MY
REFLECTIONS ON THE READING OF TOTTO-CHAN!
Written
by: Tetsuko Kuroyanagi
Year of
publication:
1981
Introduction to the book.
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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