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Sunday 21 December 2014

Child perspective and child's perspective

 Just a few lines on this...

There is a difference between a child perspective and a child's perspective - and as educators of children it is something we need to be aware of...





How are we doing things based on our knowledge of children and adapting what we do for their needs and how much are we actually taking the time to find out what their  perspective of all of this is?
I think many tend to forget to take the time to really listen and hear the opinions of the children and take them into genuine consideration when planning preschool activities. Much of what is done is based on adult knowledge of children.

I am in no way suggesting that we only listen to the children, but it does need to be a balance. We need our adult interpretations of childhood, of play of imagination and learning... we also need to listen to the children's perspective of all of these things too.


What consitutes a ‘child perspective’, and how this might differ from the perspectives of children themselves is an imaportant question. The answers have important implications for building progressive and developmental adult-child relationships. How we respeond to children's perspecyives does not seem to be universal and there is little written about how this can/should be done.




To re-cap...

child perspective is the adult interpretation of what is best for the child/ren...
while child's perspective represents the child's experience, thoughts, feelings, perceptions and understanding of their world.
It is the distinction between the knowledge of children or from children... the latter requiring the children participation and interactions with the adults, the former recquiring observation.

So how much are you listening, responding and acting upon the children's perspective and how much is your own child-perspective? How is your balance?
Take the time to reflect and see if you want to make an adjustment to that... why and how... or if you feel you have the balance right...


would love it if you could share your thoughts and process in the comments...


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