Children's Reflections Research Articles

“Not All Performing Is Acting”1: Models of Theatre as Research in Contemporary Theatre for Young Audiences

This article examines three models of theatre as research in the field of theatre for young audiences (TYA). What different models of researching theatre are there? With the first model, I introduce and discuss theatre as a critical reflection of rationalistic concepts of knowledge. Under the term “artistic research,” advanced arts meet with “kulturelle Bildung” (“cultural education”) in a common critique of, and in distinction from, traditional educational institutions. Theatre as research like I present it with the second model does not take for granted any agreement about the concept of theatre. Instead, it displays theatre as an art form that is deeply bound to specific cultural and historical contexts. Within the third model of theatre as research in TYA, the object of research is children's reflection of their social environments and their urban setting. To offer a broadened concept of theatre means literally to open the theatre and enter the public space. The theatre becomes a laboratory and experiment as it inquires, irritates, and redesigns social conditions with artistic strategies.

Making Learning Visible

ABSTRACTAlmost two million children in more than 40 countries around the world have received a One Laptop per Child (OLPC) XO netbook computer. These netbooks represent the commitment of politicians, community leaders, and educators to implement disruptive, large‐scale education reform initiatives that will advance their countries into the 21st century and prepare their children for interconnected, global, creative, and knowledge economies. Expectations for the success of these initiatives are high, and local stakeholders as well as numerous international organizations look to these experiments with cautious optimism. These programs hold the promise to expand the learning and creative potentials of broad populations. As such, arguably, one of the greatest challenges facing these initiatives is designing and implementing mechanisms that help make the outcomes visible, understandable, and actionable by all audiences. In this article, we discuss initiatives being developed by OLPC at different levels of scale: at the meta level to understand impact across nations and learn about the emerging developments in the different programs; at the mezzo level to allow stakeholders to understand the development of the program in their countries and their schools; and at the micro level to help teachers and students understand emerging learning by children over a given period of time. We present some examples of student work to illustrate how some children are making creative contributions to OLPC.Inspired in the collaboration and work by Project Zero and Reggio Children, this article was given the name “Making Learning Visible.” Beyond the title, the work presented in this article recognizes the child both as an individual and a group learner; recognizes the acts as well as the products of learning; and above all, values the children's reflections and approaches to make their learning visible.

Children's basic knowledge and activities for dengue problem solution: an islamic religious school, Southern Thailand

ObjectiveTo develop children's basic knowledge and activities to solve the dengue problem, and to evaluate the results from children's activities. MethodsParticipatory Action Research (PAR) was applied in five steps: 1) preparation step; 2) assessment step; 3) children's activities planning step; 4) implementation step; 5) evaluation step. Basic knowledge of dengue was evaluated by questionnaires (17 items) and analysis pre and post-activities by a Chi-square statistic test. The children's understanding of the dengue problem was evaluated by drawing pictures and participation of children's activities. Larval Indices (BI, HI, and CI) were ratio analysis which related dengue outbreak measurement. ResultsThree groups for children’ activities were: 1) group leaders (13 children); 2) general children; 3) a support group from the community. “Education of dengue learning”, “dengue prevention campaign”, and “the recycle garbage bank” were core children's activities. Most children's knowledge question items showed an increase from pre-activities to post-activities, and a half of all questions items were statistically significantly different (P<0.05). There were five categories of children's reflection from the drawn picture that showed understanding of the solution to dengue problems and methods for eliminating sites of mosquito breeding in the community. Their households had increased garbage management, and thus decreased numbers of mosquito breeding types such as larval indices (BI, HI, and CI) which decreased from before the activities (93, 30, and 14) to after them (7, 5, and 1). Furthermore, no instances of dengue morbidity or the mortality rate occurred during the study. ConclusionsAlthough there was an increase in the children's knowledge and activities, and a decrease in larval indices ratio, the high risk of a dengue epidemic might be found because the ratios of larval indices were based on community's behaviors. Thus, it is essential for children and all stakeholders in and out of the community needed to better combat the dengue problem.

