

Reference

An overview of child well-being in rich countries - Unicef

http://www.unicef.org/media/files/ChildPovertyReport.pdf

Dimensions of child well-being	Average ranking position (for all 6 dimensions)	Material and well-being	Health and safety	Educational well-being	Family and peer relationships	Behaviours and risks	Subjective well-being
Canada	11.8	6	13	2	18	17	15
Sweden	5	1	1	5	15	1	7
United States	18	7	21	12	20	20	-

Furthermore, when measuring or assessing school-age children by the information provided in the chart we see that children are assessed in every area of their well-being. I believe each of these areas some times play an important part on how a child develop with in their learning environment. Therefore I feel the question that should be asked to those developing standardized testing, based on one child fits all, how can we test a child's abilities in varies areas of learning with out knowing the whole child themselves?