0.2 Part two: special topics  (Page 2/39)

Girls' Education - Demonstrates how powerfully we can connect education with human welfare. Educating girls offers a multitude of benefits for the girls(themselves), their current and future families, and their societies.

Conflict Mediation - Ensures that young people develop the social and emotional skills needed to reduce violence and prejudice, form caringrelationships, and build healthy lives.

Special Education - Examines some of the myths concerning special needs and offers suggestions for creating inclusive classrooms.

Community Teaching and Learning Centers - Introduces the basic elements of starting and sustaining a Teachers Without Borders CTLC - a center where the communtiy can connectwith each other and with the world.

Overview

It has often been said that anyone can take care of little children. Nothing, in our opinion, could be farther from the truth.Children are most likely to succeed with a good start, under the care of skilled, compassionate professionals.

This section gives an overview of the dynamics of the brain, and age-appropriate early childhood practices with an exemplarymodel in the Reggio Emilia approach. It addresses the needs of our youngest learners in terms of health-issues, cognition, and creativity during thiscritical stage of growth.

Early childhood education

Early childhood, birth through age 7, is a time of rapidgrowth and development. Research has shown unequivocally that during these critical first years, young children go through a long period whereplay and hands-on experiences are vital to learning. This process is essential to later success in more complex tasks. Early learning seems sosimple that it is tempting to devalue it as merely a child's recreation rather than recognize it as an extremely complex and absorbing effort tobuild a rich understanding of the world. Sight and sound, size and shape, must be experienced by a child through all the senses, at his or her own pace.

Families, caregivers, and schools must be prepared to understand and support this critical stage of growth for the children in ourcharge. Our challenge is to be sure that programs and schools meet the special needs of very young children.

Resources:

What are the Determinants of Children's Academic Successes and Difficulties - by Marion Diamond, Ph.D

"How can parents and teachers provide conditions that will most effectively promote growth and change in our children's brains?How can parents help a child develop his or her full potential and set a pathway of lifelong learning? In this article, Marian Diamond,neuroanatomist, describes ways in which parents and teachers should create a climate for enchanted minds to obtain information, stimulateimagination, develop an atmosphere to enhance motivation and creativity and experience the value of a work ethic."

What are the Determinants of Children's Academic Successes and Difficulties

Embryological Development of the Human Brain - by Arnold B. Scheibel, MD