When I Think of Child Development

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SUp9zGTe4k

As I am growing in my career, I am not only teaching children but also collaborate with families and teachers in supporting children. Although this course did not talk about child welfare, but throughout this course, we learned about how environment, cultural values, peers interaction, communities, family values and many more aspects effect a child’s development. Because of all these influence, it makes me think of child development is never a one person’s job. And that is why I chose this video “CB Spotlight on Collaboration in Child Welfare" to represent my current views about collaboration in supporting children’s development.

I like this quote “No one can do it alone, there’s no one agency, one answer for children and families.” from the Action Associate Commissioner from Children’s Bureau. I work at an agency that supports low-income families, which allow me to interact with families who live in poverty and understand their needs. I heard many different stories about their life and they often are associated with different agencies to get welfare. I am glad that my agency provides many services that support children and their families to grow such as job training, subsidized / free child care/ housing assistance and etc. 

I also like this quote from Dr. Seuss, “A person’s a person. No matter how small”, reminded me that no matter how old a person is, we need to respect him/her? 

             I really enjoy taking this course, our professor Dr. Davis is very supportive and knowledge! Our classmates are also supportive and respect each others opinions. 

              I would like to say special Thank You to Elizabeth, Thank you for always supporting my posts and appreciate my opinion from different background. 

            I also would like to Thank You Karen for giving me feedback in a parent perspective!All of your supports really enhanced my knowledge in child development.  I will continue to follow both of your blogs and hope will see you ladies in the next class.

          Happy Holidays everyone!! Enjoy the next two weeks before our classes start again!!

Testing for Intelligence?

 

I believe each children have their unique talent and  if we have to assess children in one way, I would say it is better to measure all the subject areas, including physical development, music ,art,  personalities and problem solving skills. Academically, it is important to know how much the children know about a subject to help them develop their interest in specify subjects. However, I do not believe a child is not smart if their academic results are not as high as the other children are. They maybe better in other way such as some children maybe an athletic or they are good at music. Moreover, personality should assess too; so that we know what kind of learning style does the child learn the best.

Nowadays, children are exposing to lots of violent in media and environment around them. Therefore, it is also important to assess their mental health as it could help children to release their stress and prevent all these tragedies happen such as shooting in school.

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I grew up in Hong Kong, China, and their education system is little bit different than the US system. In Hong Kong, children from elementary school to high school, they will have at least 4 formal examinations in a year. It happens quarterly, where you will have a week called “examination week” that you go to school just to take the exam for 2 hours or so. They do not have multiple choices, most of the exams are either comprehension, fill in the blanks, or essay questions. Student will get number grade out of 100, and in the report card, you will able to know your ranking in your class and in your grade in every subjects. They do examinations in all subjects including physical education in how many laps you can run in 20 mins, how many sit ups you can do in 3 mins and etc. They even do art and music. I do not really like this system as it may affect a student’s self-esteem if he/she sees their class ranking and overall grade ranking. 

I am not sure if there is any system to assess children’s mental health other than if anyone have concerns, but I strongly think that each child should receive a mental health assessment every year. It will support the child better and benefit to the society if the child is having negative views or stressful to be in the society, classmates, or families.