Case Of Study Video

My case of study video

Introduction
I would like to start this entry telling you that it was so much fun to produce it. Kids loved it and they were not intimidated by the camera. Since Gerardo is not that perceptive as Mariel, he just wanted to run and do the crafts or directions I requested.

BEFORE VIDEO
I prepared my cameras and the people that was going to be with me in the filming process. I'd like to say that I first, gather the material I was going to use. I just used the materials from the chapters we have been reading. I also look up for some information in the Internet, in the video I provide you the site I consulted to.
I read thousands of time those parts that I was going to use in the video, and also some of the test that experts did, as the Planfulness of Attention study, in the Attention section.

Besides, my own preparation I also asked my sister in law if she agreed to have her children in an activity about my teaching practice, and she said that it was ok.
Then, I was advise to get the children to my mother-in-law workplace. She gave me the idea, and at the end it worked.  I was in my mother-in law's workplace at Cojutepeque. She works as a phycologist for those special and disable children in that place. The name of the school is Escuela de Educación Especial "General Adolfo Q. Blandon". She spoke with the head of the school to let me in and do this video. I spoke to her and she was deligheted to having me there and the other teachers were happy, too.
I was not sure if the activities I had in mind were going to work, specialy with Gerardo. He was more paying attention to the teenagers in the yard, who were in the jungle gym, so my mother in law helped me and also my boyfriend, in video you can hear a male's voice as well.

DURING
At the right side of the blog, there you have Mariel Abarca, she is 6 years old, she is preschool. She lives with her mother and father. Mariel's mother and brother live in their grandmother's house. Mariel and Gerardo's father works as a cameraman in a television network in San Salvador, so he does not spend quality time with his sons nor his wife. I was told that he only goes to Cojutepeque on Weekends. As far as I saw him with their kids, he is very nurturing and takes care of the two of them. They have had some family troubles, but they have dealt with them and they are pretty good so far.
 Besides, Mariel  likes to play with her girl friends and also with her brother. They do not play  much outside their home, but they do it on the Weekends. She is able to write  many words or phases, and I was told that she is learning to read as well, but I cannot prove it, I have not seen her doing it. As part of the education, she attends to a nearby private school in Cojutepeque, at the Montessori School. I was told that they implement the same integration of the ideal of working in groups, let the students be creative and they focus on giving the students freedom and interaction with materials and activities.

She is slim, is taller than her brother. She has long legs and arms. According to her age, she has the body complex she must have for her age. Her brain, according to the "Physical development in Early Childhood", has reached 90 percent of its adult volume. So that permits her to perform many intelectual activities, such as more reflection on thinking, ask questions, play, take objects, etc. I did not measure Mariel's height nor her weight, but we must remember that at this age girls are slightly smaller and lighter than boys.

Below, you will can see Gerardo Abarca. He is two years and three (this month he turned three) months old. He is very kind, active and energetic boy. He spends most of his time with his sister at home. His mother, Sara is not working she only goes to finish her community service at a hospital in order to finish properly her career, but in the afternoon, she takes care of the kids. In the morning, gradma and a housekeeper take care of them.

Gerardo is not three years old yet, so we can say that his brain has not reached the adult size brain. However, next year his brain will reach about three-quarters of its adult size. Mariel's brain has reach 95 percent of its adult volume. I said also, that the brain and the head grow more rapidly than any other part of the body, such as the head, the eyes and the brain than any other parts of the body. That is why, they seem to have big heads!
I am now conviced that Mariel's gross and fine motor skills are wide different than Gerardo. He presents less coordinated features, like for example, he cannot cut paper with his two fingers, he just grabbed the scissor with both hands. That was hilarious to see! He was so concentrated and committed to cut the paper. Also, he was able to open the glue and then I saw him close it without  any problem. We captured him doing scribbles. As Kelloggs suggest in the first chapter, "Artistic Drawings", children at age two are able to scribble. They are drawing when they are 4 to 5 years. This means, in Gerardo's case that he is able to put the pencil in his hand; you saw him scribbling his family...there were circles, and dots. :) This is also part of his fine gross skills.

