FAQ – Child Education Smart
What do the three videos (The Impacts of Environment on a Child, My Father and Mother, and Certificate Awardees Fall, 2019) have in common?
These three films demonstrate the importance of child educations. Through the testimony of Bill Pena in The Impacts of Environment on a Child, we can see that the environment does have tremendous influences on children. The testimony only shows the tip of an iceberg. The impacts not only affect a child’s character and personality, but also a child’s intellectual and social development. The determining factor is guidance versus misguidance.
Failure to receive a proper child education may result in a heavy toll on the child’s life. Certificate Awardees Fall, 2019, a film posted on East Los Angeles College’s website, provides further testimonies. Most of the actors were formerly incarcerated. Just look at their ages: those are the testimonies of the heavy costs they have paid, or how many years have been lost before their turn around to become a new person. (Of course, we also celebrate the turnaround. That will be a topic for a separate forum). You can also see how much social and academic achievement opportunities have been lost.
Children are watching for everything. They may absorb guidance as well as a misguidance. Realizing that child education is critical to a child’s future, we have to provide proper guidance before children being misguided. The Act in Time Principle provides that proper guidance must be implemented in a specific time and a specific place to be effective. My Mother and Father demonstrates this point. The film shows a young man missed the opportunity to see his father before he passed away. If he had acted in time, he would have no regrets. The same principle applies to child education. We better provide proper child education so that we won’t regret.
I agree that childhood education is truly an example in which “acting in time” is imperative. In thinking of elementary students, I could see a debate as to whether or not we are teaching reading too early for some kids.
Effect of Education Principle provides that the effect of education is determined by the appropriateness of source information, the fidelity in transmission, and the adoption by the recipient. As you have observed “[a debate as to whether or not] we are teaching reading too early for some kids. Often, imaginative play is being eliminated and the focus on curriculum is replacing imaginative play”. The above observation is very important. Since the observation shows that teaching reading at a certain age is fine for some students but too early for other students in a class (for the sake of discussion, let’s assume this is a second-grade class), I would call these local observations (local observation refers to a limited scope observation which may differ from another similar observation):
Teaching Reading to Second Grade Students Local Observation 1 – It’s too early to teach reading to some of the second-grade students (hereinafter referred to “Group 1”). Teaching Reading to Second Grade Students Local Observation 2 – Some of the second-grade students (hereinafter referred to “Group 2”) may be taught to read.
Let’s apply the Effect of Education Principle to the above Local Observations. Is teaching reading appropriate for Group 1 students? The answer is no. Is teaching reading appropriate for Group 2 students? The answer is yes. Please take notice that Effect of Education Principle does not distinguish appropriate and inappropriate curriculum. However, it does show the effectiveness of attempted education due to the appropriateness of the curriculum. Since principle is a general rule, if we only observe its effectiveness in teaching reading, then the scope of the observation is limited. We will call this derivative a Global Observation (Or, simply Observation): Teaching Reading Observation – To be effective, teaching reading must be appropriate to the students’ ability. Please take notice that Teaching Reading Observation does not specify the age for reading education. The same Observation can be applied to adults as well. Could we teach English reading to an illiterate adult? The answer is that it won’t be effective. Conversely, could we teach English reading to a Kindergarten wiz? Yes, if this kid possesses advanced capability.