Pre-schooling can have lasting benefits

Pre-schooling can have lasting benefits

Simon Marcus Gower
Contributor/Jakarta

It is a quite remarkable fact -- and it can be a constant
wonder to see -- that small children are natural learners. It is
in our very human nature that, as children, we learn.

In a sense we must: Small children experience both an internal
and an external world, of which they need to make sense. In some
respects, this "making sense of the world" can be seen as a
survival instinct.

Pre-school aged children are effectively experiencing a time
when it is in their nature to learn about what is around them.
This, inevitably, means they are experiencing times that are
potentially highly influential and formative for their future
behavior and habits.

Small children are not, as yet, weighed down by the "baggage"
of formal schooling. They have not yet reached an age at which
they may encounter feelings of boredom, antipathy and even
cynicism, which are liable to be encountered in later years when
schooling is mundane and uninspiring. For them, the whole world
is a school, everywhere a classroom and endless learning
opportunities are to be had.

But perhaps this highlights that, during those pre-school
years, great caution needs to be taken because such children can
be seen as highly impressionable and they could effectively
gather up and store the wrong impressions.

Two simple and modest observations of children learning
together may illustrate this point.

In the first instance, a child is patiently attempting to
trace letters in a book. For her age, this behavior is really
quite advanced. Another child who had been quite boisterously
running around eventually found his attention drawn to this
child, patiently and carefully trying to manipulate a colored
pencil across the page of the book.

Here, his natural learning instinct took hold, and a natural
curiosity created a question in his mind: "What is she doing?"
This question led to the further decision to go over and take a
look. Within moments, he was looking for his own colored pencil
to duplicate the little girl's actions. He was effectively and
positively learning from her.

In a second instance, though, we can see that the potential of
small children to learn from each other and from whatever
situation can have a potentially negative impact.

In this instance, a boy was maliciously chasing after a cat
that had strolled into his domain. The cat seemed to be toying
with the little boy, in that it did not immediately run away but
stayed around, as it were, to play with the boy.

Another boy was watching these antics when the first boy
picked up a stick with which he intended to hit the cat. The
second boy soon joined in, and within moments, the two of them
were violently lashing away at the cat. It should be noted that
the cat was too quick and soon made his escape.

In this instance, it would seem that violent behavior was
being observed and learned.

This emphasizes to the need for small children to be given the
right kind of guidance, routines and examples from which they may
be able to learn and so incorporate into their own being. The
manner in which little children are able to mimic and duplicate
behaviors they see can be something of a warning to parents, and
highlight the need for the right kind of early childhood learning
experiences.

Another example illustrates how parents may have a rude
awakening about the way small children pick up what they see and
hear. One mother had a habit of using a particular four-letter
expletive when something went wrong or was not to her liking. It
was, then, with some dismay and embarrassment that she heard her
little daughter using the very same bad language one day.

Small children will naturally pick up and often repeat what
they hear and see without the self-censorship that distinguishes
between right and wrong, the acceptable and unacceptable.

This, then, highlights the critical value of having a pre-
school environment that assists the child in seeing, hearing and
interacting with settings that are developmentally appropriate
and beneficial to their impressionable minds.

In this sense, the benefits of pre-schooling is immediately
obvious, as a child may learn and incorporate socially acceptable
norms in their behavior. Simple behavioral values such as sharing
and taking turns in a pre-school setting are an excellent early
learning experience that has lasting influence over how the child
develops and behaves toward their peers and elders.

The lasting influence that pre-schooling can have over a
child's development and future is an area that should be
recognized and appreciated. Indeed, research results have
consistently highlighted how children who have attended pre-
school have reaped benefits later in life.

Published figures show that a child who has received some pre-
schooling is more likely to score higher on IQ tests later in
life, is less likely to drop out of school and is more likely to
progress to higher education, thus possess higher employability.
Such results are indicative of the plus factor likely to emerge
when a child encounters good and positive pre-school learning
experiences.

But these learning experiences are not positive simply because
the child happens to be attending pre-school. Any and all pre-
schools need an appropriately and well designed program that
provides a sense of structure and routine for small children.
Merely having children coming to a class or group and interacting
with each other without some reasonable degree of structure and
patterning to the day could prove counterproductive.

The example above shows how easily a small child can gather
and replicate the wrong kinds of behavior, and this could and
does happen also in a pre-school setting. It is thus important
that pre-schools have certain quality-related features, including
-- but not be limited to -- staff trained in early childhood
education, a low teacher/caregiver-child ratio so each child may
receive their full attention, a solid curriculum and room for
parent involvement in their children's school day.

Clearly, realistic expectations must be applied, as there is
only so much that a small child can do, but with the right
planning and implementation, the benefits of pre-schooling can be
deep and lasting. -- The writer is a Jakarta-based education
consultant.