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Totto-Chan- The Little Girl at the Window


MY REFLECTIONS ON THE READING OF TOTTO-CHAN!
Written by: Tetsuko Kuroyanagi
Year of publication: 1981

Introduction to the book.
The book was really a very great reading experience for me. It gave me a small idea of the kind of thoughts and feelings children have in their tender minds. This book helps us give a wonderful picture of a kind of progressive education through unconventional teaching. It talks about different skill and needs of a child that should be attended with great importance. This is a real time experience of a world famous lady who was once expelled of a school while studying for primary due to her hyper activeness, joined a school named Tomeo which was founded by Mr. Sosaku Kobayashi. The new school where the child went had class rooms made of unused rail road cars (train compartment). The teachers in that school had immense understanding about the importance of freedom. The children were given freedom to choose what should be done. The book makes the reader travel through the various activities happening throughout the schooling of this child in Tomeo until the World War II burns down the school.

The writer tries to say…
The child has great exploration skills; he or she tries to find out meanings for whatever comes in front of him or her. Always tries to be keen in observing the surroundings and try to learn and think on them. It is of great importance that while teaching each child deserves to be attended individually. Individual attention plays a great as well as vital role in educating a child. Always this happens that, a child will be looked as if he/she will commit mistakes or mischief. We, those who are taking up the responsibility of teaching should be always ready to believe in the innate capacity of a child. We should be having a perception that everything which is learned is only learned by making mistakes. We can’t expect a child to be right to everything he/she does. 
While educating a child one should be very keen about teaching to respect the opposite gender. Our action should not feel to them as if we give preference to a particular gender. In majority of the situations the girl child are made the less important to be taken care off. Even this happens in the house. The educators should be able to break these perceptions and should be able to make the child understand the importance of either of sex. The child in his or her early age should also be given opportunities where he or she could understand the basic difference between a boy and a girl. Like in this book it is said that the children were asked to swim in the pool together. This activity even helped the children to come out of their embarrassment about their own body. There were some children who were differently abled; this activity has helped them too. In lieu with the respect to gender they should also be incorporated with the value of respecting and caring for each other.
This book beautifully shows how a child looks around and tries to understand what all happens around him/her. In education the importance of a balanced diet is to be given great attention. A child, when he/she comes to the primary school will be in the age of great physical as well as mental development for which balanced diet is necessary. In the school referred in this book has a culture where the head teacher inquire about the food brought by the child and tries to fill in the items lacked in the lunch box by himself. Even the parents should be given awareness on the balanced diet that a child needs in the developmental stage.
All through the education period the child should be exposed to different fields such as that of Arts, History, Science, Farming etc. either of these should not be important than the other. The child should be able to select his/her interest in the later part of his/her life. In the current system of education the science or the mathematics is give the greater importance while literature even if it is taught as a subject is not given the importance which it deserves. An average child is not able to decide to what field he/she should be pursuing. Even if the child makes a decision it is not very much accepted.
Children are seldom complimented for whatever they do. We should be always ready to compliment a child for even the smallest thing he/she does. This compliment will boost up his/her confidence in taking up responsibilities as well as in developing the studies. What happens in the current system is that the children lack confidence to be presenting things before others. In majority of the cases only when one gets into the post graduate level of education, breaks out the shell, and tries out speak in a group. By then it would be so late, because development happens very slow. The child should be give chance to present his/her idea on certain topic. And this should be facilitated by an educator. Even in conducting the sports day, the principal of Tomeo was very peculiar. He tried to make games which are very much viable to even the child with differential abilities so that they also could compete with other children.  These all made great difference in the confidence level as well as the learning of the child. A child should be also given chances to understand different emotions, he/ she may be exposed to situations like death, parties where he/she could learn how important is the relationships and different situations that would be waiting in their life.

Conclusion note…
The education system should be made child centered. This does not mean that the child should be given full autonomy; the child should be taken care of rather than covering syllabus. A change to be brought is very difficult but something which is reasonable is that, always we could make a try. 

image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Totto_chan.jpg

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