Children’s Voices: Children’s Perspectives in Ethics, Theology and Religious Education (review)

This book deals with themes concerning religious education and the spirituality of children. Throughout the seventeen chapters, the book stimulates a scholarly discussion about children and theology. The book makes clear that classical Christian theology can benefit from taking seriously children's voices and reflections about children. The volume demonstrates how nuanced and interdisciplinary reflections can be relevant for Christian and social practices of adults with children and how these practices can influence theology. This volume asks the following questions: - Why is it important that we hear the 'voices of children' and what does this mean for how we treat children and relate to them? - What do the 'voices of children' express? How do children experience society and, in particular, religion, and what do they have to say about it? - What do the 'voices of children' mean for theology, ethics and religious education? In what way can our theology change when we see reality from the perspective of children? This book consists of five parts. In the first part the reader receives an overview of the current challenges concerning children and spirituality. The two chapters of this part offer an introduction to contemporary thinking about children, theology and spirituality and the place of 'children's voices' within this scope. The second part refers to biblical sources for contemporary theological reflection on children. The third part contains pedagogical and ethical reflections on children, as well as a view from practical theology about children in the world and the responsibility of churches. This third part looks mainly at children in relation to society, both in the past and in the present. The fourth part focuses on children living in the family, which is seen as a domestic church. The fifth part takes up the theme of children's spirituality again, showing children's own spiritual reflection and ways of theologizing with children in church and family contexts, by communication, literature and all forms of religious education and/or catechesis.

The Potential Benefits of Mindfulness Training in Early Childhood: A Developmental Social Cognitive Neuroscience Perspective

AbstractEarly childhood is marked by substantial development in the self‐regulatory skills supporting school readiness and socioemotional competence. Evidence from developmental social cognitive neuroscience suggests that these skills develop as a function of changes in a dynamic interaction between more top‐down (controlled) regulatory processes and more bottom‐up (automatic) influences on behavior. Mindfulness training—using age‐appropriate activities to exercise children's reflection on their moment‐to‐moment experiences—may support the development of self‐regulation by targeting top‐down processes while lessening bottom‐up influences (such as anxiety, stress, curiosity) to create conditions conducive to reflection, both during problem solving and in more playful, exploratory ways.

An Emerging Framework for School Design Based on Children's Voices

This paper explores the views and expectations of children regarding their school environments and has constructed a framework for the school design process based on children's information and reflections. The research objectives required analyzing secondary data, as well as qualitative and quantitative empirical studies—each one leading to the next. The issues raised by children about school design emerged through an analysis of three previous studies in the UK. The empirical study involved 260 children (11-12 years old) in two secondary schools in England. The findings highlight the importance children attribute to various issues. The overall findings have been developed as a school design framework to guide the design and decision-making processes of architects and designers.

Aortic pressure wave reflection in children

Aortic pressure wave reflection is one of the risk factors for developing cardiovascular disease in adults, and the degree of pressure wave reflection increases with aging. However, enhanced pressure wave reflection has also been reported in infants and children. The purpose of this study was to clarify pressure wave reflection during childhood and to determine the reference for the augmentation index, which is one of the most useful parameters used to represent the degree of aortic pressure wave reflection in children. This study enrolled 72 patients with normal aortic circulation. The aortic pressure waveform was recorded using a pressure sensor-mounted catheter, and the augmentation index was thus calculated. The augmentation index tended to decrease with increasing age until around 15 years of age and then increased thereafter. For children below 15 years of age, multiple regression analysis revealed a significant negative correlation between body height and augmentation index. In children, increases in aortic pressure wave reflection are probably attributable to changes in body height.

Primary school children's reflections on Physical Education lessons: An attributional analysis and possible implications for teacher action

The thoughts and feelings of preadolescent children attending three primary schools in the West of England about reasons for doing well or not doing well in Physical Education lessons were explored by means of an open-ended set of questions drawn from attribution theory. A further aim was to seek suggestions from the children of ways in which Physical Education (PE) lessons could be improved and refer these to the attention of teachers. Striking differences were found in the attitudes and attributions of girls and boys, with the latter more likely than the former to identify success in terms of some form of physical demonstration of ability. Whilst both sexes identified a positive attitude as associated with success, boys were more likely to look for signs of health or physical fitness, whereas girls were more impressed by effort and evidence of a learning orientation. These attributions held also for perceived lack of success. However, the notion of effort itself seems likely to hold different meanings for boys and girls. Although lesson enjoyment was seen by a significant number of children as a key factor leading to success, the pupils, on the whole, tended to attribute both success and failure to internal, changeable, controllable factors.

