Another beginning !

As we stood outside the Early Learning Centre after its dedication on 8th of April, 2014 we were overcome by fulfilment and joy.

Since we started welcoming pre-school children for individual leaning six months back, we were feeling the pressure of space and facilities to make the learning programme optimally beneficial for children.  

That was the time when Susan suggested during our debriefing time that we request the management to allot us a bungalow, meant for the faculty, which was lying vacant for a while. Our request was favourably considered. The house needed modifications and adaptations for making it a child friendly setting. 

It has a compound which has now got converted into a ply area for children with some play equipment, sandpit, water and ball play areas. The seven rooms in the house have been made appropriate for different functions to promote child development. There is a a creative learning area which is rather special and hopefully would expand to include many facilities to connect children with the environment.

I have been touched by the enthusiasm and contribution of my colleagues, medical students, and some volunteers to design, decorate and evolve the facility to what it is now after three months of much effort and perseverance. The financial contributions came form the management, ASHIRVD and some well wishers. 

Anna mentioned the other day that it is the seventh facility of childhood development and learning facility we were enabled to start, since ASHIRVAD came into being in 1983. As we recall these beginnings at Chennai, Nagpur, Vellore, Pondicherry and now at Kolenchery, we feel that, ‘it was the Lord’s doing and it is marvellous in our eyes’.

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)    

Children reflect adult behaviour !

I am fascinated when children perform in the stage. Some do it naturally and some others do so because of persuasion. One thing about it is that they are always original. However one might coach them, they would depart from what they rehearsed while performing publicly. It is spontaneity which cannot be contained. 

I have often wondered about this nature and source of spontaneity which is more commonly visible in children.  They become themselves because they are mostly free of inhibition and fear of consequences. 

But by the time a child is at school, there is a change in this pattern. Some children tend to be withdrawn, show signs of anxiety, behave fearfully and internalise some experiences as threats or disapproval.

The environment of children in the pre-school years consists of adults. We form their acquired behaviour and displace their spontaneity and creativity. Most adults do not recognises the lasting impact of our harsh words, threats, reprimands and punishments on the psyche of children. Instead of gentle creation which would form their conduct and character, what children tend to receive is imposing presence and intimidatory behaviour of adults. 

I remember, seeing a mother call her three years old son and make him sit in her lap and explain to him why he should not push other children while playing foot ball. She took time and spoke to him gently and thoughtfully. When he repeated the same while playing, she continued the same correction process. The mother told me later that it took her three weeks of repeated correction before he behaved amicably even when intimidated by other children. 

My impression is that, children need three affirming inputs from adults: appreciation of all the spontaneous efforts they take to behave well, response to the instruction process about what is desirable and openness to change when corrected. A senior professor under whom I was trained, once told me, 'encourage a child more and you would have less occasions to correct him’.

Children are born with the prospects of innocence, honesty, spontaneity, responsive behaviour, etc. The opposite of these happen because they imitate what they see and hear. Pre-school children conditioned by what adults do or do not do.

M.C.Mathew (photo and text)

Home and School as a continuum !

I have watched this sight of children being escorted to the play school from the bus stop and being taken back to their pick up spot after the school hours. To watch children walking, holding their hands together, in an orderly fashion has set me thinking!

The care giver who helps in this process gently prompts them  and keeps talking to them during this short walk. The children ask questions and she would answer. One question, I heard a child ask her was, ‘Why can’t I stay in the school’! The answer was, 'Nobody would be in the school to look after you in the evening, as I will go home to look after my daughter. An interesting dialogue!

The child enjoys the school and and at the mention of the home, the child was stilled. The child travelled back in his mind to think of the delights at home.

Is it not wonderful to have children who enjoy the school and home alike!

For this to happen, we require a welcoming, child-freindly and caring atmosphere at school. This indeed is not a common feature in many of our schools. The school is a frightening experience for many children. We need a new outlook to schooling- it is to be ‘schole’, which by meaning is a place of leisure! I wish we would shift our focus form teaching to making learning a pleasure!

We need to consider how we set up inclusive homes where children too have equal space, position, recognition and participation in the home. I asked a mother, what does her five year old daughter do when she returns from the school. After kissing her mother, she would have a bath, change her dress, eat her snacks and go to her toy shelf, till it is time for her to go out into the park to play with her friends. A easy and pleasant transition from school to home and home to school!

Any change in the learning methods for children needs to involve looking at the the school and home ambience alike! A happy child at home is usually happy at school; a happy child at school is usually happy at home. Life for a child, is a continuum and we are just different facilitators to offer that experience at home and school!


M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Behaviour education

This picture from my archives, taken two years back at the Pondichery beach came to my mind when a family came to visit me with their two children. One of them was fond of dog and the other was almost fearful.

I remember watching this child about  three years of age, being taken to the beach. For almost half an hour this child would go up to the edge of the water and return. His mother patently led him to the water when he was ready. She stood with him. While the mother and the child got wet in water the father stayed away from the water. I was curious to find our from the father his reason for not wetting his feet in the water. He said, that ‘I am more fearful than my son’. When I said,’ Your son seems to have overcome the fear. You too can!’, he ignored me.

We convey our attitudes, fears, likes and dislikes  behaviourally to our children.

Let me suggest that our children need behaviour education.

Often in the early childhood, behaviours are imitated. We cannot expect our children to do anything differently from what we d as adults! One mother has an ongoing struggle with his three years old son to serve just enough and eat all that he has served. But he would leave some food. In a conversation, when the mother was trying to lead him to a good practice, he told her,'Why are you not helping daddy to eat all the food from his plate’!

