Saturday, March 23, 2013

Week 3- Alternative Assignment



Robin C. Miller
Blog Assignment Week 3
            Unfortunately, I have not been able to contact anyone on an international level yet and am still working on that. So, for now my colleagues will be reading about podcast that I have listened to from World Forum Radio (Part 1). Then I will discuss my insight on childhood poverty in another country (Part 2).
Part 1 -
This week I listened to the interview with George Forman. He has a doctorate in developmental psychology and is also the author of several Piaget based books. His dissertation was based on discrimination learning. During his research he realized that children learn better by actions. He began to “think more of children’s learning as acts and events” like his favorite philosopher Piaget.
He learned that children learn and see the world differently than we do. We see the world they way it is, they way it’s presented to us. Children see the world by how “things change or don’t change” (Piaget).
George became involved in the Reggio Emilia program in Italy and quickly learned that the program helped children think about their thinking process by actions. The program taught children to reflect a way of thinking and understanding what you don’t understand on the surface. It helps them to look beyond the outside view and look deeper into their childhood imagination and understanding.
 Part 2 –   Case Study- Poverty and ill health pushed Banwari out of school and into work
Banwari is from Rajasthan, India. He has 6 brothers in a family of 10. Banwari and two of his brothers had to drop out of school because their father was sick and they needed to help care for him by working as a carpet weaver alongside one of his brothers. After, getting exceptionally good at weaving Banwari was able to weave at home where he works rigorous hours to make ends meet.
He wishes that he was able to go back to school so that he could make a decent wage for his family. He isn’t very fond of carpet weaving but he knows that it will help his family survive so he continues to work hard to put the rest of his brothers threw school while he takes care of his family.

Reference:
CHIP: Childhood Poverty Research and Policy Centre. (n.d). Case study - poverty and ill health  pushed banwari out of school and into work. Retrieved from           

What I gained from this information
1.     I learned that poverty doesn’t just happen in my local community but all over the world
2.     Children are majorly affected by poverty (having to drop out of school and work to make ends meet)
3.     Although many children become resilient in the face of hardship and tragedies, they are still affected emotionally, physically, spiritually, and developmentally.  

2 comments:

  1. Robin,
    Thank you for your informative post! I can relate to all three of your insights, especially your last one. Many people have the opinion that if difficult things happen in a child's life it is best if it happens when they are very young, "because they will not remember it." This is somewhat true, however ust as you said they are still affected emotionally, physically, spiritually, and developmentally.

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  2. Hi Robin,

    I have not received a response yet either, but I will use the alternative blog assigment until I get a connection. I ejoyed reading your post.

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