Children's Early Reflections on Improvised Music-making as the Wellspring of Musico-philosophical Thinking

Panagiotis Kanellopoulos explores children's talk about musical thinking through the study of their reflections on their own improvised music. He accepts the possibility that children's discourse on music is the beginning of their philosophizing about music, an idea that is related to the larger issue of how to develop a music education perspective that gives voice to the learners and welcomes experimentation, constantly questioning the assumptions we bring as music educators. Based on particular examples of discussions with eight-year old children he explores the development of their discourse, interpreting the meaning of their thinking, and illustrating how they put forward issues that although they begin from concrete particulars point to issues usually confined to abstract philosophical concerns. Children's reflective potential as well as their particular views has important educational implications. Discussions with the children about their work highlight interpretation and meaning-formation at the center of their experience as artists. And musical improvisation emerges as a source of genuine musical experiences and a core means for the creation of communities of practice, dialogue, and reflection.

Children's reflections on corporal punishment

Although widely applied, physical punishment of children (i.e. corporal punishment) is the most dubious approach to discipline. The definition was proposed by Straus who considered corporal punishment to be ‘the use of physical force with the intention of causing a child to experience pain but not injury for the purposes of correction or control of the child’s behaviour’. Corporal punishment in those terms is deeply embedded in society. The only reported common and unique advantage of corporal punishment is a child’s immediate compliance. On the other hand, it is associated with vast diverse and hard to estimate negative effects. The role of preventing future repetition of physical punishment is highly speculatve. Corporal punishment is related to increased occurrence of social and psychological development aberrations. Furthermore, excessive corporal punishment during childhood is considered to predispose children to physically abuse as adults.

Career Development in Middle Childhood: A Qualitative Inquiry

The purpose of this investigation was to explore childhood career development by examining 4th‐ and 5th‐grade students' career and self‐awareness, exploration, and career planning. Responses to written assignments provided qualitative data for analysis. Written narrative data were analyzed using consensual qualitative research methods as described by C. E. Hill, B. J. Thompson, and E. N. Williams (1997). Consistent with theory (D. Super, 1990), children's reflections on prominent career tasks and influences revealed 8 of the 9 (all but curiosity) dimensions of childhood career development as outlined by Super. In addition, participants described their conceptions of work, a domain not explicitly articulated by Super and worthy of further inquiry.

Scaffolding Young Children's Reflections With Student-Created PowerPoint Presentations

This study investigated young children's reflections about their learning experiences through Student-Created PowerPoint Presentations (SCPP). The study was conducted in a K/1 classroom in a university-affiliated school while the children completed a project titled “Who Measures What in Our Neighborhood?” The participants were 14 children (five girls and nine boys) and the teaching assistant, who facilitated the SCPP. Qualitative methods were used in the inquiry. The main data sources were videos of the SCPP sessions, interviews with the teaching assistant, and the children's SCPP presentations. Microanalysis was applied to the videos and presentations. The results indicated that SCPP effectively supported and facilitated young children's reflections. The levels and patterns of reflection were not related to gender but were closely related to age. SCPP provided the context for reflection in a communicative form, venues for different learning needs, a means for evaluating students' learning, and a medium for creating shared experiences and meanings. These young children also learned and practiced computer skills in an authentic context. The analysis indicated that three aspects of SCPP directly promoted students' reflections: the semi-structured presentation form, teacher-assisted individual sessions, and the use of the project curriculum. Some practical suggestions on scaffolding children's reflections through SCPP are made.

PUPPET: playing and learning in a virtual world

When a child is engaged in improvisational play, representations of the activity are transient. Thus, to reflect on or change what has been done requires great effort of memory. This paper argues that by recording aspects of children's activity while they are engaged in improvisational play, virtual environments can provide powerful tools to support children's reflection about aspects of narrative. A virtual environment called PUPPET is introduced, which aims to allow children to engage in playful interaction with autonomous agents, while recording dialogue for the characters in the world. An evaluation of the PUPPET system suggests that children found the environment to be a motivating and engaging one. Furthermore, recording and editing dialogue for the characters in the world was found to be successful in eliciting reflective thought and discussion between the children.

Fostering young children's representation, planning, and reflection: A focus in three current early childhood models

Many educators and developmental psychologists have pointed to the development of symbolic thought and representational abilities as a set of fundamental capacities that underlie the development of self-regulation, problem solving, planning, and higher level thought processes. While many early childhood programs value children's development of symbolic capacities, three approaches, High/Scope, Tools of the Mind, and Reggio Emilia, were analyzed in terms of one context from the array of strategies and experiences that characterizes the approach in order to examine the distinctive way that three different preschool programs apply the theoretical construct of representational development to pedagogical strategies.

