Cycle One: The Culture of Childhood

Before reading the articles I took some time to reflect upon my childhood.  I grew up on the east side of Traverse City, MI in a small neighborhood with many other children. The neighborhood had a shared beach access to East Bay and was surrounded by woods and orchards.  My summers were spent biking around the neighborhood and woods, playing at the beach, staying up late into the night playing flashlight tag with all of the neighbor kids, making tube runs in the snow at the sledding hill, and playing football at the neighbor’s vacant lot. Other than the days spent at the beach I don’t remember having parents in sight while playing around the neighborhood with my friends.  I have often thought about my upbringing compared to how I see children raised today, and it seems that children now spend a great deal of time in front of a screen or if they are playing with friends it is on a pre-arranged “play-date.”  In the Rosin article, I was able to view child-play from a parent viewpoint (although I do not have children of my own, yet).  Rosin discusses how the current generation of parents feels the world is more dangerous and raise their children according to this fear.  Rosin asks an important question about the change in the upbringing of children that has been instilled by fear when he stated, “Maybe a real question is, how did these fears come to have such a hold over us? And what have our children lost- and gained- as we’ve succumbed to them?” (Rosin 78).  As much as I loved my childhood and the freedom to play that I was given, I, too, feel I have been instilled with fear and worry about the dangers that kids can face when unsupervised, whether it be strangers or injury, and I know I will be anxious about both when I have children of my own.  But, after reading this article, I am really left thinking about the importance of unsupervised play among children.  Rosin also states that “adults have come to the mistaken view that children must somehow be sheltered from all risks of injury.  In the real world life is full of risks and reasonable risks are essential for children’s healthy development (Rosin 80).  We do not live in a bubble, so I believe children should be exposed to the consequences of risks they take, such as when the boy put a cardboard box in the fire and smoke instantly fills the air and burned the children’s eyes.  This was considered a “natural consequence” and was a true learning experience for these children.  Someone could verbalize over and over that smoke will fill the air when the cardboard is placed in the fire, but the children needed to see for themselves and in turn learned a lesson about fire and smoke.

            The Tobin article allowed me to look at play and social interactions from an educator’s standpoint. First, I was very surprised by how much of a preschoolers day is comprised of playtime in the Japanese schools.  In the United States, preschool is viewed as an early intervention for children’s academic success.  The Perry Preschool Project, which took place in the US, is one study that shows the benefits of early intervention, especially for at-risk children. This study looked at the long-term effects of children in a high-quality preschool program versus children who did not attend preschool.  Unlike the United States “the main reason children in contemporary Japan need preschool is to have opportunities to experience a level of social complexity lacking at home.  Adult intervention interferes with this complexity” (Tobin 109).  The Japanese preschools were very focused on play and allowing children authentic socialization experiences.  Many teachers did not intervene when children argued or even fought and allowed them to problem solve on their own. “The reasoning behind the noninterventionist strategy is to give children ample opportunities to deal with social complex situations including arguments and fights” (Tobin 133).  I feel the Japanese preschools have some very great points about their ideals on developing children socially.  I feel adults too often intervene and don’t allow children to think for themselves and problem solve on their own.  The real-world is full of problems and as adults we need to know how to solve those problems, for the most part, on our own.
        After reading the articles I am left thinking about best practices for child development.  I feel that the Japanese preschool program does a nice job of incorporating play and allowing children authentic interactions among their peers to aide in social development.  When I think about United States preschool programs I think a lot of emphasis has been placed on the academics, and we sometimes forget that these are three year old children and need unstructured play time to develop a sense of self. 

References

Hanna Rosin (2014, April). Hey! Parents, Leave Those Kids Alone. The Atlantic, 313(3), 75-86.

Joseph Tobin, Yeh Hsueh, & Mayumi Karasawa. (2009). Preschool in Three Cultures Revisited: China, Japan, and the United States (Ch. 3). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.