How Theories Of Education Have Changed Thought The Years

Piaget, Vygotsky, and Erikson are very well known men for their different theories of development. Although each of them believe different things about how a child develops, I believe that a child can go through all of these theories and benefit from them. I also understand that not everyone is the same, and what might be true for someone could be different for someone else. In my own personal experience, I believe I went through and I’m going through all these different stages in theories throughout my life. I also work at a daycare and we use aspects from each of these theories when going about teaching children. The three different theories include: Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, Vygotsky;s sociocultural theory of

Jean Piaget once asked, “Are we forming children who are only capable of learning what is already known?” With there being so many theoriest whose research and ideas have made an impact on early childhood education. Knowing the teoriests and the ideas that they had is vital in the education profession.

There have been many theorists who have opposing views on how and why children behave and how they learn. I will discuss 4 theorists, their theories and how they have influenced and shaped work with children.

     As stated in the first paragraph of this article, “Multicultural education has been transformed, refocused, reconceptualized, and in a constant state of evolution both in theory and in practice.” Multicultural education is always changing. Culture is something that changes on a day-to-day basis. The way our society changes is no one’s hands, but our own.

The theories/approaches established by historical and contemporary pioneers provide valuable insight, underpinning the understanding of how children develop, allowing teachers to enhance the holistic development of every child. This essay will analyse the: behaviourist theory; cognitive-developmental theory; and socio-cultural theory.

There have been many theories on how children develop and learn, some of the theorists who influence the educators of today on how to best teach children.

Children of pre-school age through to adolescence are at the stage were parents begin teaching them

America now is a very culturally diverse nation; most of the minority and immigrant population lives in cities, which indicates that the public school classrooms in urban areas are full of versatile cultural identities. According to the 2000 Census record, minority and immigrant populations has grown in increasing numbers, and most of those people live in urban areas and attend public high schools; also, the level of residential segregation still remains as high as in 1990, which proposes new problems for immigrants and minorities. Monocultural schools are very rare and the global society is very multicultural; it is very logical to prepare students in schools to enter this diverse society (Le Roux 48). Teachers are largely responsible

There is a plethora of child development theories that have a degree of influence over current practice. Each of which both have criticism and contrasting theories.

Education is a very complex and evolving process. Today, teaching entails educating a diverse population according to their unique individual needs. Schools are comprised of individuals with different races, beliefs, cultures, values, languages, social statues, etc. While considering both the historical and preset-day issues, I am able to see many parallels between racial integration in schools and integration of students with disabilities.

During my first semester at Touro College, I took a course on the History and Philosophy of Education and Special Education. Throughout this course, I was introduced to many philosophers and their theories, which helped me to develop a personal educational philosophy that I will implement into my own future classrooms. In our very first class session, we examined the word ‘education’. Education derives from two Latin roots, educare: to bring up, to train, to teach, and educere: to lead forth, to draw forth, to guide. In the world of education today, a child’s success in school is primarily dependant on his or her ability to pass standardized tests; this embodies the concept of educare. Knowledge is passed down from the teacher to the

A multicultural setting is considered to have people who have diverse cultural backgrounds. Therefore it is important to consider a school environment as one of those places that have diverse cultural backgrounds. The role of such institutions is to try and provide equal opportunities to all students so that they can attain their academic potentials and become successful. It is necessary for schools to offer learning experiences to students irrespective of their backgrounds, race, community or customs.

There are still similarities between the early child hood teaching scene and higher grades, they still need inquiry based learning, scaffolded tasks and they still need to work in groups and learn from peers. The differences are, not as much play based learning, Students do become more independent learners so they do not need as much explicit instructions, or help as they have developed enough to do this on their own. Students will change the way they ‘Show what they know’ with more extended writing and more detailed work. Students are all different in the way that they learn it is important to keep learning accessible to students with a diverse range of needs. It is important to keep open-ended tasks so that there is opportunity for all students from all different entry levels. Having the Early Childhood learning framework in place means that our students can have all this in the classroom and be able to have these learning experiences which I think is extremely important.

In the 1990's Multicultural education has started to address the educational guidelines to help society understand there are various ways to express cultural through education. Richard Rothstein found that during the immigration period from 1880 to 1915, few Americans succeeded in school, least of all immigrants; immigrants of all backgrounds did poorly. Instead, it was the children and grandchildren of European immigrants who fared well in school, but the myth that first-generation immigrants "made it," at least in terms of academics, is firmly established in the public psyche. (Nieto & Bode, 2012). At one time Immigrants used public schools just to fit in. Today protesters and other open-minded groups are trying to preserve native cultures. A lot of immigrant’s parents understand children will do well if the native language education protected the culture at home. But others felt their children's integration mandates teaching in English only.

“Known as the “Child Study” movement, the scientific study of child development carried profound consequences for the experience of childhood. It identified a series of sharply differentiated developmental stages, each with its own distinctive characteristics and psychology” (p 188).