Renal transplantation: long-term adaptation and the children's own reflections.

Twenty children, 9-19 yr of age, having undergone renal transplantation, were interviewed (according to a semi-structured inquiry manual) with the aim of investigating their emotional and psychosocial adaptation. The children reported about a rather unaffected life considering the circumstances. Few of them described a negative identity in the form of feeling sick or different, and their experienced limitations appeared to be moderate. Anxiety about the future was more salient, but nevertheless the children seemed to have found a good way of living with this anxiety. When comments were made on the relationship to the donor, they were of a positive character; the relationship had been improved by the donation. Only one child - who had received a kidney from a deceased person - described fantasies of the alien kidney of a markedly unpleasant character. The psychological adaptation of the children frequently seemed to imply the use of potentially dysfunctional defense mechanisms like denial and avoidance.

Birth weight impacts on wave reflections in children and adolescents.

The objective of the present study was to assess central aortic pressure and wave reflection in children and adolescents at different birth weights. Two hundred nineteen healthy children (126 girls), from 7 to 18 years of age (mean, 11.3 years) and born at term after a normotensive pregnancy, were included. The subjects were divided according to birth weight: <2.5 kg, from 2.5 to 2.999 kg, from 3.0 to 3.5 kg, and >3.5 kg. Pressure waveforms were recorded from the radial artery of the wrist, and the waveform data were then processed by the SphygmoCor radial/aortic transform software module to produce the estimated aortic pressure waveform. Augmentation index, an estimate of the pulse wave reflection, was significantly higher in children with the lowest birth weights compared with the other birth weight groups. In a multiple regression analysis, short stature, low heart rate, female gender, and lower birth weight had independent significant inverse correlations to the augmentation index when adjusted for diastolic blood pressure (R2=0.21). In summary, the results showed a relatively aged phenotype of large-vessel function in the children with the lowest birth weights. These early alterations may be amplified throughout life and may contribute to the increased cardiovascular risk associated with low birth weight.

Gender Style as Form and Content: An Examination of Gender Stereotypes in the Subject Preference of Children's Drawing

Gender-preferred characteristics have been, for the past century, a consistent focus in the study of children's artistic development. However, many of these studies have neglected to interpret data in the context of gender stereotyped content, and this has led to biased assumptions about gender difference in children's drawing. For instance, Kerschensteiner concluded in 1905 that boys' drawing abilities were superior to those of girls. He drew this conclusion based on his analysis of children's ability to render spatial relationships, yet he failed to take into account the different social interests (i.e., fights or flowers) in the drawings of boys and girls, themes that, if examined, might have lead him to different conclusions. Another study that highlights some of the problems concerning research assumptions about gender and the analysis of data is Goodenough's research (1926) on children's drawings of the human figure. Goodenough claimed that elementary school-aged girls are more advanced than boys in their ability to represent the human figure in detail and proportion. While this finding was confirmed by American, English, and Danish investigators in later years (Cox, 1993; Harris, 1963; Koppitz, 1968; Mortensen, 1991; Papadakis, 1989; Willsdon, 1977)), questions are still raised as to whether these abilities stem from biological or psycho-cultural differences in the development of boys and girls. Recent research also argues against Goodenough's findings (Scott, 1981). Had these studies focused on elements of figure gesture drawing other than detail and proportion (elements traditionally associated with girls' drawing), these studies might have concluded that boys' drawings were superior. These examples of past research studies that have used inconsistent criteria for judging and interpreting gender differences in children's drawings are not untypical. More recent investigators have turned their attention away from questions of 'superiority' and 'inferiority' and have begun examining the more subtle nuances of the relationship between gender and style. Research studies agree that girls possess a marked interest in rendering the human figure as an embellished, well-proportioned, portrait often surrounded by a balanced, realistic, natural or domestic environment (Koppitz, 1968; Machover, 1960; Cox, 1979; Majewski, 1978; McNiff, 1981). A masculine approach to the figure has been described as individual, spontaneous, and animated (Burt, 1921; Machover, 1949; Harris, 1963; Koppitz, 1968; Majewski, 1978; Mortensen, 1991). Humans and the environment appear less important to record in detail, as boys have been found to prefer to document figures in imaginary episodes of conflict, humor, fantasy, and action with warriors, monsters, armies, and machines (Duncum, 1989; Feinburg, 1973, 1976, 1979; Lindstrom, 1957; Lark-Horovitz et al., 1967; McCarty, 1924; McNiff, 1981; Wilson W Flannery & Watson 1995). Flannery and Watson argue that boys' drawing content reflects a socialized interest in fantasy and violence that extends beyond their everyday life experience, whereas girls' drawing content appears to be more realistic and tranquil and to relate to their everyday experience. Duncum (1986) suggests gendered content is a reflection of children's developmental preoccupations, as they are challenged to conform to social models. Research has also considered the notion that favored engendered content domains may foster favored tendencies in characteristics. Feinburg (1976) was the first to find that when boys and girls were asked to draw pictures in response to the words fighting and helping, girls portrayed fighting in terms of emotional conflict between friends or family, and helping in terms of personal assistance or care for someone they knew. By contrast, boys portrayed fighting as an indirect aggressive action between violent armies, fantasy creatures and teams, and helping as a hands-on contribution to a production task such as building a skyscraper or constructing a bridge. …

