As someone who has been teaching since 1995 and been around children most of their lives I am finding something peculiar. They do not make children like they used to. That probably doesn't make much sense so let me explain.
I am a child of the 60's and in the 60's you didn't have a lot of advances in technology like you do today. Technology is good and bad as it exposes you to more things.
The children I work with today seem to have more problems emotionally, they seem to have more disabilities to their learning and I'm wondering if its something in the environment. If you think about how simple things were in the 50's and 60's before the invention of microwaves, televisions, cell phones and artificial foods and sweeteners, do we really know what we are putting into our bodies and exposing ourselves to? Do we really know how these things are going to affect children that we might be carrying one day?
I myself have stopped using artificial sweeteners and use REAL sugar. Course I work my butt off at the gym because of it.
I do not know, I think all of these things have affected our children of today.
Well, I think with the invention of the internet, video games, billions of channels on TV, etc, has all slowed down the learning process because kids spend so much time on them. I know that when we had cable, it was SO hard to get motivated with school because there was ALWAYS something on TV I could be watching. Without spending as much time on school, you don't learn as well. Also, people were more of a family back in the 60s...now families hardly spend any time together at all. I think one big reason why kids have (in particular) reading disabilities is because they don't read out loud enough. Phonics is really important for elementary because it teaches kids how to read sounds.
RESPECT LIFE
http://progressiveu.org/blog/respectlife
"It is poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."
~Mother Teresa
Agreed.
We didn't really have that stuff. The first video games were Atari's and Commodore 64's!!
We had to GO OUTSIDE and play with our imaginations.
I find kids today don't know how to play and lack imagination
Susan
===============================================
A life not examined is a life not worth living.....plato
Yeah, imagination is definitely another big thing...you had to entertain yourself through playing outside, music, etc. I think all the TV and video games have contributed to health problems such as obesity among children, as well.
RESPECT LIFE
http://progressiveu.org/blog/respectlife
"It is poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."
~Mother Teresa
I think a lot of things have changed just since I was a kid, and I'm only 20. For one, there wasn't all the cancer scares and the internet has become so much faster. I couldn't be bothered to go on it more than a few times a month because it was so slow and now most people, including me, are on at least once a day. Playing in the streets was perfectly acceptable as long as it was in front of someone's house where a parent could be watching and we were aware so we could get out of the way if a car came. Now, parents are so paranoid, and about emotional well-being too. God forbid kids compete even though they'll have to deal with it one day. And no more unstructured play. The director of the day camp I work at wants there to me an activity going on at all times. If the kids are making their own games, then we aren't doing our jobs.
Like what you've read? Well, then here's more:
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tricia0711
I think you really hit a topic here. Kids making their own games is very important. It gives them a chance to apply and experiment with what they have learned. It allows them to explore their own intrests. To gain confidence and learn more expanding on their own knowledge. Now adays even lagos, an amazing tool if used properly, comes with instruction and exactly the right peices in the correct numbers to make something specific. WHat ever happened to just dumping a pile of blocks in front and let the kids come up with and use their own brains to figure out how to create what they want. I think this can apply to socioeconomic problems too because now we are starting to expect others to come up with the answer and take care of us. If this pattern continues nobody will have a brain left to do anything.
Love is like a box of chocolates; if you chose wisely you won’t be disappointed and have to spit it out. ~T
WHat ever happened to just dumping a pile of blocks in front and let the kids come up with and use their own brains to figure out how to create what they want.
And that's why I retain a mis-matched collection of Legos for when I have kids. :)
Though I still love Kinects (sp?), as hard as they seem to be to find now. Nothing like combining Legos with motors to have a 4-foot-tall Ferris Wheel or 10-foot-long roller coaster. And since they really move, building them is only half the fun!
I am treated as evil by people who claim that they are being oppressed because they are not allowed to force me to practice what they do. ~D. Dale Gulledge
Right now my sons favorite nap time toy, for when his sister is napping, is magnetics. He builds all sorts of contraptions and designs without direction. As a matter a fact maybe I will get him some more so he can build even more complex larger things.
There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.~- Anais Nin
I still love playing with magnents. When I was little my dad would get a whole bunch out and I would spend forever observing how they pushed away at the same sides.
Like what you've read? Well, then here's more:
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tricia0711
I don't think it's technology so much as changes in the way people raise their kids.
It seems to me that people shelter and/or spoil their kids too much anymore, and so you end up with every kid diagnosed with AD/HD or Autism or something when most of them are just spoiled brats who weren't taught manners because their parents seemed to think that the TV, computer, and school would raise their kids for them.
(Obviously what I've said is a bit exaggerated, and there are kids who really are Autistic or have AD/HD, but the actual cases of what I've described above are still far too common.)
I am treated as evil by people who claim that they are being oppressed because they are not allowed to force me to practice what they do. ~D. Dale Gulledge
I am attending college to be a teacher, but I spend at least 1-2 days every week in a Kindergarten classroom. Based on my observations, I feel the real reason children are declining in a sense is due to parenting skills. I don't understand why, but it seems they don't care as much. (Now mind you, I am not saying every parent, so I am in no way insulting parenting skills) But I just feel that there are many parents who could care less about the development of their children, let alone their well being. I think people need to step up and either take the responsibilities that come with be a parent or stop reproducing for crying out loud. They will not only do themselves a favor, but these kids don't deserve to brought up in those specific lifestyles, they deserve to be given every opportunity out there...and those are harder to reach when they have parents who don't care.
Most children suffer from a deep lack of parental affection, on top of that many (just like their parents) are caught up into a state of (TV-media) hypnotism.
The emotional problems which (will) flow out of this will grow while eventually backlash upon all.
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/all/