Blog #1

 What is your understanding of the Conservation of Mass and what social theory of childhood does that fall under?

The Conservation of Mass falls under Piaget's social theory. Piaget believed there are stages people go through as they make sense of the world around them. He believed these stages began as young as when a person is born. The Conservation of Mass experiment proves these stages. When I was in my undergrad, I completed a series of experiments to test Piaget's theory. I found that there are different stages of development. Students who were in age group of 3-5 had a difficult time understanding the concept of mass when compared to students 7-9 or even older. The series of experiments allowed me to see how children understand things differently at different ages. 

What researcher thus far shares your perspective on child development. Explain.

I believe I side more with Vygotsky's perspective of child development. Vygotsky believed children learned best from the world around them. They learn from their experiences and the people they are surrounded by on a daily basis. In chapter two of the text, Corsaro talks about Vygotsky's view of language development and the zone of proximal development. Since I teach first grade and learning to read is a big part of what I teach, I tend to use the zone of proximal development. I focus on where the students came from, where they are currently, and where they need to be in the future. I try to build lessons around this idea by using group work and guided reading in my instructions. I use differentiated lessons to help struggling reading, but also push high readers to understanding comprehension questions and applying vocabulary skills. 

In chapter 2 the author writes of the institutionalization of childhood. What is meant by this? Reflect on this in regard to your own childhood and the childhood of children today (you can describe your own children, school age children, nieces/nephews, etc…)

Institutionalization of childhood is when there are so many planned events in a child's life that the idea of "regular play" or "free play" does not exist. I feel like teachers in the younger grades see this more and more. Children have a hard time just free playing without structure or rules, because they are surrounded by so much structure and rules. They have a limited amount of time to construct and think on their own, because they haven't been allowed the time to learn how to do this. I was just talking with a colleague about this the other day. I believe we are pushing our younger kids too early to have scheduled lifestyle that leaves little room for adventure and play. Although I am a very scheduled person and want to make the most out of my time, the times I have allowed my students to have a little down time and "play" has been so rewarding to me as a teacher. I get to see their personalities come out and even some problem solving skills. I let my kids (students) play with playdough last week. I told them to create anything they wanted to out of the playdough. I was amazed at some of their creations. Some of even asked to work together to create something more extravagant. I'm not a mom yet, so I cannot speak from a personal level of my own children. I believe structured sports are great, but I also think we need to remember to explain the "fun" part, and remove some of the stress part for the kids.