What children really remember!

Vera Joffe, Ph.D.
(vjphdcr)
Copyright © 2001-present. All rights reserved.

What children really remember!

Dear Readers,

A few months ago, I went to visit a friend’s child in a Preschool in Dade County. That was a very special preschool where they combined all kinds of learning experiences and skills into one theme every couple of months. The theme that I witnessed was Egypt. When I walked in the preschool, I saw the walls covered with pictures of Egypt, and there were actually models of pyramids around the room. During Language class, I learned about hieroglyphics, and later on I learned about the pharaoh’s, the kings, and other elements of Egypt.

The children learned new concepts of Math using Egypt “money”, and they learned about history, and language, and the alphabet. They made pictures, sang songs about Egypt, and in that way learned about that very important civilization.

I wish I had gone to a preschool like the one my friend’s son attends! I learned history, geography, and other elements of civilizations in such a traditional, noncreative way!

A week after my visit to the Preschool, I went to my friend’s house for dinner. I talked to his son (who is going to Kindergarten next September) about how impressed I was with his class, and with his school. I asked him to tell me about Egypt, and to sing the songs that I had learned that day. He looked at me, and said he did not remember. After dinner, we were making pictures, and I saw him making pictures of a character that I was not familiar with: It was from a cartoon and a video game that he had played for several hours during last week while at home, and in the car.

I asked my little 5-year old friend about the character, and he spent more than ten minutes telling me about the character, his powers, what he did, who was weaker than him, who was stronger than him, and who he was going to kill… My little friend knew so much about that character, and he had so much emotion talking about his favorite cartoon figure that I was shocked.

I talked to my friend later on that evening while we washed the dishes after having a very nice dinner. He told me that he did know that his son was “studying” Egypt in school, and that they had a “singing along presentation about Egypt” for the parents. However, whenever his son had an opportunity, he would pick up the Game Boy, or turn on the television, and watch his favorite cartoon. I was stunned again! How much competition can a wonderful school provide to the Game Boy?

There is something about television and computer games that really catch children’s attention so much more than other activities that they participate in school, or in their daily lives. Thus, there is so much need to monitor your young children’s exposure to those “devises”. How much time do your children spend playing with fictitious characters that fight, kill, get killed, and then are alive again? How much time do they spend playing games that change all the time, instead of doing something more creative, more open-ended that actually will teach them something new? And there is recommendation from the American Academy of Pediatrics to limit the exposure to any “screen time” (including television, computer, game boy, and similar toys) to up to one hour a day (for school age children, even less for preschoolers).

Please, make sure that you modulate your children’s activities to allow for creativity, expression, open-ended situations for learning and for enjoying being together.

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