All the early childhood habits have an origin in the family. The way we offer behaviour education to pre-school children is to practice them ourselves before we instruct them!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Childhood exploration

Anna and I were on a visit to the rural areas of Pondicherry, just before we were bidding farewell to our two years of  stay in Pondicherry. We stopped at this site to watch the harvesting of paddy. It held our attention as men and women were gathering the paddy and the hay and the cattle were grazing on the harvested field for their fodder.

Another  family too stopped to watch this sight with their two pre-school aged children. The younger one said to her mother: 'I always thought that we got our rice from the super market. Actually it comes from the field'. 

This is the disadvantage which our children of modern times grow up with. They will not ordinarily see a diary farm, agricultural farm, a cycle factory, mango or banana plantations, etc. They would of course be net surfers, computer literate, movie watchers, shopping mall fans....

Our children can grow up benefiting from the advances in technology and information processing. But they can be oblivious of realities of life and the milieu of the 'other' India where people live differently.

A family friend is engaged in arranging visits of school going students from Europe to visit India during winter months to spend about one month in a rural school, to give the expatriate students an experience of another context and setting, where their counter parts grow up. Some of these students come back later to spend longer time in rural India as volunteers in the schools. They value this learning experience. For some of them, it has been a valuable transforming experience. 

Children need a wider exposure to realities of life  and opportunities of learning first hand. A family friend mentioned to me that their children, when give a choice would prefer to visit a children's home, where socially disadvantaged children are looked after, rather than go to an amusement park in the shopping mall. 

I wish more and more families would offer a holistic formative education to their children!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

A Climbing frame for body kinesthetics

A climbing frame is one play facility most pre-school children will look for in a park. It has some special features that make childhood play stimulating.

From the time a child is able to stand, which is around ten to twelve months, children are trying to climb. Every height they can reach, they attempt to climb, although some such attempts end up in injury.

Why this instinct of climbing in pre-school children! Most of the household items such as cupboards, tables, shelves, electricity switches, door and window handles, etc. are above the reach of children. Children at this age are fascinated by things which they see placed on surfaces or places they cannot reach normally. They are driven by curiosity and like to explore things.  Children at this age watch adults climb on a ladder or a side board to access what is kept on a loft. Adults normally keep attractive things which they do not want children to access on their own at a height. This itself is a stimulus for a child to reach them. They do not have an adequate three dimensional view because of which they cannot judge the height correctly. They often underestimate the height.

It is important to offer children practices to climb. They would climb anyway, how much ever we forbid them from doing it. So it is necessary to give them exercises in climbing. In fact Professor Howard Gardener, in his proposal of Multiple Intelligences included Kinesthetic intelligence as one f the dimensions of intelligence.

The climbing frames are often placed over padded surfaces or over sand or grass to protect children from injury when they fall. The distance between the bars are not more than one foot. They have rounded rods, which are smooth at the corners to prevent injury to the hand. The structure is often connected in the centre with bars to all the four sides to facilitate movement between bars and the different sides. It is often painted with led free paint in different colors. It is only five feet tall when used for pre-school children. In child friendly parks, usually this climbing frame will be under surveillance to protect children.

Let me suggest that a temporary climbing frame made with bamboo is an ideal substitute, which can be properly grounded in the soil. I have come across references which suggest that children who take to climbing frame, may have an inclination for gymnastics.

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Messy play- only a passing phase

This sight is one of the regular happenings in any home when children are between 9 months and 24 months of age. Children like exploring, want to feel, move, throw, manipulate and know how each toy functions. They scatter the toys all around and the house looks unkept. The building blocks, stacking rings, pieces of puzzles are often all over the house. This can be annoying. Some of the toys would get damaged while manipulating or by rough handling.

However, every child will need to go through this as a  part of their cognitive and beahvioural developmental sequences. It is important that we 'tolerate' and support this phase rather than get annoyed with them or keep toys inaccessible to them or deprive them of the experience of learning by exploring.  

Let me suggest some good practices to let them go through this phase,  enjoying with them and sharing their sense of discovery. Have about six to ten toys placed in a place, which they can access any time they want. Join with a child when ever possible, when he or she is ready to play to demonstrate the function of each toy and how a chid can play with it in different ways. Try converting it into a time of 'hide and seek', and turn taking play while playing with stacking rings, etc. This is the way to take the child forward in his or her play development to parallel play. When the child moves away from wanting to play, try putting back the toys in the shelf. Often the child will also join in to do what the adult does. It may be good to be available to attend to the child when he or she is ready to play again. It provides the child a social setting to play interactively which is what they are looking for. In fact some children throw or bang toys to draw attention of adults.

Taking away toys from them because they have damaged a few is not a wise step. Giving them toys to play only when adults are around is also not good enough. What is advisable is to take away all the toys that a chid was playing with for a week and replace them with another set. This recycling keeps the child interested due to the newness that he or she would find when given another set of toys. Usually if a family has three or four sets of toys and introduce one new set each week, most children would stay engaged.

What children at this age would normally need is a corner in the house, which is theirs, just as adults and others have their corners. When adults use, TV, Computer, mobile phones, etc. for their needs, children need toys for their occupation. Children are most fascinated by toys which their parents can make with tooth paste cartons, empty non breakable containers, paper boards, etc. In fact when they are given an opportunity to make them, it is even better. Yu would be surprised to notice that  the toys which they have helped parents to make are their favorite ones.

This messy play is a passing phase. It is necessary. We can make it easier by recognizing its seminal value.   

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)