Behind the Classroom Door; 38

The topic on this week's Behind the classroom door from northern Illinois University's College of Education is physical emotional and social changes during the school years. Here's the moderator Dean Robert F. top probably the most intriguing aspect of being a parent or a teacher. Is the fact that you can observe the remarkable changes that take place in your children whether they're your own children of the children in the classroom. And I suppose this is what we look for and what gives us so much excitement as we observe our children at different ages. We enjoy them and use babies as little children as adolescents and I'm up to lying. There is a never changing never ending change taking place. Teacher you see this in a striking way when they observe the children they had the previous year walking about the hollows and near the close of the following year the little boy and the little girls that they had say in third grade

at the conclusion of fourth grade have changed so remarkably in fact it appears that children change faster nowadays than used to be the case. I think that's very true today with television. The child has many more preschool experiences than he and that child of the past. But still when that child comes to school his world becomes a much wider world with a much wider range of experiences from that very first day in school don't you think the children today in the typical community come to school with lasts less of a shock it's less strange to them their parents have taken them further and you mention TV. And I think that we have demonstrated that because of improved hygenic conditions nutrition and medication. Children are just more mature when they come to Kandahar if you take the typical three or four year old child in the home today he's captivated

by the television set and he will sit in front of that. Television set by the hour having the entire outside world brought to him. So certainly it's not going to be such a shock to him when he sets out for school on the first day he's going to know pretty much what it's all about. Irish parents do give their children more experience I think than it used to be the case in fact there are more experiences to have it I think than five year old is much more independent today than he was 25 years ago. Yeah you know me. I was just going to say isn't it also true that in many communities child entry into first grade has had some previous school experience. I mean certainly you know it's becoming much more common place for youngsters to attend kindergarten although there are communities that still do not support kindergartens. In some communities especially middle class communities. It has become very common for a child to

attend a nursery school or some type of Montessori school within the home. So that when the child enters the first grade he has already had prior formal school experience I was referring to the typical child and course there are many children. We know many poor neighborhoods in the inner city that don't have these kinds of experiences. It sets them back accordingly and I think many of the government programs now directed at this very thing the lack of experience broadening educative maturing experiences in the home. I was wondering Lloyd since you would be a specialist in that area. Your opinion of some of the preschool programs I know project at start very sample which has as its primary purpose that of taking the preschool child and giving him my experiences with other youngsters I'm kind of preparing him for work Im going to

garden in the first grade. That such programs have received very favorable recognition. However recently I read an article indicating that the government could spend that money much better to pay parents of children from lower social economic cost to stay home with the children. But what the child actually needs is parental love and a greater feeling of being wanted within the home. Well I I think the language experiences and the social experiences that the child gets in the preschool programs of course is very important. I don't know how they would go about accomplishing the thing that you mention because how can you pay a parent to stay home. Well and maybe the fact that the parent has sought to leave the home and go to work indicates a parent isn't a good one to have home. We keep saying that

motherhood is wonderful and it is but there are actually are some some others that would just as soon not be in contact with their children and when they are they're not doing them much good. I think the language development experiences and the social experiences and. Literature and music and so forth that these children get in these preschool programs certainly prepare them to move right on into a good kind of garden and right on into the first grade. Are most of those programs limited to a half day so that actually the child would still be able to get the benefits from the heart that you would expect that he needs in other words in terms of development of self-concept in relationship to parents. Right. I agree. And in other words he's only gone from the home for two or three hours and there's plenty of time left in the day for the parent to give him the security and the affection they need.

