Child Development, the Bell Curve, and the Twenty First Century
9/28/2016
I wrote a column recently about teaching our kids resilience and how to prepare them for the competitive world they have been born into. Those things are important, but where, I now ask, is that reality leading us? Read on.
Isn't it interesting how the world views the development of the child how and how the term "all men/women are created equally has taken on such a literal meaning. The constitution states that all men are created equally, a passage interpreted from the Bible. That passage in reality is only true in God's eyes (if you are a believer). God (or evolution if you wish) created the bell curve, a naturally occurring phenomenon that proves all living beings are not created equally.
If you look at children and their development in respect to the bell curve, which includes everything from those who may have the potential of Einstein's or Hawking's modern day genius, to the cognitively delayed, to those on the autism spectrum (those with a combination of genius savant and social ineptness). Isn't it grand that there is as much wonderful variation in humans as there is in all the flora and fauna species of the earth combined. Is variation not what makes this world wonderful? Are we attempting to move the apex of the bell curve to the right extreme to early?
There are many theories in the stages of child development and in my 27 years of experience we are currently blurring the boundaries between what a child is developmentally capable of attaining at various stages, with what society is now demanding they attain at theses stages in their young lives.
RELATED - Child Development Degree
Gone are the days of natural intellect and social development, when children of previous generations created their own games, created rules, developed the hierarchies of respect and learned firsthand about hard work, honesty, sacrifice and honor on the playground, in the back yard or vacant lot. Today's kids learn these skills only under the watchful eye of an overbearing adult in an organized activity or sport in which all rules, procedures and practices have been thought up for them. Why? Is it because that well intending adult wants their and only their view of the way things should be, to exist? What is the objective? Is it that more is better sooner? Or, is it more to the point of let's get them BIGGER, FASTER and STRONGER, In kindergarten!!!
More to my point, intellectually, why are we trying to teach all children as if they are already an engineering genius at the ripe age of six?
Wonder why there is so much unrest in the world and why we cannot see our neighbor's point of view? Are we too busy getting bigger, faster and stronger to care what our neighbor's is doing, what they care about, how they are feeling? Are we too busy building the wall? Are we forgetting to develop our social intellect while we are developing our academic intellect?
Lastly, is it pressure that is killing our kids? Are the social, economic and monetary demands of society pushing our kids into the street where it is easier to find quick money, pleasure and the escape of substance abuse? Does this pressure have us on the brink of revolution? Is it pushing our kids out of participation because "participation" now means give me 18 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year? I don't have the answers, but the questions are worthy of discussion.
- Child Development, the Bell Curve, and the Twenty First Century - September 28, 2016
- Pay Them (Teachers) And They Will Come! - September 17, 2016
- The Power Of Positive Thought - August 22, 2016