Gerardo's scribbles at two years of age

Also, in gross motor skills, he was able to step on a stair and he did not fall. He runs, throws ball at least two meter or more, jumps, he also in the video, was able to pull up the cement chair and he managed to be sitted, though he needed his grandmother's help to get down. We watched that there was a jungle gym at the school, and the children pull up and down of it without problem. In conclusion, even though Gerado is not three years, maybe he is so active because of his genes or becuase he was so pleased or happy to be at another place having fun, so I can say that he is active. Imagine when he is 3 years! Mariel has already dominated the fine and motor skills, well she performs most of the activities she was supposed to do at her age. She is now riding a bike with training wheels. Also,  Mariel reproduces letters, copies shorts words. She also can click on the links (I saw her doing it in my boyfriends's computer and she grabbed the mouse carefuly and managed to click on whatever she wanted to open). This also demonstrate the fine motor skills. She draws circles, not in the video, but I saw her once. All of this if possible because first, her brain development and that she is attending school, so she learnt how to do many other skills.
Talking about Mariel's drawing in the video was portrayed her family. There you find out that she is in the Pictorial Stage, the fourth stage according to Kelloggs's studies. This demonstrate me that she can draw more in detail, she put details in her drawings and an adult can distinguish them easily.

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT 

Piaget's Preoperational Stage
The Intuitive Thought Substage

I asked Mariel the following question: What would you do if you were hit by a car?
She answered: "I would get appart (from the car) or I would run". 
As I said in the video, she understand how that situation can be, but her ideas are still simple and lacks of more complex thought. On the contrary, an adult will respond so much different from a six year child, obviously. The point here to mention is that I wanted to prove that she was not able to answer the "What if..." as proposed in the Intuitive Thought Substage. They have difficulty understanding events that he knows are taking place but that he cannot see. Her thoughts bear little resemblace to reality, and in fact that was I wanted to prove.
Piaget stated that he called this substage intuitive because young children seem sure about their knowledge and understanding yet are unaware of hhow trhey know what hey know. That was surreal to experiment with Mariel! To sum, they know how to things are but know it without rational thinking! 

Moreover, I prepared Mariel to respond to "The Planfulness of Attention Study" in the Information Processing approach. This generated gives information about how young children think and how theu thinking changes. This is important for teachers to get familiar with.
The study of the pair of houses, starts when I asked her to identify the differences of the houses. She told me right away that the B's houses were equal, she gave reasons why she thought of that and explained also that A's houses were different. According to chapter 9, it expresses that children's control of attention is still deficient:

*Salient versus relevant
*Planfulness 

I focus on the second one, it shows that in general young children's planning improves as part of advances in executive attention, so experimenters ask children to judge whether two complex pictures are the same, preschool tend to use other strategys, I mean they do not clearly see how is it different from one another, they do not examine the details before making a judgement. In contrast, the elementary-age children see systematically the details, and they use their eyes (scan) the windows in more detail ways, so their aswers ere more accurate. Mariel gave the differences in the windows. She was pointing where she saw a difference and gave them even names to the differences.

PSYCHOSOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

In the video I focus, well it caught my attention,  how children play and what means to them to play. To adults, we only see them playing and that is all. Well, as the chapter 10 describes, "play is a plesurable activity that is engaged in for its own sake, and its functions and forms vary". Play increseases during childhood. The experts say play is healthy and even necessary to the children's development. It helps the child to channel his or her anxities and conflicts. As a child, I was always into my mom's pressure to cope with my homework, she told me that I was very lazy and I did not put much effort in my school, so what that has to do with play? When I encountered play outside I run sufficiently to be tired at night. I forgot my problems with my mom and I was free to do and act out with my dolls. I used to play with dolls, as Gerardo played with his dolls (those dolls were borrowed by another teacher at the school, so Gerardo can be quiet). He tried to get the intimate clothes of the doll to see if they were equal to him (Gender). He was so curios about that!!! He was discovering and interacting with the dolls, and as you see he was combing the hair, and getting them to the swings to continue playing. In that part we can observe him alone, not paying attention to anything else. That is what experts call "Solitary Play"; it occurs at two and three years old.
I think that maybe Gerardo also was in the "Pretense Play", when playing with dolls, maybe he was the father, cause he knows his mother combs his hair and he tried to do it, too. However, it is difficult to say it because he did not tell anything, he was quiet playing.
Mariel plays more with her barbies saying she is the doctor and Gerardo also pretends to be the patient, too.

Pretense/Symbolic Pay
They use objects in their play and pretend to be a character.

At two or three years old, kids love to play alone. (Social Play)

This type of symbolic play appears about 18 months adn reaches a peak at 4 to 5 years of age. 

