Reflection

Teachers of young children seek more from their day than a series of interesting activities. In preschool classrooms today, activities, such as building with blocks, making an envelope from paper, pretending to be the cook in a restaurant, are treated as content for reflection. A teacher may comment to a four year old, "I noticed that you were being very careful" just as the child placed a larger block onto a stack of smaller blocks. "Tell me why you were being so careful." Since the writings of John Dewey educators have come to fully understand the difference between a repetitive experience and an educative experience. The difference lies in the level of reflection that the student applies to the experience. And teachers help; they almost model an internal dialogue that they hope the children will use. Full text » [PDF, 80KB]