November 17th, 2009
Yesterday I read about an alarming piece of news about the seemingly harmless iPods corrupting the minds and souls of our children. That made me step back and think about technology in general and the attitude of those around children towards technology.
As parents:
- do we teach our children about making informed choices or oscillate from laissez faire to making those choices for them, potentially crippling them for life?
- do we make it our business to find out what our child is reading, listening to, accessing, borrowing, downloading or swing from disrespectful intrusion to hands-off right to privacy non sense?
- do we make time to enjoy the boons of technology and learn from our kids or look at it as something to keep them out of our way after a long, stressful work day?
As parents, we probably have a much skewed view of technology associating it with largely electronic gadgets that are ever so rapidly evolving in terms of complexity and sophistication. We patiently teach our children how to use and master the art of eating with a fork and knife, writing with a crayon/pencil/pen, riding a bicycle for days/weeks/months till the child masters both the skill and attitudes related to it, rarely associating these with technology. We associate technology with electronic gadgets like computers, iPods, e-gaming and the like, giving them access or ownership but absolving ourselves of all responsibility to train and educate them about their judicious usage.
Also as parents, we find it difficult, if not impossible, to keep up with that which we consider “technology”, and therefore take the easier option of surrendering our parental responsibilities of helping our children grasp and responsibly handle technology to teachers, peers and other second or third parties.
As teachers, we train our children to handle laboratory apparatus and classroom resources like manipulative so that they learn to use them to enhance their learning. But when it comes to computers and associated accessories, the onus of their proper use is conveniently palmed off to the IT teacher. The IT teachers, given the length and breadth of their curriculum, and probably because they themselves are inadequately informed or because this aspect of technology is not covered by the syllabus, bypass these crucial life skills in their classes.
With little or no guidance from parents and teachers, children either “figure-it-out” for themselves or learn by trial and error, or turn to equally inadequately informed peers for guidance or worse turn to strangers exposing themselves to manipulation.
In the meanwhile, it is not surprising ,that, children make poor choices in handling technology.
Tags: child safety, e-gaming, Education, Gadgets, guiding children to use technology, IT teacher, parents involvement in technology selection, safety, teaching children how to use technology safely, teaching children on the use of technology, technology, technology and safety, technology can corrupt, Technology in Education, technology is a good slave, technology makes a poor master, Technology/Internet
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April 30th, 2009
Children, right from infants, need to explore and play with different materials in a safe environment. These could be seemingly safe materials like stuffed toys or seemingly unsafe ones like soft moulding wires. In today’s borderless world of contamination and cross-contamination, no material is completely “safe”. Yet adults, who are entrusted with the supervision and safety of infants, work with the illusion that restricting their childs interaction to just a few supposedly safe materials, makes them safe. It is easier for us to manage the environment so that our lapses and neglects do not jeopardise their safety. In our enthusiasm to make the environment safe, we forget that the elimination of certain materials from children’s environment makes learning very one dimensional and caters to development of some senses more than others.
In North America, the safety of kids sometimes borders on paranoia. The litigation culture prevalent there makes them rely so much on one kind of research that supports stringent control over materials, conveniently ignoring the other body of research which supports the contrary. In Canada, my infant son was not allowed to play with little cars by his daycare provider as there was the risk that the wheels might come off and may be swallowed by him or other infants around him. Whereas in Reggio, I witnessed the spectacular engagement of an infant with a metal object, something that would have horrified my son’s Canadian caregiver. The learning and the communication of the learning that emerged from such interaction was a visual delight for me as a mother and an educationist.
This is not to say that infants should be allowed to interact with sharp knifes and rat poison! But we need to broaden our choice of materials for kids, especially the very young ones, to interact with and learn from. Our fears as parents and care providers should not interfere with their sensorial development. Every material that has any educational value has its potential strengths and risks. It is more about vigilant supervision and common sense than about a false culture of safe, sterile environment. Somehow, the preschools in North America seem colourful but dull to the senses after Reggio where aesthetic repackaging and layouts of discards like orange peels gave them a new identity and potential purpose as a multi-sensorial, learning material.
Tags: care providers, Children, communication, contamination, Education, educational, educationist, explore, infants, learning, mother, parents, Reggio, safe, safety, sensory, supervision, toys
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