AFTER

Well, that is what I studied, according to chapters one, nine and ten. I really have a positive experience doing it also I liked very much to experience the results with Mariel and Gerardo. They are very different from each other and those differences make them unique. This was a nice and enriched experience that hopefully, will help me to be immersed  in this ample and rich stage. Children need to be understood and we need to learn that they need our support but more importantly that we as educator can implement many things to get the best of them.
Hope you have learned a lot as I did!
Thank you for reading and watching my video!

Three Different Stages of the Childhood( -Piaget-Vygotski-Erickson)

Piaget's  Preoperational Stage

His studies demostrate that children first stage  in the sensorimotor stage that children explore the world with sensations, perceptions with physical movements and actions. Moreover, the preoperational stage, which is the second one, children begin to represent the world with words, images and drawings. Their concepts are stable and they begin to reason more. This is what I recall from my younger brother when he was 4 years: he questioned my father about almost everything, and my parents did not understand why he was so curious about his sorrounding. They explained him some things, but I can bet those ansewrs were not enough for his mind. 

• I was wondering why Piaget thought it was a good name "Preoperational Stage"...and does it have a purpose on children's life?

It does in fact have a purpose for chidren, because after they were able to reprensent their thoughts in actions, but now they can do it mentally as well. Preoperational Thought is the ability to reconstruct what was physically to do it mentally. This can be divided into two substages: the symbolic function substage and the intuitive thought substage. 

What I can think is my grandma! 

The first one, the symbolic function substage, occurs between the ages of 2 and 4. Young children gain the ability to represent an object that is not present (mentally). If someone ask a 2 years old child to draw his family, you would expect to see faces, but not in this stage. They scribble to represent a person, a car, a bike, the sky, etc. I really like this stage a lot! You can see that they do not draw concrete facts, but scribble designs allow them to get a better idea of their thoughts. Althought, children make great progress in this stage, they still have limitations, two of them are: Egocentrism and animism. 

Egocentrism is the limitation to distinguish between one's own perspective and someone else's perspective. This was initially studied by Piaget and his coleguees to study how the child reacted when asked to select from a series of photos the one photo that reflects the dolls's view. Children in the preoperational stage pick yp their own view rather than the doll's view.

Children uses toys to say to parents questions: Mom, the doll doesn't want to make pi like me"  

Animism, is the belief that inanimate objects have lifelike qualities and capable of action. So, a young children would say something like:" The turtle does not like me", "That tree pushed me and I fell down, mom". As a child, I used to think that my doll would sleep with me and because I was the mom, I was supposed to feed her with my "milk"! My mom just encouraged me to play and did not say anything negative to my pretencious play. I believe that girls play to be mom because they want to be "mom" and to have "babies" because of the social interaction that we had as a babies with our mom.

The Intuitive Thought Substage is the second substage of preoperational thought, occurs between 4 to 7 years of age. In this substage, children begin to thought, reason and want to know the answers to all questions. Like, "What taste does our tongue has daddy?", "Why does it rain?", "Why my little brother is on my mom's belly?"...This ideas are simple and lack of logic as you see. Salvadorian parents have to be cautious about the kind of answers they give to children. They also believe firmly in these responses, like unbreakeable rules. Though, this child is not very good at reasonig like adults are. He also does not understand that:"Tomorrow his aunty is coming to visit him". Also, something that stroke me, was the fact that some children cannot answer quesions with "What if..." in any reliable way. I asked this same kind of question to my niece (6 years old), but I added: "What if you were about to be hit by a car?" and she responded: "I would run and put myself out the road". Even thought she responded logically, the "run" is not a reliable answer.


Vygotskys's  Theory 
Vygotsky (1896-1934) stated that children contruct their learning throught social interaction with others. Their congnitve development depends on the tools provided by the society and their minds are shaped by the cultural context in which they live in. (Gredler, 2008; Holzman,2009).
I think that what he wanted to point was that children also learn with peers in their social context, that is the school, the church, any place where they were immersed. And also Vygostky's belief in the importance of social influences is reflected in his concept of ZPD (Zone of proximal development).

The concept is defined as the rage of task that are too difficult for the child to master alone but that can be learned with guidance of more- skilled children. 

Scaffolding: means changing the level of support. If someone is learning a task, well a more-skilled peer can guide the other student this addjust the amount of guidance to fir the child's performance. This happens in our English classrooms (or so I think) teachers let an advance learner to help the otehr student, and results are fantastic. Tutoring, creating a conversation club (with more advanced students).

