Psychology 115W

Professor Lappin

April 27, 2001

Rewrite, Final Exam

Childhood Learning

While volunteering at an inner-city daycare during high school, I observed the two-year-olds in the classroom in which I assisted. The majority of the children came from single-parent families. Most of them were on welfare or another form of government assistance, while others were foster children, constantly being relocated to different houses with different families. The environments from which these children came had a direct impact on their learning, and it was evident every day throughout the month. As is discussed in How People Learn, "All cultural variations provide strong supports for children’s development. However, some variations are more likely than others to encourage development of the specific kinds of knowledge and interaction styles that are expected in typical U.S. school environments" (HPL, 109).

The importance of proper role models played a key role in their learning. Because such a significant part of children’s learning is through observation and imitation, the role of the teachers and parents was crucial. The teachers in the particular daycare were not actually teachers, but rather babysitters, with little or no formal education, poor grammar and writing skills, and virtually no organization or knowledge of "classroom" efficiency. In addition to the lack of qualified teachers, the parents of the children were also uneducated and could not provide assistance to their children when it came to their formal learning. These factors were evident in the language of the children, marked with heavy slang and mispronunciation. Although they were read stories with proper grammar, they absorbed the incorrect terms that surrounded them. How People Learn further describes this finding:

In other words, the language skills a child acquires are essentially from the surrounding language, and once a language is learned, it is difficult to change after their critical early childhood growth period.

The learning environment also plays a large factor of the learning environment. Because books were not incorporated into the home lives of most of the inner-city children, the small amounts of books in the classroom usually went untouched unless an incentive was provided. In contrast to this situation, I observed children approximately the same age at a summer camp while counseling. The camp was in a suburban area and most of the three-year-olds came from two-parent families where the parents were very active in the children’s lives. On rainy days, the camp activities were moved indoors to classrooms, where books were everywhere. The children flocked to the books and actively enjoyed reading. "Storytime" was a part of rainy days that the children looked forward to. As a counselor read, the entire group of youngsters sat completely captivated. Whereas reading in the daycare resulted in children wandering, talking, and fidgeting. They seemed particularly uninterested and wanted to play with toys or dolls, or play dress-up.

The children at the summer camp also had better language skills, partly a result of more qualified teachers. In daily classroom activities, even camping activities that were education-related, the teachers and counselors succeeded in activities such as "interesting the child in the task, maintaining the pursuit of the goal, through motivation of the child and direction of the activity, controlling frustration and risk in problem solving" etc. (How People Learn, Wood, p. 104). The teachers at the particular daycare did not accomplish these goals, either because they did not know of them or they did not know how to incorporate them into the classrooms.

The motivation levels of the two groups of children were also different. Acquired mainly through parenting sources, the inner-city children had noticeably shorter attention spans and were frustrated easier. How People Learn elaborates on one potential explanation for this result: "Studies of interactions of drug-abusing mothers and their infants show how the absence of these critical leaning interactions depresses 3- and 6-month-old infants’ learning" (How People Learn, Mayes, p. 103). In other words, the absence of certain functional learning can affect the learning of children during infancy, which can result in later problems.

Clearly, the role of parents and teachers in the lives of children plays a fundamental role in their learning. "Children, thus, exhibit capacities that are shaped by environmental experiences and the individuals who care for them. Caregivers provide supports…" (How People Learn, p. 112) and also because children learn a great deal from pure imitation, a proper role model can make a large difference. Those that lack this form of "support" and have poor teachers or uneducated parents are at a disadvantage from the beginning, since after a certain critical point, learning basic things such as language becomes more difficult.