Going To School

 

The Institute for Personality and Ability Testing has certified Robert Fettgather as a Stress Management Trainer, and Medical Hypnosis Seminars of the Los Gatos Institute has certified him in Clinical Hypnotherapy. At Santa Clara University, Graduate Department of Education and Counseling Psychology, Robert Fettgather's studies included Health Education and Behavioral Medicine. Moreover, Robert Fettgather has completed Hospice Training with Hospice of the Valley.

In some parts of the world, students are going to school every day. It’s their normal life. But in other parts of the world, we are starving for education…it’s like a precious gift. It’s like a diamond. – Malala Yousafzai

Here we will consider the school aged child (middle childhood). Development in middle childhood, ages 6 to 12, is marked by major physical changes, including those in the brain.  As you might suspect, cognitive advances also occur in these years, and the patterns and habits established during this time affect not only adolescent experiences but also adulthood. That means that what happened to us then, is affecting us now! 

Besides our family, our school experience may be the most significant influence of the period. Formal education affects development.  And a variety of factors we will review—such as learning disabilities, attention problems, language proficiency, sex, race, and culture—can shape academic achievement. That last point, culture, should be emphasized. Citizens of the United States generally value achievement and success. This is evident in the attention paid to job promotions, fame, and grades in school. These are all examples of our individualistic culture. In contrast collectivist cultures embrace group oriented values. 

I appreciate the sentiments of the quote by Malala Yousafzai who defied the Taliban in Pakistan and demanded that girls be allowed to obtain an education. She was shot in the head by a Taliban shooter but survived. In 2014, she became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. We might contrast her attitudes about the “precious gift” of education against our own. 

Reflection Point: Think about yourself at 6-12 years off age: first grade through sixth grade. What dramatic changes there are from a first grader to a sixth grader! What were your attitudes about school, then and now?

Language informs and is informed by school experiences. Language development continues at an astonishing rate with vocabulary growth, improvements in grammar, and an understanding of the social uses of language. Between the ages of 6 and 12 children add between 5,000 and 10,000 words to their vocabulary! The school-aged child discovers or develops a set of immensely powerful schemes for the relations among objects.  Piaget called this stage concrete operations that focuses on reversibility, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and serial ordering. Conservation of liquid and mass are typically mastered by 6-7 years of age.