Another problem that I keep reading a great deal about is that as a child comes to the first grade or to kindergarten the differences between boys and girls tend to be very pronounced physical development social development. There are many levels in terms of content fields vary considerably in these early years and I was wondering what is being done to provide for these differences. Well I certainly agree that these differences do exist and you do notice them at the kindergarten level and of course once again they're going to be very evident again at the adolescent level along about sixth grade and seventh grade to become very visible once again. You know in kindergarten where these differences are so striking. Some school districts have worked out what I think is an interesting plan in view of the fact that

boys are about a year retarded as far as maturation is concerned. In comparison to girls many schools or some schools have worked up a plan where this is one place where they believe in retention at the end of the Near the end of the kindergarten year the teacher with the help of perhaps a school psychologist observes the child and makes a decision with regard to whether the child will go into a so-called Junior first grade or a regular first grade. Now the boys are being less mature in their and developing more slowly than the girls tend to bunch up in the junior first grade where they have an extra year to mature. One community that I was associated with where they did this for the boys and the very mature have very immature girls and let's

recognize that there is an overlapping among the sex between the sexes here that there are some girls less mature than some boys but these less mature children who spent an extra year in first grade. From that point on were fully competitive. They did just as well as the children that went on directly. And so this was one attempt to meet this difference in the maturation of the sexes. When a kindergarten teacher can also. Individualize you might see her program in a sense in other words a lot of group activity can go on at the kindergarden level and at the first grade level. And children that are more mature are doing things that other children are not attempting at even at the kindergarten level. But isn't one of the problems so in the primary grades based on the idea that most of the teachers and primary grades are women and therefore the curriculum of the

primary grades tends to be feminine are you counted. And yet the primary years would be very important for the child to develop is on sex or on actually do. Maximize his sex role in the learning situation. In other words it would seem it would be very desirable if you could have a man work with boys at least for part of the boys and girls right. We just need men in the lower grades if we can get them. They seem not to choose that level. I don't listen to boys and girls at the at the lower elementary school level especially grades 1 2 and 3 try very hard to follow the rules and the regulations set up by the teacher and by the school.

And there are these boys and girls who are ready to respond to their reasonableness and more idealistic and sometimes I think we fail to recognize that the physical emotional and social changes that we're talking about are much more extensive and much more lasting. In the early years of life and later and we've mentioned the years at home how significant these are. Roseann off who wrote a large volume and titled a manual on child psychiatry cited a group of psychologists who sat down together one time and philosophize a little bit about the midpoint of life how old would an individual be when he was at the midpoint of life in terms of acquiring all kinds of skills and the attitudes and facts including newer muscular skills attitudes towards people and so on. And after the psychologist got through thinking about this with their knowledge of human development they decided that the midpoint of life was three and a half years of age.

Well that's a little bit of a shock until you think back on your own child and realize how much your child knew terms of a neuro muscular skills and facts and ideas and how much he or she knew about social interaction in the three and one half years of age when what I do believe is that the changes take place more rapidly emotionally and physically and socially during the early years and so these primary years are very critical. Some people believe that the verbal patterns in other words speech patterns of an individual are formed by the time he is seven and that. A school may be able to modify the speech patterns somewhat. In other words to a limited degree with direct instruction after the age of seven. But if he hasn't acquired an ear for the language and developed favorable verbal patterns by the time he is seven the chances are that he

will never have a good facility with the language. You no longer have difficulty in writing and later when writing is introduced because it also depends upon his knowledge of verbal patterns along that line. There have been some studies that indicate that when a child is say an American child is reared in a foreign land where he has to learn two languages at the same time then both are interfered with. During these early years when the speech habits are being developed from the early the primary years are critical and I'm sure that most primary teachers understand this. Every actor can have its significance. Now as I look at the physical emotional and social changes in children and at the elementary school level I have often noticed a change going into about fourth or fifth grade where the child the child it becomes more aggressive. Little gangs begin to form. And they want to express

more and suddenly more independence. They're taking steps to defy. Maybe their teachers once in a while he talk to other people our challenge or state in his statements and then as they move on up into six and seventh grade Once again I see a spurt in terms of physical emotional and social changes. You've emphasized the fact that there is a large span of individual differences in primary grades. I'd like to point out that the rate of change the rate of learning the rate of growth is also an individual matter and that at no place is the span of individual differences at least. Then in these early grades but from then on the span continually gets greater and greater and greater children become more and more on like take a reading for example the children are

