children development

SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDYING CHILD DEVELOPMENT TO TEACHERS.

Teachers’ activities aim at imparting effective education to their learners. The duty of educating needs much to have clear knowledge that would help the learner to achieve the intended goals aimed to him/her. The teacher should know well his/her learners; therefore, s/he must know the basis of the learners. It is therefore very important for the teacher to know well child development that will help him/her to meet the specific goals of imparting education. Before we look at the importance of studying child development to teachers, let us study the definition of the terms child, development and child development.

A Child is a young human being between birth and puberty while Development refers to how people grow, become accustomed and change over the way of their life span, through physical, personality, socio-emotional, cognitive and language improvement. Child development refers to the biological and psychological changes between birth and the end of adolescence as an individual progress from dependency to increased independence.
A variety of factors influences child development. Heredity guides every aspect of physical, cognitive, social, emotional, and personality development. Family members, peer groups, the school environment, and the community influence how children think, socialize, and become self-aware. Biological factors such as nutrition, medical care, and environmental hazards in the air and water affect the growth of the body and mind. Economic and political institutions, the media, and cultural values all guide how children live their lives. Critical life events, such as a family crisis or a national emergency, can alter the growth of personality and identity.
Most important of all, children contribute significantly to their own development. This occurs as they strive to understand their experiences, respond in individual ways to the people around them, and choose activities, friends, and interests. Thus, the factors that guide development arise from both outside and within the person, which is why it is very important for a teacher to study child development.

A teacher is a model of the society and therefore s/he should study child development to achieve the following goals of providing better education to his/her learners and the nation at large.
Assist children with special needs: Child development helps educators to assist children with special needs such as emotional or learning difficulties. Studying child development helps to detect abnormalities and health problems related to child development in the learning process. Child development in acquiring knowledge can be affected by abnormality or health problems like diseases, disability and malnutrition. The study of child development enables the teacher to take measures in order to rectify these problems.

Support healthy growth: Child development enables teachers and the society to support healthy growth. Understanding early brain development, for example, means that teachers and parents can provide better opportunities for intellectual stimulation and society can reduce or eliminate obstacles to healthy brain growth. In addition, it enables them to understand the roles played by heredity and environment in the development of a child. Hereditary diseases like sickle cell, asthma, epilepsy and nervous disease can affect the development of a child or by environmental factors, which includes climate conditions, malfunction and effects of illness, psychological and social factors.

Determine unique cognitive abilities: Studying child development helps to determine unique cognitive abilities among the children. The study of child development enables the teacher to know and understand the cognitive ability of his/her children and therefore get more efficiency in testing the cognitive behavior and emotional side of a child.

Solving Problems related to learning process: It helps to solve Problem related to learning process in school; the children who experience difficulty in growth and development mostly have problems in learning hence the study of child development helps the teacher to determine the type of teaching to be used in order to meet the educational needs of a child.
Practical guidance: Child development provides practical guidance for parents, teachers, child-care providers and others who care for children.
Self-understanding. Through studying child development, we know ourselves better by recognizing the influences that have made us into the people we are today.
Evaluate the achievement of learning: Studying child development helps to evaluate the achievement of learning at school level. The study of child development helps teachers to get more information concerning child’s achievement and performance in school; therefore teachers make different ways in which the child can most effectively brought into successful interaction with materials learned.
Many abilities and characteristics developed in childhood last a lifetime. Some developments in behavior and thought are very similar for all children. Around the world, most infants begin to focus their eyes, sit up and learn to walk at comparable ages. Children begin to acquire language and develop logical reasoning skills at approximately the same time. These aspects of individual growth are highly predictable. Other aspects of development show a much wider range of individual differences. Whether a child becomes outgoing or shy, intellectually advanced or average, or energetic or subdued depends on many unique influences whose effects are difficult to predict at the child’s birth.