Re: From the Beginning and Moving On!

From: Keith L. Pentz
Email: KLPentz@aol.com
Date: June 03, 2008

Comments

Tammie, thanks for your comments and questioning, too. Your idea of "pleasing" the child is an interesting one. What I believe and understand from a brain and body connection is that anytime our brains "perceive" that an action or activity is playful or something enjoyable, then we make serious neural connections. This relates to the emotion connection I am trying to make with these initial posts. To activate the frontal, prefrontal, executive functioning areas of our brains, there must be a positive emotion attached to the stimulus. Without that postive (i.e., playfulness), the stimulus gets redirected to other areas of the brain for survival or instinctual responses. So, by saying should we attempt to "please" a child--from one perspective, yes--if we want what we're trying to teach and have the child learn to be grasped quickly. However, that is not to say that there aren't life lessons that are learned through negative or unpleasant experiences--that's why there are consequences to actions. Loris Malaguzzi, an orignator of the Reggio Emilia schools, said, "Nothing without joy." I know that has been a very deeply moving and thought-provoking quote that has influenced my teaching and life in general. Especially in this time of pressure and pushed-down curricula, children (at least in much of their schooling) should be offered as much "pleasing" as we can provide. Teachers, too, must find ways to put the positive and pleasure back into what we do on a daily basis.