Equal Attention

We all believe that children have equal rights, responsibilities, status and opportunities but to understand the symbolic expression of the fact that two quantities are equal. We need to relate this expression with children at school. For example, early childhood education requires attention to maintain the expression in giving an equal opportunity to girls and boys from their critical ages and stages. In order to do that, schools need to keep in mind the following procedures;

·         Plan to give equal attention to boys and girls in the classrooms

·         Distribute and assign tasks equally for group and pair work

·         Ask questions to boys and girls equally

·         Form groups according to gender equality

·         Engage boys and girls for stage performances  

·         Educate parents to give equal attention to their daughters and sons at home

·         Encourage and highlight the importance of equal attention and its long term positive impact on the specific and general society.

So this approach to early childhood education can create equality among children and will increase their self esteem and confidence. It can also create a greater attachment to the teachers and the schools because the equal attention could reflect care, respect, love, attention and justice. If this happens, leading to a peaceful society wouldn’t be a dream for children from their early ages.

Importance of Special Education

Special education is the practice of educating students with special needs in a way that addresses their individual differences and needs. When children inter into a school, a day care center or a children’s resource center, it’s important for the teachers or educators to understand each child’s individual differences and needs.  Special education is viewed only as an education to the severe needs of special children but we need to understand that all the children are special in many ways. Some have minor specialty called developmental delays and few have severe kind of specialty. In order to understand children’s special needs, the school, individuals and institutions need to have the following approach;

·         Develop human capacity of educators, teachers and field support motivators so they can accommodate and support these children

·         The educators, teachers and field support motivators should have a close coordination with parents and communities to enhance awareness of special education

·         Policy makers and institutional leaders must develop a monitoring, support research mechanism for further learning and development

Keeping in view the importance of special education it seems significant to understand special needs of children but for that one needs to increase his/her knowledge, develop skills and moral attitude to educate the special children. When that happens, children’s developmental delays and other special needs can be improved.

Social skills

A social skill is the ability to communicate, persuade, and interact with other members of the society, without creating a conflict and disharmony. Children from their early ages need to learn how to communicate effectively with others that could enable them to solve problem and make decisions. Parents, caregivers and teachers need to keep in view the following;

·        Talk to children respectfully so it can enable them to enhance confidence in talking to others

·        Set social rules (take turn, show respect, and talk in a positive tune etc) for home and school to follow but must avoid compromising the rules

·        Allow children to use social skills in making friendships and working together

·        Engage them in interaction so they can express their ideas, perceptions and opinions, that will allow them to express their views in a constructive way

·        Avoid in engaging in their conflicts. Encourage them to communicate, persuade and motivate to resolve conflicts. This will help them to be more independent in differentiating between what to do and what not.

So this reflects that early childhood education is very critical in developing a better social skill among children to generate harmony and tolerated society.

Early Literacy Development

Early Literacy is what children know about reading and writing before they can actually read or write. Children’s early literacy behaviors occur as they engage in reading and writing related tasks at home, in the community, and at school. Developing knowledge of literacy involves learning how to think about language and how it’s used. Deficiency in knowledge not only leads to difficulty in learning to read but also difficulties in acquiring new knowledge. Higher vocabulary development and listening comprehension has been associated with the greater exposure to story book sharing experiences.

In order to help children parents and care givers might need to do the following;

·         Show illustrations of animals, shapes, people, places and things. Read the names with soft and clear pronunciation. Keep repeating and reinforcing those names in everyday life according to the ages and stages of children

·         Sing nursery rhymes with actions. Allow them to see these rhymes with illustrations on TV or Ipad etc.

·         Show real animals, things and places. Allow children to touch and feel so they can use their own senses. Also allow children to talk to people to help them to develop their social skills

·         Read simple stories or tell stories in simple language so it could help children to enhance their imaginative skills

·         Allow them to grip the pencils, draw illustrations and color that will lead them to early writings

·         Understand, encourage and reinforce their signs of their language literacy so it can sustain their motivation and develop their confidence

Children have a great potential and as parents and care givers, we need to understand or learn about children’s millstones, assist and facilitate according to their early literacy needs.  

  Volunteerism for ECD

Engaging young minds and dedicated volunteers in an Early Childhood setting is very beneficial because it helps young girls and boys to make important networking contacts. They learn to develop professional understanding, share their learned knowledge, and expertise. It can enrich their resume. They can gain new ideas, make connection and relationships with parents and communities.

As a result, it enhances youth’s self esteem, confidence and more importantly, they learn to be knowledgeable, skillful, productive and positive parents. It further develops their communication and social skills as well as makes them more ambitious, enthusiastic, more caring and loving people in the society.

These are the important characteristics that children at their early ages of life need. Therefore, its noteworthy for our youth (young boys and girls) to volunteer for Early Childhood classes to develop their professional abilities and become skillful teachers and parents to nurture their students and children.

Women Education for Child Development

 Educating a woman is educating a family (Anonymous). This belief leads life in a practical way in human society but when it comes to early years of children’s development, this belief gets stronger. For instance, it’s recognized by the educational and psychological researchers that brain development of children begins from prenatal stage. If this is the case, then the relationship of mother and child development is much stronger emotionally, physically, socially, morally and cognitively in a natural way. On the other hand, the meaningful nurturing process of the child enables a mature personality development, which gradually, helps the child to be remain peaceful and sustain peace in the society. Therefore, women and families might need to consider the following;

·         Be happy and healthy during and after the pregnancy

·         Engage in reading and listening to music to create a positive energy

·         Talk to her child after 4 months of pregnancy because the child starts hearing already

·         Stay emotionally balanced

·         Be loving and love others around her

·       Be friendly, respectful, caring and tolerant towards other human beings because the child learns from the environment.

·   Get education and educate others around her including her own children because education and awareness is the only key to a peaceful society. 

Keeping these in mind, its important to understand that nature and nurture plays their significant roles.  Children learn good or bad, effective or ineffective behavior from their adults. In order, to create a peaceful environment and peaceful society, children from their early ages, which is called sensitive and critical age, needs to be nurtured in a conducive learning environment. Therefore, its necessary for women to play their roles in nurturing their children to strengthen the natural relationships and positive outcomes between them and society.  

Culture, Power and Impact on Child Development

Children from dominant cultural practices are influenced by the beliefs and practices of grandparents. Child development depends on how they treat the children at home? What they belief about the child? How educators can minimize the gaps of child development in a positive and constructive way in that culture.

Some of the culture gives more importance to adults as a mean of respect. They believe children are empty vessels and they will learn gradually when they go to school. Therefore, the more emphasis remains on the physical development of the children so they can grow up faster, go to school and learn new things. These beliefs and respect in these kinds of cultures make the adults, particularly, grandparents powerful. Therefore, changing their beliefs becomes a big challenge for interventionists. However, one strategy from one of the interventions worked very conveniently for us. For instance, when the field staff visited homes and demonstrated teaching young children (birth to three years), it became an interesting experience. Grandparents learned those vocabularies from English language and reinforced them later with those children (grandchildren) at home. Most of the grandparents were able to recognize the illustrations and match their names such as name of surroundings, animals, vegetables, fruits etc.

It taught us if we involve grandparents in the learning process of children, we need to understand the cultural beliefs, norms and work with the influential factors such as grandparents so they can use their authority in a positive and productive manner to develop their grandchildren in a meaningful and constructive way.