introduced to reading in the primary grades. The end of the first year of reading training there is a difference among among in the group. By the time they reach fourth grade reading ability there is at least four years span in their differences in their abilities to read. By the time they reach the sixth graders at least a span of six years and reading ability. But I think that the schools and teachers are accomplishing something when they just recognize the fact that these individual differences exist and they're aware of them and they are planning for them these days. Now Leo when you say a difference or a span of six years and reading what you want what you really mean by that I mean has shown up by standardized tests and reading in a group of how many children all 30 or 40. What grade level only on would you find this. Well I'd say in about the typical 6 sixth grade class. Some children reading at about say fourth

third or fourth grade and our lawyer updates not all the way up to the recent say grade level. I recently read that in the state of Illinois if you went into a medium size community that within the sixth grade that was all the students in the sixth grade NAF particular community and administered a standardized achievement test in any of the basic subjects such as reading you could expect to find some children in that school who would measure at the beginning the lowest level of that achievement test which normally would in reading be the third grade up through the 12th grade. And I think the point Lee was making is very important the teacher has to recognize that this vast range of individual differences actually increases every year that youngsters stand school so that by the time they're seniors in high school the range

is much greater than for any other year. Even though you do lose some youngsters who will have dropped out of school simply because they haven't been able to do the work but because the rate of learning in other words a person's IQ which would measure his Bill Oddie to learn. Well enable the bright youngster to learn at a much faster rate. Obviously the longer he stays in school the more he will learn and the farther behind me youngster with a low IQ will become. Now when you say that the range becomes greater the longer they stay in school were really referring to learning aren't we subject matter to content of learning. Well we've been using that as an example. Probably because it has something tangible something we can measure but I'm quite sure this range of individual differences would also exist in physical gross emotional growth and social

growth. Yet if you go into almost any sixth grade classroom with let's say 30 students and you pick out the most in the two were looking child and physically into a child and stand up next to the most mature one you'll notice that's very true. I was part of this is the rate of maturation at puberty however where some are slower than others and so a little boy that is maybe 4 feet tall standing next to another boy 6 feet tall that two years later the little boy who is 4 feet tall may be close to six feet tall. Unfortunately they don't all wind up six footers I went to a program last Sunday of high school. And it was a me is a buy the difference and I. Physical size represented in the group there are a couple boys in the school who stand well over six feet. I'd say 6 4 6 5. Somewhere in that category and there are other

people in the group who are standing around five feet and Hyatt's at the high school level so that these differences of course are very pronounced at the senior high level. But of course in first grade there would be differences but not differences in terms of foot or two feet and not in size. One thing we don't want to lose sight of is that in spite of a wide range of individual differences that prevail among children each child goes through these developmental steps. They don't skip any of these developmental mental steps with their fast maturing or slow maturing or bright or slow. And I think this is pretty something that we need to expection and parents particularly need to be ready for. For example children talk fluently about things going on in school up till about the third grade or so but it will vary with individual differences but along in third or fourth fourth or fifth grade you know all of the sudden the children don't want to talk about what's going on in school anymore.

And I think it's very important that all adults working with children understand these differences because for example the teacher can't treat all children alike. No the parent can't treat all children alike for these reasons that we're talking about in for example in the home a parent has to learn to alter or change let's say has rules and regulations concerning child behavior in the home as the child gets older and develops and sometimes teachers have that problem for example a sixth grade teacher can't treat her boys and girls in me as she treated them in September. Because from September until May there is quite a change in their interest in their desires to do certain things. Yes I think there are of course as we've indicated a vast range of individual differences in them. The various facets of development however I do think that there are certain generalisations kit that can be

made about the primary age youngster the intermediate age youngster in junior high school and senior high school youngster. For example the junior high school youngster is as a generalization is beginning to rebel against school authority and as a result it takes a different type of teacher to work in a junior high school effectively use children time to test the teacher much more than they had any time prior to junior high school. Fidget around a lot they're growing now as a result they need a great deal more physical movement than the earlier youngsters they have to get up and move around the room. The wise teacher can relate the activities of the classroom to the needs of the youngsters so that actually you can have much more group work with Junior High School which permits a

