Saturday, March 13, 2010
Week 2 Reading: Being a Contribution
It is such a pity that children grow up trying to meet the expectations of others and feel that they need to succeed in order to be good enough. Not only do parents sometimes put this idea into the minds of children, but the state tests that loom overhead every year put tremendous stress on children as well. As a teacher I have had students who were quite upset when receiving anything less than an A+, and that is in elementary school. They were afraid that they would be a disappointment to their parents. We need to take the stress off of the children and show them how that in being themselves, and contributing to life in a way that makes their life better, they will be a success.
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A few years ago I read a book called "A General Theory of Love." One of the observations the authors made was that humans are born as open-ended organisms meaning that emotionally, especially as children we map the intensity or meaning of different emotions based on the reactions around the child. The idea is that we aren't self-contained individuals when we're born but that, especially emotionally, we are open-ended to those around us and that this is normal human development. So ones early experiences at school are radically more important than we previously believed.
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