NEUROBIOLOGICAL
DEVELOPMENT AND EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS
When educators say that our
mission is to develop the child’s personality, abilities and mental
and physical capacities to their maximum potential, we are talking
about the global development of a child in all its aspects.
So we will have to direct our actions
towards the development of what we know as multiple intelligences.
This is important because, as all of us know, the appropriate
stimulation from the earliest stages is the main condition to
guarantee the proliferation of synaptic connections, neuronal
links and, as a consequence, intellectual development. We know,
thanks to the research conducted by the Carnegie Foundation in
the USA, that the number of neurons a child has in his first birthday
is a third less than what he had when he was born, and when that
child is two years old he has left only half of the original amount.
This dramatic fact demonstrates the need to properly stimulate
the child from the very moment he is born and, even during his
intrauterine life.
The hereditary and genetic
components determine biophysiological predispositions in the child,
internal potentials linked to the condition of his nervous system,
the quality of his analyzers, the particularities of his higher
nervous activity, the bone & muscle tone and strength, the
internal vegetative activity, the metabolic exchange with the
environment, amongst many factors, that constitute elements that
foster the formation of specific abilities or physical and psychological
characteristics. These features need the setting and the timely
stimulation to become apparent and to allow these predispositions
to become skills that enable their development in all areas of
human behavior.
Children’s interaction with their
parents is what brings about psychological development.
This system of influences has been
created in a conscious and organized way and is expressed through
educational programs that take into account all the particularities
of the children’s nervous system (specially the higher nervous
activities) and the internal conditions of each child to structure
such system to achieve their aims.
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EDUCOMPI
LETRAS
3 years + |
The educational program tries
to develop all the physical and psychological potentialities of
the child; that is, it has to achieve the formation and development
of all the intelligences. To systematize it, it is advisable to
take Gardner’s model, as far as these intelligences are concerned.
According to him there are seven different types of intelligence
(some authors affirm that there are more than 70):
- Linguistic intelligence or capacity to use
words effectively, manipulate the structure and syntax of
the language, as well as its grammar, phonetics, semantics
and its practical dimensions.
- Physical and kinesthetic intelligence, the
ability to use one’s own body to express ideas and feelings
and its features of coordination, dexterity, strength, flexibility,
balance, speed, and tactile.
- Logical and mathematical intelligence, the
capacity to handle effectively numbers, relations, logical
patterns and other similar functions and abstractions.
- Spatial intelligence, is the ability to distinguish
clearly visual and spatial images, to graphically represent
different ideas and to be sensitive to colors, lines, shapes,
the space and its inter relations.
- Musical intelligence, the capacity to perceive,
distinguish, transform and express the rhythm, timbre and
tone of musical sounds.
- Interpersonal intelligence is the capacity
to perceive and distinguish emotional states and interpersonal
signs from others and respond properly to such actions in
a practical way.
- Intrapersonal intelligence is the ability
for self-introspection and the ability to act accordingly
to that knowledge; to have an accurate self-image, and capacity
for self-discipline, understanding and self-esteem.
A well-conceived educational program
must encompass several contents that serve as stimulating experiences
for each one of the different intelligences so that they can be
expressed as much as possible to the level each child can achieve.
From this point of view a good early
childhood educational program has to favor the development of
the linguistic intelligence. This is done using contents related
with the formation and improvement of the mother tongue and with
those promoted by narration, verbal games, listening to tapes,
learning poetry and tales, telling experiences, analyzing sounds
and words, expressing different ideas orally, assessing the language
used by peers, making rhymes and riddles, watching puppet shows,
performing plays and role-plays, in short, all kind of activities
that promote communication, verbal exchanges and speaking and
listening about different subjects.
Logical and mathematical intelligence
is stimulated through contents related to quantitative relations,
mathematical elemental notions, problem solving, formation of
general intellectual abilities such as identification, classification,
comparison, association, serialization, carrying out easy experiments,
mental games, numerical riddles, logical puzzles, among other
activities.