youngster to get up and move to reference areas to learning centers and to give him greater freedom than he has had in the earlier year. Someone said the so-called adjustment of adolescence. It is better called the adjustment of parents and teachers to adolescents who are growing up quite normally. If the parents and the teachers just don't understand that here are young people in the process of maturing and they have very definite needs and one of the things that strikes me as an outstanding characteristic of the adolescent child the early adolescent child of the child entering puberty is his utter self-consciousness consciousness of self. Somehow or other all of storing is within them particularly reading related to the opposite sex cause them to be very critical of their appearance their

behavior and the behavior of their parents the kind of car the parents are driving the house they live in. They seem to direct their attention very completely to these little things because now they're suddenly again very much aware of them sounds as a person in the process of becoming an adult. Yes the teenager certainly has many problems. That deal that deal with his physical emotional and social development because we've got to remember that adolescence is one of the most rapidly changing periods in his life in terms of physical emotional social well and he's clumsy and he worried about his appearance his nose looks big and his feet seem to hang out the bottom of his trousers and he doesn't know what to do with his feet. They stumble around and they're embarrassed and self-conscious in front of the girls yet they want to associate with the girls. I'd like to mention the range of years within which. Puberty can arrive yet be termed

normal. It is said that girls. Can reach puberty as early as nine years of age or as late as 15 years of age. Yet within that entire span it is within the range of normalcy where the boys. They can reach puberty as early as 11 years of age or as laid of as 16 or 17 yet be called normal. Now this the difference creates many problems. We can't create a school like the junior high school for example and say that this is the place at which all of the children are going to attain adolescence. However I do think that it is important for the school to the end to get to the people and entering adolescence that this vast range but would be considered normal for entering puberty.

Is expected in other words the child who matures of late should realize that there is nothing wrong with maturing late and that the child will still go through these changes and the changes will be normal because I think. Certainly it's very difficult for a child who does develop behind his age mates to accept the idea that he is shorter the boy says and change if it's a boy and he hasn't quite developed the physical stature that the other boys have. He should be given that kind of insight. I've known parents that actually amplified on his worry by themselves not being aware of the fact that although he is slow in entering puberty he will catch up and become a growth spurt there. I mentioned earlier that the fourth and fifth grader and sixth grader develops a feeling of independence and he wants to assert himself but I think we have to remember

that the adolescent develops once more. There's a spirit here in terms of independence he wants to be very independent at times and well this is what we want. Isn't this the case from the time the child enters school until he leaves his college career. We are seeking to have him become an independent self-sufficient adult making a contribution to society. And yet I think it causes us more worry and more concern because he's not the little cuddly conforming type of individual that he was when he was a very young child. It's so easy for some parents to fight this to an end when they don't want their child to become too independent. I think there have been some changes made by schools within the past few years that show that the schools are aware of these changes and development. The idea that children mature earlier than in the past and reach puberty sooner has certainly been one

of the reasons for the development of the middle school as opposed to the junior high school. My middle school normally consisting of grades 5 through 8 as opposed to the conventional junior high school of 7 through 9 so they youngsters at this age are separated when it strange how quickly we seem to forget we have dolls. We too went through all of these changes. We become intolerant of our young people as they move up facing these problems. You know Ron the original terminology used for schizophrenia was dementia praecox which meant early disturbance of the mind because adolescence had so much trouble. Well the truth is it's gets a funny eye doesn't come at that period as often as it does later in life. But nevertheless the adjustment problems are quite phenomenal. So I think what we're saying is that adults who are providing a helping relationship for our

children need to keep close contact. Understand and sympathize with their problems as they're going through these changes. Behind the classroom door produced by W. and in cooperation with the College of Education at Northern Illinois University each week focuses its attention on one of the many challenging aspects of public school education. The program is moderated by Dr. Robert F. top dean of the College of Education at Northern Illinois University. Today's guest were Dr. Raymond B Fox associate dean of the College of Education. Dr. Leo Laughlin head of the Department of Administration and services and Dr. Lloyd Leonard head of the department of elementary education. Next week's topic will be why some children cheat. This program is distributed by the national educational radio network.