Bilingual Children's Reflections on Writing and Diglossia

This investigation of the development of metalinguistic consciousness examines bilingual children's perceptions of language contact in a situation of marked social imbalance between their first and second languages. Forty-five Spanish/Nahuatl bilinguals (Central Mexico) were assessed on a series of language awareness tests and sociolinguistic interviews. The exploratory investigation focused on how school-age bilinguals view written forms in Spanish and Nahuatl; the former associated with literacy learning, academic discourse generally, and interethnic communication outside of the community as well as within, the latter with oral domains, traditional, familial and intimate interpersonal contexts. The study addresses key issues in the discussion on the relationship between bilingualism and metalinguistic consciousness, reporting findings related to the factors of language proficiency, attitudes and perceptions, and awareness of language form. How these factors interact within the overall context of a kind of defacto additive bilingual situation, in turn, suggests a different approach to the broader debate on the general cognitive/linguistic consequences of bilingualism.

The Oxford Book of Aging

Most of us today can expect to live into our seventies in reasonably good health. (In fact, the fastest growing segment of the population is the group eighty-five and older.) Yet our culture offers few convincing ways to help us find purpose in our later years. The ancient and medieval vision of aging as a mysterious part of the eternal order of things has given way to the secular, scientific, and individualistic outlook of modernity. No longer seen as a way station along life's spiritual journey, old has been redefined as a problem to solved science and medicine. As a result, we have become uncertain about what it means to age. help us make sense of our journey through life, The Oxford Book of Aging offers some two hundred and fifty pieces that illuminate the pleasures, pains, dreams, and triumphs of people as they strive to live out their days in a meaningful way. Fiction, poetry, memoirs, essays, children's stories, reflections philosophers, historians, and psychologists, African and Japanese legends, excerpts from the Koran and the Bible, scientific and medical tracts - the variety of writings is remarkable. The excerpts shed light on the many aspects of later life, including creativity, love, memory, spiritual growth, and the value of work. The perspectives range from Schopenhauer's dark Disillusion is the chief characteristic of old age when we come by degrees to see that our existence is all empty and void, to Robert Browning's uplifting Grow old along with me!/The best is yet to be (a vision so idealistic that Ogden Nash was moved to write Such a statement, certes, / Could emanate only from a youngster in his thirties). We read Mozart's letter to his dyin father, Alice Walker's endearing To Hell With Dying (about the vital ties between children and the old), Annie Dillard's meditation on her mother's hands, and Mark Twain's tongue-in-cheek formula for reaching seventy (It has always been my rule never to smoke when asleep,

KNOWING GOD: CHILDREN, PLAY, AND PARADOX

Abstract The process of sophisticated theological thinking in children begins at an early age. Thinking deeply about the ultimate concerns of life is inherent in human beings. This paper, based on the author's conversations with his children, explores the profound processes of theological reflection in playground songs sung by children in public elementary schools, informal conversations with children about prayer and religious insight, and the place of paradox and play in the theological reflection of children. Drawing on the works of such scholars as Winnicott, Gerkin, Rizzutto, and Stivers, the author charts intriguing areas for reflection as well as needed areas for future research.