Education is one
of the most fundamental staples in life. Education starts at birth, you never
stop learning; but your education really starts at age five. In school you
learn how to read, write, arithmetic, science, and history. The United States
education system has some serious problems. There are many changes that could
be made, like a better curriculum, smaller class sizes, and more
accountability. These changes would make momentous changes for our children.
One change that could propose is to start teaching children young, very young, as
young as six months of age, By proposing that the education systems starts
introducing sign language to all children.
In the Banking
concept of Education, Friere states “instead of communicating the teacher
issues a Communiques and makes the deposits which the students patiently
receive, memorize, and repeat”. This statement reflects the potential for early
learning. Children learn by example, it’s the term monkey see monkey do, except
these aren’t monkey, these are children. In early development infants start to
pick things up faster, they can absorb knowledge and after repetitive actions
they will soon demonstrate the actions being taught. Soon after that children
will start to understand what they are doing and the process of learning has
begun. There is a spark in the eye of a child once they have learned something
new. After learning one thing they continue on. Children learn from our
actions, they want to speak how adults speak, walk how adults walk, and act the
they adults act
In preschool
children learn the alphabet, to count, to match colors, and shapes. They learn
words and how to use them. There should be education before preschool, when a
child hits preschool they are already behind, most children have not been
socialized with other children, they are slow to learn and interact. We should
have earlier head start programs that teach our young children sign language to
start forming communication skills, the benefits are outstanding. Children are
more susceptible to learning and retaining knowledge when you start teaching
them before they can talk. Children who learn sign at an early age show that
they can understand more when they develop into toddlers and more when they
reach adolescence. Teaching six month old infants how to communicate makes their
brains functions just a little faster in the long run. Children need knowledge
to grow, they are on a quest to find it every time they ask a question or
commit an act, they are finding out how to act. Children are constantly doing
things that are either good or bad to have an adult teach them the difference
between both. Having a child who can’t talk and can’t walk communicate with you
about what, who, when, and where at the age would be form there verbal thoughts
later.
The benefits of
sign language are outstanding, it develops communication skills, observational
learning, and making it easier to take in more learning early communication and
reading, learning comprehension would be higher in K-12 schools. Sign also can
help with developing motor skills, seeing, touching, all around learning.
Education starts at home, when you are learning to crawl, talk, and walk, we
are already being prepped for a life full of institution. As hooks said “As
teachers, we can create a climate for optimal learning if we understand the
level of emotional awareness and emotional intelligence in the classroom.” By entering
a head start program to the education system it can give children more opportunity
to learn more and comprehend faster.
Gatto makes a
great statement “The reason given for the enormous upheaval of family life and
cultural traditions was, roughly speaking, threefold: 1) to make better people
2) to make good citizens. 3) To make each person his or her personal best.” Why
not teach children another language? Teaching children sign would open the mind
to more opportunity. Du Bois stated “best end to have in view”. That is what
parents and educators want for children in the best end. Who wouldn’t want to
open up all these super opportunities? Education strives to teach children
critical thinking making them understand what it is that they want, learn, and
need. As Curtis Acosta said “our students are critical thinkers, we provide the
soil for them to grow in. we nurture them.” Education is the foundation for the
children of America to learn and achieve greatness.
What a better way
to start out a child’s life than to be able to communicate without talking. Knowing
how to ask for things, making decisions, telling you what is wrong. Making these
changes could help each child’s overall educational experience a little more easily.
Being able to take in more knowledge and learn easier would improve all of the children’s
school experiences. As Hooks said “A radicle commitment to openness maintains
the integrity of the critical thinking process and its central role in
education. This commitment requires much courage and imagination.” Let’s take
that commitment to children and start early by keeping their brain working, the
child’s brain is slower when it is not learning, those early months are crucial
to the brains development. Keeping the brain occupied keeps the sells growing, neurons
moving, neuro networks sparking. The human brain can do wonders, all the
memories it can hold, all the things you can learn and retain.
Teaching sign
language to children before they can talk helps them later in life. Children
who have learned sign tend to have better grades, better reading ability, and impeccably
better reading comprehension. It would give children a better chance in school
learning new things faster and retaining them easier and holding them longer. These
thing will come in handy when the child become an adult, making retaining new
information and still knowing it when they need it later in life. Its about keeping
the brain sharpened like a pencil the more use the more you need to sharpen,
the less use the duller the pencil gets, this is the very same for the brain. You
never know one day the child may learn other languages, but knowing sign is
handy in many ways as an adult. You can use it almost anywhere, at work, in
college, even make a career out of it.
In closing there
are many changes that can be made to the education system, you can argue each
and every one from Classroom overcrowding, to taking away standardized testing.
Each change would make a huge difference. In the end adding sign would make a
huge impact on the way that all children learn. Teaching small children
communication at six months would improve a lot of the learning curves today. Children
are more susceptible to learning and retaining knowledge when you start
teaching them before they can talk. Yes teaching sign wouldn’t fix the problems
that America has in the education system but it would sure improve the way that
a child learns and develops. children will have a higher reading comprehension,
vocabulary, differentiate between right and wrong when they hit kindergarten Each
child deserves a quality education why not give them some help in the begging
so they have a head start in learning new things.
Friere, Peole “The
Banking Concept of Education” from Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 1970. – Chapter
2,
Hooks, Bell “Practical
Wisdom, Teaching Critical- Thinking Teaching 1”
Aronson, Deb “Arizona
Bans Mexican American Studies Program: “it was never about what we were doing,
it was about who we are”. National Council of teachers English, September 2012
Gilyard, Keith “Children,
Arts, and Du Bois” Presidents Commentary, National Council of teachers English,
September 2012
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