A Child-Centred Approach in the Early Years is Essential for Future Success
The big debate in early childhood education today is the ‘push down’ of academics, cheating children from play. Many professionals are concerned about what this means for young children, and for the future of society, as children grow up without the vital learning self-initiated play provides them.
[Sponsored Article]
More time for play
In Hong Kong, we tend to over-fill young children’s schedules with formal, planned lessons to provide children with more learning. However, professionals, such as Peter Gray, suggest we must do the opposite. Supporting and encouraging children’s inborn drive to play and explore gives them the most valuable skills in living and learning. In Give Childhood Back to Children, Gray states, “If we want our offspring to have happy, productive and moral lives, we must allow more time for play, not less.”
Much of education in schools today revolves around what teachers, curriculum programmers, board committees and others decide should be taught. It focuses upon what others deem vital and relevant. Great emphasis is placed on the teaching, while very little thought goes into the actual learning; leaving the student a consumer of education. It also produces a ‘one size fits all’ approach to education that ultimately leaves students passive, with little to no control over their own personal growth.
Equip children for the 21st century
