Shannon Singleton Clinical Makeup Assignment Brain Matters Documentary: Reflection & “Take-home points” The brain matters documentary was very enlightening. I like how they started off engaging and asking the children to describe the brain and its function on their own terms. Later the documentary went deeper into the function of the brain like how our neurons are firing and become activated by certain experiences such as a baby looking at their mother. The main “take-home” points seemed to focus on one general idea. This is that infants and young children’s brains are internally more developed than most parents know. I remember at one point in the video, the researchers said that even though babies are not speaking at 3 months, they are able to pick up on speech patterns from different languages or vocalizations. That just goes to show how in tune children are especially at a young age during their developmental years. Even though they are not speaking, their mental capacities are increased to encode their experiences and interactions. Another good point in the video was about the difference between technological interaction and physical interaction is drastic. I love that they talked about the importance of physical interactions such as touching, smiling, face-to-face communication in child development as opposed to sitting a child in front of a television. Early physical interaction sets the tone for social interaction for the rest of the lifespan. Kindergarten Cop Clip: What do you think about how Mr. Kimble approaches the students? I think he approached them correctly by making eye contact and even though he was mmoving around and sat on the piano “accidentally”, he maintained their attention and kept them engaged which makes me thinks those were tactical approaches to get their attention and hold it while he gave an introduction. What do you think about the boy who talks about dying? Boys at that age in kindergarten are typically learning about death and they may have a fascination or ask a lot of questions in attempts to learn or try to understand it better. It may also be because they are showing their understanding of the concept of death and how finite life is. Kids at this age are more egocentric so I think this is important in terms of understanding life as a whole. What do you think about the little girl’s urgency in needing to use the bathroom? This is normal at this age. Kids in kindergarten were recently potty trained in the last 2 yrs at least before beginning kindergarten. However, even though they are potty trained, they don’t always recognize the need to go during bathroom breaks when everyone else goes to the bathroom and will wait until they feel the urge to go, hence the urgency of needing to go to the bathroom. What factors do you consider about the boy who shares human anatomy? Because Mr. Kimble is a new educator and he wants to gauge what they know and kids this age tend to offer information without being asked, it makes me think this is one of those situations where he may be looking for approval of what he knows that other kids may not or what Mr. Shannon Singleton Kimble may not know. Like I said, the egocentrism tends to have the young child think the world revolves around them including the information that they know. What other observations can you make? Most of the children have the same blank stares on their faces which makes me wonder if they often get a change in faculty or their attention is constantly being drawn to a single source. Not all the children are sitting in the same position, some are sitting on their knees while others are cross legged. The classroom is diverse and seems to be equally proportioned of boys to girls to maintain that interaction. Kindergarten Cop: Shut Up Scene What do you think about this “shut up’ scene? I think a lot of teachers feel this way with unruly children. But I do not think it was handled properly. How could Mr. Kimble have avoided this incident? He could have avoided the incident by going back outside and taking a deep breath and then coming back in and blowing a whistle or clapping or yelling “boys and girls, eyes up here”. The point is that there were other ways. How could he have reacted in a more therapeutic way? Yes he could have reacted in a more therapeutic way by doing one of the many options I suggested In the previous answer. (See above) ^^ What do you think of him using the word “never” in describing the ferret? I also don’t think that that was smart because then that develops a false schema for all ferrets. The children will think that all ferrets do not bite which is not true. Animals bite when hungry or provoked. Children need to learn important facts of life and living with other animals.
