After reading Chapters 3, 4, and 5 of LifeSmart, it was a walk down high school memory lane. Learning about how infants are conceived and how chromosomes are composed brought back some good old fashion health class 101 stuff. All jokes aside, the more I read the chapters, the more I understood how the infant stage is critical in someone's life development. For the most part, scientific data only provides estimates. Therefore, there is no final conclusion on every aspect on a child's biological development. What can be determined is how an infant's surrounding environment can help develop their mental, social and physical traits.
While there can be challenges involving infants who are born with diseases or defects, it doesn't influence the characteristics of an infant. Chapter 4 elaborates on how a quality environment can result in an infants characteristics. The chapter notes that newborns adapt from birth to 1 month during their "Neonate" period. This period is where newborns develop their senses and reflexes. As a newborn develops their senses, they will adapt to their environment that surrounds them. As a kid, I remember how if feels to be appreciated by my parents when I did something well. At the same time, I remember how I got in trouble for doing something wrong. My classmate John Grayson blogged in his last post about how he has developed a sense of security because his dad was a police officer. A newborn's development will always begin in the environment in which they are being raised in.
As noted in Chapter 5, psychologist Jean Piaget relates how biological, psychological and social factors affect an infant's development in the environment. Those factors begin with the parent themselves and the parent must make adjustments according to what is in the best interest of the infant. As parents, we help develop an infant's development in forming relationships, their emotional makeup, their language, their temperament, their physical attributes, their ability to interact with others and how they perceive things. This day, my dad reminds me of how he gave up drinking when I was born. That attitude was instilled in me because I never cared for drinking. At one point, I was doing it to fit in. But at the start of the year, I looked within myself and I've stop drinking (except for ONLY 2 this past Saturday because it was my birthday and my best friend bought them for me). Again, the environment that an infant develops starts at home.
Again, an infant's surrounding environment can help in developing their mental, social and physical traits. As teachers, our deeper knowledge of our students will begin and end with the parent or caregiver. In addition, we must learn the dynamics of the school that we will teach in because our schools will be a reflection of the neighborhood that surrounds it. This falls back into how an environment influences one's development in life. Yet as teachers, we come from all backgrounds and it is up to us show various aspects of life to our students.
Piaget makes some very good point on the social and emotion development of children. You hear the phrase "You're just like your father/mother" thrown around a lot and it has a lot of truth behind it. I am just like my parents and the people I spent a majority of my life with. My mothers compassion and selflessness is definitely something that I have picked up from her, my stubbornness comes from my dad. As teachers it will be a huge juggling act to try and deal with all the problems that arise with students because depending on their home life there may be a lot bigger issues that are effecting them.
ReplyDeleteEddie, great summarization of the chapters. I liked when you talked about how much an infants/child's surrounding environments can help in developing their mental, social, and physical traits. I could not agree with you more. It is so important that we are interested in learning more about our students and their family. Having an open relationship with our students parents or caregiver will be extremely beneficial for the student. My doing this we understand where they are coming from and so much more.
ReplyDeleteThis was a very interesting topic for us to read and write about. yes every child has to have the right influences around them and these influences have to be positive. it starts at home with the parent. you have to want to teach your children and be their support team. like right now I'm sitting here in the library writing this and there are three little kids right here playing loud as ever the Liberian keeps telling them to calm down and they keep playing. so she asks them to leave and they say their mom don't get off work until 7. so they are out in the streets until then. this makes me angry because anything can happen and mom wouldn't even know about it. you have to know which one is more important to you. this is very good writing on your blog.
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