Erik Erikson Psychosocial Development

Erik Erikson's theory of psychosocial development is one of the best-known theories of personality in psychology. Erikson believed that personality develops in a series of stages. Erikson's theory describes the impact of social experience across the whole lifespan. That is why it is so important how children spent their life in the context they live in.  One of the main elements of Erikson's psychosocial stage theory is the development of ego identity. Ego identity is the conscious sense of self that we develop through social interaction. According to Erikson, our ego identity is constantly changing due to new experiences and information we acquire in our daily interactions with others. 

When psychologists talk about identity, they are referring to all of the beliefs, ideals, and values that help shape and guide a person's behavior. The formation of identity is something that begins in childhood and becomes particularly important during adolescence, but it is a process that continues throughout life. Our personal identity gives each of us an integrated and cohesive sense of self that endures and continues to grow as we age.

In addition to ego identity, Erikson also believed that a sense of competence motivates behaviors and actions. Each stage in Erikson's theory is concerned with becoming competent in an area of life. If the stage is handled well, the person will feel a sense of mastery, which is sometimes referred to as ego strength or ego quality. If the stage is managed poorly, the person will emerge with a sense of inadequacy.

In each stage, Erikson believed people experience a conflict that serves as a turning point in development. In Erikson's view, these conflicts are centered on either developing a psychological quality or failing to develop that quality. During these times, the potential for personal growth is high, but so is the potential for failure.

The first stage: Trust and Mistrust 

The need to deal with mixed feelings about oneself is at the core of the third crisis of personality development to identify Erik Erikson: trust and mistrust. The conflict arises from the increasingly meaningless of purpose that makes the child to make plans and activities, and growing qualms you may have with respect to such plans. For example: If a child successfully develops trust, he or she will feel safe and secure in the world. Caregivers who are inconsistent, emotionally unavailable, or rejecting contribute to feelings of mistrust in the children they care for. Failure to develop trust will result in fear and a belief that the world is inconsistent and unpredictable.  Of course, no child is going to develop a sense of 100 percent trust or 100 percent doubt. Erikson believed that successful development was all about striking a balance between the two opposing sides. When this happens, children acquire hope, which Erikson described as an openness to experience tempered by some wariness that danger may be present. 

 Second stage: Autonomy versus shame and doubt is the second stage of Erik Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development. This stage occurs between the ages of 18 months to approximately age two to three years. According to Erikson, children at this stage are focused on developing a greater sense of self-control. Gaining a sense of personal control over the world is important at this stage of development.An example of this is going to toilet  and even the toilet training plays a major role; learning to control one’s body functions leads to a feeling of control and a sense of independence. Other important events include gaining more control over food choices, toy preferences and clothing selection.

Children who successfully complete this stage feel secure and confident, while those who do not are left with a sense of inadequacy and self-doubt. Children ask themselves: "Will I be able to put this on?" "Will I be able to control my own body and not to make pi in my bed?" Of course they like to demonstrate that they are able to do what they want. However, if they fail they feel ashmed. 

I read a blog from a mom, this is the link if you want to read it through: http://mybabyedgar.weebly.com/3/post/2012/09/stage-three-initiative-vs-guilt.html 

I just notice this part, that helped me get into this stage more: "Between 3-5 years old my baby has learned the basics of life. He now knows our basic routine and knows how to get ready by himself, even though I still have to set his clothes for him. He tries to act all grown up by eating with a fork or spoon instead of with his fingers. He no longer needs me to help him to eat. He knows from right and wrong and what he should and shouldn't do. He is able to eat almost the same food I eat. For example, he can eat junk food now but not that much. He still eats three times a day with me and we try to keep it like that".  

The fact that a 3 years-old boy select his shoes or clothe demonstrate that he is in this stage. I see that it is very important to understand them and also to help them feel confortable with what they want or desire. 

Initiative versus Guilt: This stage occurs during the preschool years, between the ages of three and five. During the initiative versus guilt stage, children begin to declare their power and control over the world through directing play and other social interaction. 

 I recall that my mom used to made fun of me when I did not do anything right, for example (I was 5) sweeping. She pushed so hard that I make an effort to sweep like the way she did it. I reflect now and I said that she should have helped me how to do that first. Since that moment I felt terribly ashamed of myself and scared to get done another chore. I read that children are immersed in different context and they begin plan activities, facing challenges, etc. It becomes important to understand what role are the parents playing in this stage. Those parents that discourage their children, these children may feel ashamed or themselves and become dependent upon the help of others. Parents and teachers have to be aware of this feature of not embarrasing children just because...children may be threaten.  

The second part will be in a new entry! :) 

See you!