Skip to main content

Whole Child Development: Is That All?

(from TownHall interview)

Character development & whole child development are two undervalued lessons taught in schools. Many schools feel that creating a positive environment and reinforcing rules are sufficient - the idea is that these values will be taught at home and reinforced at school.

"Whole child" is described as such: 
This is done by teaching soft skills such as curiosity, perseverance, and passion. It allows a child to have more grit and resilience in and out of the classroom. This is done by introducing play and experimental activities into the classroom. It allows kids to be creative and plan/monitor their own progress. These schools take kids on field trips to cultural centers (parks/art galleries/museums) and use the resources of the community (local businesses/artists/athletes) to inspire and influence the kids. 

The child can also be engaged in: 
  • Nature (taking walks, going to parks, gardening)
  • Physical Activity (exercises, dancing, long times to play or stretch)
  • Handwork (sewing, woodcrafts, repairing or building machines)
  • Arts (painting, drawing, singing, acting)
  • Left Brain (academics)
Most traditional schools focus mostly on "Left Brain" because that is the academic portion. Many include the other modalities in "pull-outs" like PE, computers or art classes.

What a whole child education requires is time, resources & staff. Additionally, it requires a school that isn't forced to allot specific numbers of minutes to certain subject areas (60 minutes Math, 90 minutes Reading, 30 minutes Writing, etc.)

Charter schools are often not held to the same accountability standards and therefore and can have schedules that permit time for nature walks, sewing class and choir. 

So the idea that the lack of "whole child" education is because of a lack of values is false. Schools must have:
  • Money - the materials for music/art/handwork/sports are expensive. Schools must have or raise the funds for these classes. 
  • Staff - all these extra classes require more staff. There needs to specialized teachers and small class sizes. An average school would need to hire many more part-time/full-time instructors to teach the art/music/physical activity. This requires funds and ability.
  • Lack of oversight - A school must be allowed to have a flexible schedule. They must be allowed to spend 30-60 minutes/day on non-academic subjects. 
  • Space- A school must have enough rooms to house multiple extra classes during the day. 
  • Parental Support- Not all parents want their kids spending their school day taking 2 hour walks to the art museum or spending 45 minutes sewing when they should be learning math.
Overall, what she is saying is that charter schools allow for all of the above requirements. This is because the schools are structured with these extra opportunities in mind from inception. 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Parent/Teacher Connection: Give Positive Reinforcement

Classroom management is all about learning how to work with a large of group of diverse children in an organized and controlled manner. Like parents, a teacher needs to get through tasks that may not entertain the child at all times (parents have to grocery shop/teachers have to teach long division). The activity may not be inherently interesting to the child and therefore, behavior can become an issue as they try to entertain themselves. One skill that a teacher employs is positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcement  is an action that occurs after a positive behavior is shown. For example, if a child raises his hand instead of blurting, he gets a reward. Or, if a child says "please" and "thank you", they are rewarded. It gives treats to good behavior and therefore increases that chances that the behavior is done again. The child wants the reward, so they repeat that good behavior. There are many ways to do this in the classroom and at home: Nonverb...
Post a Comment
Read more

Where is the Respect?: 3 Reasons Teaching Is Not Taken Seriously

Teachers are seen as some kind of martyrs in society. There is this odd amount of condescending respect for teachers. Most conversations go like this: Person: What do you do? Teacher: I'm a teacher Person: Aw...that's awesome. How fun... But this is the disconnect. The public appreciates teachers but sees them as simplistic service workers who have fun jobs. They remember their own teachers and recall the basics of a school day and extrapolate from that.   How could teaching be that hard, my own teacher barely did anything. And there comes the disrespect in society. Teachers suddenly become this overprivileged group that is mocked in the public sphere for being greedy or lazy or both. There are three reasons for this disconnect in society: 1. A Typical Teacher's Work Load is Not Understood Most people have attended school and had a teacher. They know that their teacher stood at the front of the room, had them read from books, assigned homework and gave grades. It ...
Post a Comment
Read more

DeVos Tweets #2

The rhetoric of "freedom" for teachers comes from the ignorance of what Common Core & standards are. Parents & non-teachers see the number of tests the kids have to take mixed with talk of Common Core and create a sense of imprisonment for teacher's creativity.  Testing :  Students take standardized testing as a way to gauge progress. This is done for funding, marketing or a combination of the two. Some schools do it 3x's a year, some 2, some more. It depends on the school.  Tests gauge either proficiency or growth, depending on the test and the school. Proficiency show how a student is doing against grade level (is a 5th grader reading at a 5th grade reading level?) or growth (is the child/class improving through a year - from a 3.1 level to a 4.1 or better?) Common Core : Common Core is a series of standards  for what to teach at each grade level. It's a framework for the school year. It is not specific lessons or textbooks, but just age-...
1 comment
Read more