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DO-RE-MI
DOLPHINS
10 month + |
To form spatial intelligence
the program must include contents that promote the presentation
of different facts on images and worksheets, drawings, modeling
and construction with blocks of different sizes, the use of labyrinths
and puzzles, the visualization of illustrated books, videos and
films, color shadings, playing with mosaics of different shapes
and colors, dominoes of geometric shapes, animals and colors,
manipulation and knowledge of the world of objects and its relationships,
practice of spatial relationships (beside, in front of, under,
left, right, near, far...), trips and excursions to natural areas
and art museums, etc.
The contents to develop the physical
and kinesthetic intelligence have to do with making crafts, different
activities that promote movements like jumping, running, climbing,
creeping, holding, that are expressed in physical education and
in independent motor activity, and also more precise hand movements
such as modeling, drawing, constructing, dancing and practicing
corporal expressions, imitation games, games using equipment in
outdoor areas: swings, carrousels, ladders, gymnastic equipment,
climbing ropes, obstacle courses, and all those things that promote
body sensations, physical balance and manual learning.
Musical intelligence is promoted
through contents that stimulate the formation of diverse musical
abilities, such as learning poetry and stories, songs, rhythm,
pulse and accent of musical sounds, listening to music from different
sources: radio, tape recorder, cassettes and CD’s, playing some
easy musical instruments, dancing, expressing movements according
to the music that is being listened to, participating in choirs
and bands, defining environmental sounds, amongst other activities.
To develop interpersonal intelligence
the educational program has to include contents that foster cooperative
and group learning, mutual help and solidarity, table games, role
plays, preparation of materials for parties and festivals, visiting
their community, bringing relevant people to the school to interact
with the children, performing plays, doing easy collective tasks,
such us picking up the toys, cleaning play areas, taking care
of the orchard, helping the staff in the dining room, etc.
In spite of the age of the children
the program has to include actions to develop intrapersonal intelligence;
it can be done by including contents in which the educator has
to imprint feelings on the presentations, analyze games and behaviors,
favor moments for free and independent activities and for occasional
solitary play. It has to offer alternatives to carry out any activity,
asking the child how she has reached a result when finishing that
activity. Another good thing is to summarize experiences that
took place at home or in the school in the previous days, or letting
the children explain personal ones. In short, combined actions
that lay the ground for a self-introspection process in further
stages of development.
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EDU MI PRIMER
KARAOKE
3 years + |
These activities have to be
incorporated into the group of didactic strategies that enable
the educational program to exercise the different intelligences
daily, in order to avoid the "over-stimulation" of some
of them to the detriment of the rest. This can be done in many
different ways: combining the stimulation of some intelligences
through pedagogical activities, organizing some conditions that
allow children to participate freely and independently in the
activity, structuring tasks that favor all the types of intelligence.
Besides, these programs have to promote
contents that promote the formation of ethic rules and values,
patterns of socialization and ways of behaving, habit formation,
moral feelings, inner pleasure in the presence of beautiful natural
and social manifestations and all the behavior and experiences
related to children’s affective-motivational sphere. All these
things are going to influence emotional intelligence and they
are going to impregnate each one of the other intelligences with
an affective component that will lead to a better development
and formation of these intelligences, starting from the criteria
about the narrow link between affective and cognitive factors
in the formation of psychological development.
This link between emotional and intellectual
components in the formation and development of the personality,
in which each cognitive act has an affective one linked to it
an in which each affective sign is made from cognitive elements
that have a casual relationship and interdependence, is nowadays
the newest focus of psychological development. Thus it has to
impregnate any educational action that is lead to the formation
of all those psychological processes and qualities.
In this way, the didactic strategies
of the educational program, conceived from a rational approach
to allow the exercise of all the kinds of intelligence, has to
take into account the fact that most of the biophysiological and
psychological structures of children of this age are in the middle
of a maturation process, so any educational action has an impact
and meaning more important for the development than in any other
moment of their lives, above all in all those functions and qualities
related to those structures. This means that learning situations
that stimulate the formation of all those features have to be
provided in all the possibilities of the development of each one
of the intelligences of children.
