Stage Theory and Homeschooling
You get to listen to or read a lot of interesting advice when homeschooling because you are now part of the "alternative"- kids don't need academics till grade 1, they should be allowed to just play, they should be making decisions on what they want to do each day. Sometimes it's hard to screen out all this and sometimes… you (gasp!) become one of those "loudspeaker" mummies dishing out "alternative" advice to new homeschoolers.
Don't get me wrong. I am one of those who enjoy "alternative" opinions, but how do you know which one is best for your child? I mean no matter how hip certain theories can be, ten years down the road, has your child benefited from it? They are after all theories, and can change anytime with new findings.
I recently got a chance to revisit Montessori Theory in preparation for a sharing session with other homeschoolers. I found the two charts that Montessori presented on shortly before she passed away- The Four Planes of Development and The Four Stages of Development- The Bulb.
Based on her observations and experiments with children, Montessori realised that children go through four stages in life: 0-6, 6-12, 12-18 and 18-24. The first and third stages are periods of creative bursts of growth while the second and fourth stages are calmer years that grow on the prior stages. When a child misses out on a stage of learning, she may still learn in the later stage but has to do so with conscious effort.
This may be most obvious in language. Between 0-3, the unconscious mind of the child absorbs whatever language he hears around him and by the time he's two is able to effortlessly speak in the language he has grown up in, in general. Meanwhile, a teenager trying to pick up a language has to be explicitly taught through lessons in class or be in an immersion programme.
Piaget is another popular stage theorist, who differs from Montessori in that he believes academics should start at 7, as does Steiner. We are also taught of the stages of child development in Islam in stages- 0-7, 7-14, 14-21. Now comparing all these stage theories would be an interesting subject of study.
My thought is, Montessori believed that there are sensitive periods for learning and when these periods are missed, the child would not be as motivated or capable of learning as much later. What if you subscribed to a theory that says, don't do such and such before such and age, and you actually miss such sensitive periods for learning?
It's not that the child won't learn later, but they may not actually learn as well. I mean, it's not just academics, what about values? This is a stretch, imagine trying to teach respect to a teenager…ehem, you know what I mean.
So, I guess it's time to hit the books again and put all those theories into practice. Sometimes when you are homeschooling you can be just surviving day by day and they go to the backburner. At the very least, I have hopes of better parenting and homeschooling of my 2 and 5 year old insyaAllah.
Anyway, we usually continue with homeschooling during the school holidays, so we can take a break during school term. Hubby however brought us for a break to Krabi last week, alhamdulillah.
Don't get me wrong. I am one of those who enjoy "alternative" opinions, but how do you know which one is best for your child? I mean no matter how hip certain theories can be, ten years down the road, has your child benefited from it? They are after all theories, and can change anytime with new findings.
I recently got a chance to revisit Montessori Theory in preparation for a sharing session with other homeschoolers. I found the two charts that Montessori presented on shortly before she passed away- The Four Planes of Development and The Four Stages of Development- The Bulb.
Based on her observations and experiments with children, Montessori realised that children go through four stages in life: 0-6, 6-12, 12-18 and 18-24. The first and third stages are periods of creative bursts of growth while the second and fourth stages are calmer years that grow on the prior stages. When a child misses out on a stage of learning, she may still learn in the later stage but has to do so with conscious effort.
This may be most obvious in language. Between 0-3, the unconscious mind of the child absorbs whatever language he hears around him and by the time he's two is able to effortlessly speak in the language he has grown up in, in general. Meanwhile, a teenager trying to pick up a language has to be explicitly taught through lessons in class or be in an immersion programme.
Piaget is another popular stage theorist, who differs from Montessori in that he believes academics should start at 7, as does Steiner. We are also taught of the stages of child development in Islam in stages- 0-7, 7-14, 14-21. Now comparing all these stage theories would be an interesting subject of study.
My thought is, Montessori believed that there are sensitive periods for learning and when these periods are missed, the child would not be as motivated or capable of learning as much later. What if you subscribed to a theory that says, don't do such and such before such and age, and you actually miss such sensitive periods for learning?
It's not that the child won't learn later, but they may not actually learn as well. I mean, it's not just academics, what about values? This is a stretch, imagine trying to teach respect to a teenager…ehem, you know what I mean.
So, I guess it's time to hit the books again and put all those theories into practice. Sometimes when you are homeschooling you can be just surviving day by day and they go to the backburner. At the very least, I have hopes of better parenting and homeschooling of my 2 and 5 year old insyaAllah.
Anyway, we usually continue with homeschooling during the school holidays, so we can take a break during school term. Hubby however brought us for a break to Krabi last week, alhamdulillah.
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