Changing Childhoods Changing Minds: If, as a child, you experience loving, meaningful, instructive responses from those around you, you not only learn from modelling, you are able to respond to other learning situations in positive, daring ways, because you know 'at your centre' that you are valued. Changing childhoods changing minds minds is not only about the cognitive processes of learning, it is about Changing childhoods changing minds hearts and values too.
Could it also be that our expectations of both behaviour and academic standards in school have changed immeasurably over the past thirty years or so? Is the gap between what pupils can attain and what is expected of them widening to the extent that a significant proportion of pupils are voting with their feet and pulling out? Or, is the gap between the kind of behaviour and free expression that young people see around them on TV, in films, in their communities and the conformity that is expected in schools irreconcilable in young minds? Another possibility has to do with the ethos of schooling. Schools have been very hierarchical and authoritarian structures since the 1800s. Are they Changing childhoods changing minds? Is education itself in a state of flux and about to re-define itself? If so, there will be stress on teachers and pupils that have to do with the way the system is Changing childhoods changing minds. |