Since the very moment in which
one is conscious that each child possesses the different types
of intelligences, the educational program has to balance them
so that all of them are developed equally. It also has to consider
the best moments in which each one of the intelligences can be
developed in a proper way. In this way it has to assess their
sensitive periods; a deep knowledge of child development is necessary
for this, to identify the most opportune moments to exercise the
stimulation.
This coexistence of intelligences
does not involve a similar level of development in each one of
them. The program has to make possible different activities and
contents of similar dimension and importance for all of them,
so that they have the same possibilities to develop. Then, due
to the individual differences of each child, some of the intelligences
will be stronger than the rest, but the program will try to develop
as much as possible all of them, at least up to an appropriate
level. Of course, it is impossible that a child develops up to
the maximum all her intelligences, but the main aim of the program
is to try that they reach a determinate level; this can only be
conceived if the program promotes significant learning experiences
in all the intelligences. Programs that only stimulate intellectual
processes or those that only focus their attention on personal
and affective development, without taking into account the cognitive
aspects, are just on the other side of this theory. Our aim is
to reinforce global educational programs that contemplate all
the lines of development, at the same level of complexity and
methodological emphasis.
So in a program that takes into account
global development, the pedagogical activity related to elemental
mathematical notions is as important as the one related to music
appreciation or the one that concerns physical and motor abilities.
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WILLY SUPER
SABIO BILINGÜE
4 years + |
This implies a conceptual and
methodological reorganization and restructuring of the contents
and activities that currently, as a general rule, are based on
a reinforcement of the methodological time dedicated to the intellectual
area to the detriment of the artistic, kinesthetic or interpersonal
spheres. This is not an easy task because it implies breaking
down some schemes that have characterized the pedagogical approach
of early education during a long period of time.
On the other hand, it cannot be taken
to an extreme: the aim is not splitting the time of activity of
each development area in equal parts, as if it was a birthday
cake, but finding in the bases of the evolutionary development
the most appropriate moments to reinforce the different contents;
it is known that each kind of intelligence (in a close relationship
with their sensorial periods) has its own evolution. It is necessary
to know it to organize an appropriate methodological strategy.
It is for this reason that it is
possible that in some stages of development, some contents related
to one or several kinds of intelligences are methodologically
dealt with more intensively or frequently. Even in this case,
the educational program has to watch over all of them so that
they can be exercised frequently by means of organized pedagogical
activity or with free and independent activities.
A free activity for children is that
in which they decide by themselves what to do, how to do it and
whom they have to do it with. It has to be provided in a way in
which its conditions allow children to exercise all their intelligences,
although pedagogical activities are focused only in some of them,
because there is a correspondence between them and their sensorial
periods or the particular evolution stage.
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KICKING
TELETUBBIES WITH SOUND
6 months + |
In this way, a functional and complex
system has been created in order to develop all the types of intelligence
and in which all of them are related to one another. So when a
child carries out a complex intellectual task, as for example,
building a pyramid with a big number of pieces, he does not only
develop his spatial intelligence but also his motor skills, as
he has to properly insert the different pieces. This stimulates
his physical and kinesthetic intelligences due to the movements
he has to carry out. The child also feels pleasure because he
has successfully completed his creation, and this has an impact
on his self-esteem that, in its turn, reinforces intrapersonal
intelligence and imprints positive feelings toward that activity,
working over his emotional intelligence. If finally the child
is stimulated to talk about what he did to achieve his aim, how
he did it and what elements he used for it, his linguistic intelligence
will also be developed.
So activities, pedagogical or free
ones, can be conceived to promote several intelligences at the
same time. In this way, one intelligence acts over another one,
and all of them entwine with each other in a complex functional
system.
In early education, there are different
ways to exercise each one of the intelligences. In an activity
that tries to promote the musical intelligence there will be children
that learn more songs than some of their mates, and, however,
those children perhaps will be able to learn faster how to play
a simple instrument. The educational program has to take into
account this diversification.
