The child is made of one hundred.
The child has a hundred languages,a hundred hands,a hundred thoughts,a hundred ways of thinking, of playing, of speaking.A hundred, always a hundred,ways of listening,of marveling,of loving,a hundred joys for singing and understanding,a hundred worlds to discover,
a hundred worlds to invent,a hundred worlds to dream.The child has a hundred languages (and a hundred hundred hundred more),but they steal ninety nine.The school and the culture separate the head from the body.
They tell the child:to think without hands,do without heads,to listen and not to speak,to understand without joy,to love and to marvel…only at Easter and Christmas.They tell the child:to discover the world already there and of the hundred they steal ninety nine.They tell the child:that work and play,reality and fantasy,science and imagination,sky and earth,reason and dream,are things that do not belong together.And thus they tell the child that the hundred is not there.The child says no way. The hundred is there.Loris Malaguzzi, Italian Early Childhood Education Specialist, 1994.
What are your thoughts? Does the mainstream school system inhibit the child’s capacity for imagination, original thought, invention, dreaming? Are our schools and teachers resourced sufficiently to cope with the individual learning languages of our children? Is an individual’s capacity for creativity less important then their intellect? How can we support our schools to support out children to develop as well rounded, intelligent and creative thinking individuals?
I welcome your thoughts and comments. Let’s have a conversation about the hundred languages of children.
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Christie Burnett is an early childhood teacher, presenter, writer and the editor of Childhood 101. More importantly, she is a Mum who believes wholeheartedly in the value of children learning through play, the importance of quality early education, and the togetherness of family.
I was fortunate enough to teach in a school where students very much led their curriculum choices and chose the ways in which they could demonstrate their knowledge. Themes were used each term to determine the content base and then students would negotiate with the teacher a particular area of interest they were keen to explore further. This kind of teaching was far more rigourous than using text books. It meant that there was a great deal of conferencing between the student and teacher. Thinking skill strategies were employed (Edward De Bono's Six Hats and Gardiner's Multiple Intelligences to name but two) to explore content. Students produced work of an extraordinarily high quality. These students were excellent problem solvers, often analysed situations with a great deal of maturity and were by far the most creative, articulate students I have taught (I taught secondary school students for ten years before becoming a SAHM).
I wrote an article for a newspaper (which was published) about my concerns with the current education system and my ideal classroom. It is in my archives in the month of March for this year, first blog post that comes up for the month, titled: I believe a change is needed.(Sorry, but I can't seem to post the direct link)
This is not entirely schools/teachers fault - we need to provide more resources so that classes can be smaller. We also need to treat teachers like real professionals - instead of assuming they have a job with lots of holidays (they don't).
I think it would be nice if we could have smaller classes and move out of the classroom more. Parents also need to accept responsibility for teaching their own children, because teachers cannot do everything - for example, should teachers be responsible for your child's moral education? or for teaching them the proper way to cross the road? What do you want teachers to spend their time on?
If the child is easy and average they may thrive in a mainstream school. If they deviate in any way, be it falling behind or needing more of a challenge, they are at risk of falling through the cracks.
I did in my public highschool. I was the girl in the back of the class righting poetry and getting in trouble for it. I wish that I would have been in a Montessori enviroment.
Having a child with intellectual and other disabilities she has been in Education Support Centres within mainstream schools for a number of years. They are, I think, an example of what mainstream should be. They have small class sizes and each childs abilities are recognised and they all have individual education plans to suit their learning skills.
With starting high school this year I have seen the rigidness of mainstream at its best. She participates in mainstream subjects such as cooking, dance, drama and phys ed. All of these subjects she received and "E" (the equivalant of an "F" in my day) because her motor skills are not as developed as her peers and all the comments made by the mainstream teachers reflected this. There was no flexibility in the mainstream grading system for my special needs child so what hope does the average child have?