Psychology of Childhood and Adolescence in an Urban Context

The significance of school is critical to consider in the context of a child’s development. An individual in America spends approximately seventeen or eighteen years in school (pre-k- graduating college), therefore school is bound to impact the attendee. In order to improve our elementary/secondary education system in the United States I would recommend an increase involvement of parental teaching, and a new perspective on teaching methods.

To begin, the textbook mentions how learning approaches are conducted based on bottom-up processing (teaching basic skills from simple to more complicated) or top-down processing. Because the base of knowledge a child begins with starts at home, I think it is crucial for parents to be involved in a child’s education and not simply rely on the entity of “school”. For instance, the text shows an image of a mother reading to her child- and states that children who are read to everyday have an increased vocabulary. Many times parents in the US neglect to participate in a child’s educational development because they rely on the school to take care of everything. I relate this to how the government is regulating food/calorie intake- sometimes it’s ridiculous to think that the government is responsible for out children being obese, rather it is the parent’s job to moderate their children’s diet etc. Nonetheless, parents have a huge role in the child’s education.

Another point US education systems should consider, is taking a fresher look on teaching. Many times teachers fail to engage with students, which hinders them from learning. Teachers should consider different approaches, some which were mentioned in the text include: playworld practice (involves enacting, discussing, mak-ing art, and playing with themes based on works of children’s literature), or Realistic Mathematics Education (which shifts the focus of mathematics instruction from training in basic skills, procedures, and memorization toward conceptual understanding and linkages between mathematics and real- world problems). If students have fun learning, or are engaged in a different way (rather than the usual lecture approach) they retain more.

The text also briefly talked about apprenticeships. I think if education related more to the real world, or our curriculum displayed significance it would help children learn/ see a purpose to learning. Although there are programs such as BOCES (a type of apprenticeship/ job training), I believe teachers should always make a connection to students that what they are learning is related to the real world or is deemed significant. Many times there is a lack of motivation to learn because it seems pointless, the current curriculum should be reassessed to make sure that what is being taught is actually beneficial in the real world/ long run.

According to http://www.washprofile.org/en/node/1894 approximately $10,000 (for education) was spent on each American student verses $6,000 on each foreign student. Despite the huge price increase American students are lagging behind foreign classmates, I believe if we invest in encouraging parents to contribute to their child’s educational growth, and engaging children through different teaching methods we could bump up our standards and develop children more effectively.