All the children must have opportunities
to learn songs and to learn how to play instruments, although
not all of them will be able to achieve it up to the same level,
and not all of them will have the same skill in both things. This
is deeply related to individual differences, stimulating or negative
experiences, life and educational conditions, amongst other things,
but the program has to be structured to make these things possible
for any child, and the activities must be thought out to reach
a possible level of development, according to the individual characteristics
of the children.
This leads to the relationships between
the brain, the different intelligences and the educational programs:
the social development situation.
The social situation of the development
is a particular combination of internal processes of an individual
and the outer conditions of the environment for each stage of
development. This will condition the dynamics of each stage and
the new functions that take place at the end of each one of them.
Each stage is characterized by a
special combination of life and activity, conditions that act
over some particularities of development and the structures that
are formed due to the influence of those conditions. As a consequence
of this, the psychological development of children requires the
understanding of the conditions that have an influence over them
and the understanding of the things that have been formed previously
in the internal level, through which the influences of these conditions
are reflected.
More clearly: life and educational
conditions by themselves and in a spontaneous way are not able
to determine psychological development, so it is necessary to
consider the psychological proprieties formed before, that now
belong to an internal level, thanks to which the new environmental
influences are reflected. This means that the internal level has
a very important role in each stage of the development of the
child. To understand how the environment has an influence on the
formation of the particularities of the children, according to
their age, we have to take into account not only the changes that
take place in this mean, but also the ones that take place inside
the children. Children’s affective relationship (experiences that
are an internal product) has one of the most important roles as
far as this subject is concerned.
The social situation of development
has a very important repercussion on educational programs and
the formation of the different intelligences, because it shows
how each stage has its own particularity that makes it different
from the other stages, as well as how in each moment of the development
of the children they have a different internal formation of their
psychological processes. It also shows us that it is not possible
to conceive development without taking into account the dialectical
relationship between the internal and the external factors.
Establishing which ones are
the particularities of each stage and to structure the external
influence according to the internal knowledge formed previously
is an indispensable condition to form each one of the intelligences,
their relationships and appropriate exercises.
This way, it is possible to reach
a really scientific focus among the significance of the internal
factors of the development leaving from their material substratum,
the brain, with the external factors that are materialized in
the educational programs. They are led to obtain the maximum achievement
of the children’s physical and psychic potentialities; summing
up, to the emergence, formation and good development of all their
intelligences.
Summarizing, and as general conclusions
of the previously exposed subject, the following more global statements
can be made:
1. The educational programs, to be
truly scientific must consider internal, biological, constitutional,
genetic, inherited factors, particularly those related to the
brain, their structure and operation, and the nervous higher activity
that constitute the material substratum of the formation of the
processes and psychological qualities and that arise as a reflection
of reality.
2. Educational programs constitute
the completed expression of the determining external influences
that are the conditions for human development, in particular the
conditions of life and education where the children’s personality
is formed. In this sense the external factors and the surrounding
means, constitute the main factors in the emergence of the properties
and psychological processes, as an expression of the reflection
of the reality by the individual.
3. Between both factors, the internal
and the external one, there is a dialectical interrelation; one
cannot exist without the other, and both are conditions for the
psychological human development.
4. Educational programs must consider
the social situation of the development in each stage of the children’s
evolutionary development and must be structured starting from
these particularities.
5. Educational programs must have
a global character, so they must try to get the maximum achievement
of the children’s physical potentialities, and consequently, the
formation and good development of all their intelligences.
6. Educational programs, independently
from the theoretical conception that is assumed in their conceptual
and curricular model, require a deep knowledge of the internal
factors of development, of their dialectical interrelation with
the external conditions, and of a pedagogical and methodological
way that is an exact expression of this interrelation.
Therefore, the brain, the intelligence
and the educational programs do not constitute an identity but
a unit that must be conceived in a dialectical way, in which each
one of them has a function to carry out, and where all of them
express human development. They determine the fundamental base
of the formation of children at the initial stage of their life.