It's Almost Fall Break!

Tomorrow is the last day of classes before Fall Break!

I am very excited to apply some of what I have learned in Ed Psych when I am home over break. I am going to apply my new knowledge when I visit the place of my summer employment: a child care center. This past summer, I worked mainly with the toddlers. After reading the first chapters of our text, I now know more about the toddlers and why they do the things they do. For example, one of our toddlers loves to pull the teacher's hair. He thinks it is funny and he keeps pulling hair, despite repeated punishments of various kinds for doing so. I learned from this course that the toddler is probably not pulling hair because he doesn't want to listen; rather, he is pulling hair because he does not have the perspective-taking ability. He does not understand that others have different feelings. I also learned that, according to Piaget, toddlers are part of the preoperational stage. Therefore, toddlers are very egocentric and assume that others experience the world the way they do. From the information presented in our text, I have concluded that the toddler believes that the teacher also thinks it's funny when he pulls her hair.

Who knows what other opportunities to use my newly founded educational psychology knowledge will arise over Fall Break.