Hello havians, happy new week hope you all are doing well I'm excited to be here after a while. You know as teachers, parents guardian and uncle, aunty we have a huge responsibility in teaching our children and bringing them to where they ought to be in life.
Every child has needs and the means of satisfying them right from the time of conception. When the child is born, his needs becomes more numerous and varied. Broadly however, one may think of two categories of needs one broad category is the basic physiological needs - the primary needs. The primary needs include such things as need for water, food, air, safety, evacuation and many others. There are needs which if deprived for too long the individual die.
The second category of needs are the ones that educators are more concerned with. They are called psychological needs. The psychological needs of children are equally many and varied. They have to be fulfilled for wholesome development of the individual. Teachers being adults, may not know exactly how children feel but they have all passed through that stage. They can if nothing else, appreciate the trauma that accompanies a child's first day in school. Children are sensitive to a lot of things. In school, they are aware of the absence of their parents and or close relatives. To each child, other children seen in the first day are strangers. They see the common uniform that they wear, the book, the classroom sitting arrangement and the school premises that they are confined. They are also note that unless they speak the school language, which is English language, other children may not understand them for reason of coming from different language groups.
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Children respond differently to school environment. Their feelings about the physical environment, people, the subjects taught and what teachers stand for are varied and call for the sympathy of the Teacher. Two or more children can move together, but their psychological needs may not be the same. Effort to satisfy individual needs may even lead to physical fight among peer group members. Though they move in groups. Each child has his own feelings, thoughts, classroom teacher know the varying needs of children under his care? How would he effectively help his pupils in meeting such needs?
Psychologists believe that, education is child centered. This belief has led to the delineation of a model of psychological needs of children. One needs to understand the model in order to adequately handle children in the teaching - learning setting. The teacher teaches, socialize, rewards and in some instances, punishes and by so doing changes his behavior. On the other hand, children also influence the attitudes and behaviors of the adults by interacting with, evaluating and reacting to what they do. As adults, our reaction to and evaluation of any particular child, is guided by our past experiences with children. Likewise, children's evaluation and reactions to what adults do depend on what experiences they have had in their earlier interactions with other individuals. Just as our behaviors may change from time to time following our experiences, so do the behaviors of children change.
Children have needs which emerge as a result of the situational variables, they also have needs which are universal. Universal needs are the needs which are common to all children irrespective of the rearing practice in their own cultures. Among this needs are
1.Need for new experience.
2.Needs for affection
3.Need for recognition and
4.Need for responsibility
Need for experience:
One of the universal needs of children is to explore, need to experiment or need to experience one's own world. This means that, the child needs activities. He will be bored if there are no activities for him. Every child is a bundle of energy. Children have tremendous amount of energy which they need to expand. Exposure to interesting stimuli provide for them happy moments. They need to experiment with what they see. They should be allowed to explore and experience their own environment.
It is observed that, African parents are prone to restricting their children's activities they feel that children are rather too inquisitive, they feel that thus one runs a rest a risk of in leaving them completely to their desire. This feeling is not without its merit. If left completely on their own, children endangers their own lives. They take such risk as may appear expensive. They therefore, need some control but it is worth noting that, there is a level of arousal which may be helpful for each child to have a healthy interaction with his environment. there is a level of arousal that also produces optimum experience and beyond that level confusion and disorder may set in. Children should be allowed to experience their own environments but such experiencing need some degree of moderation, depending on the unique nature of a child.
There is individual differences in stimulation for experience. Some of the children we have are withdraw and are more comfortable with unobtrusive a d quite lives while some likes exposure, risk taking, excitements and challenges. The appropriate thing is to study each child and from our evaluation render assistance for the easy integration into his own view of the world around. Fulfillment of the child's need for new experience lead to adequate intellectual development. Deprivation in this area may inhibit intellectual development and social
Need for Affection:
Humans are social and emotional beings. Children like adults have need for love and affection. Indeed, affection is key to healthy interactions among individuals. Children have need for parental love. They also need love from relatives, friends and teachers. The teacher should have deep concern for children under him, he has to help each child to have good relationship with other children and adults. In doing this, he must understand that as free agents who have feelings and attitudes, children react selectively to environmental stimuli. They discriminate against people's appearances, smiles, sounds, facial appearances and embraces. Children who receive care and affection, approach life with a high sense of security, confidence and trust and thus develop self -autonomy .
It is not possible for the classroom teacher to show to the pupils the same decree of love as parents would, but in all respects, teachers stand surrogate to parents. They are therefore expected to show warmth in their interactions with children. School programmes should be such that allow the affection need of the child to be fulfilled. Absence of love and emotional stability may have adverse effect on the child's achievement. Sometimes, when children run away from school it is because such a school is unable to provide for their love need.
Need for Recognition:
Each child wants to be recognized and appropriated as some one of worth. The sense of self develops from infancy when the individual beings to build up a growing sense of self as distinct from other elements in his environment. The child's need for recognition stems from his growing sense of self -awareness.
From the sense of self and self worth, the child wants his actions to be recognized, he wants to be praised by those who are important to him. Such people as his parents, friends, teachers and relatives. A child who perceived himself as one who is recognized, valued and thus appreciated is more prone to having more healthy experience with his learning environment then a child whose need for recognition is not fulfilled.
Teachers have responsibility of enhancing their pupils self - concept development. They could start by treating children as persons of value. They have to recognized and praise their pupils efforts. One will easily notice that every child is happy when praised. If a child is praise for what he has done, he will tend to develop self confidence and sense of security. However, one must use praise in a realistic manner. Empty praises do not help children. The teacher should carefully watch the actions of his pupils and then make comments in away that provide for them motivation for further development.
While praises are good to children, parents and teachers owe the children the moral duty of letting them to know where they have gone wrong. In doing so, they must ensure that, the child is not rebuked in away that interferes with the healthiness of his self - concept. A child who errs should be corrected in a way that reflects the recognition of his self - worth. One essential truth is that, children who perceive that their parents or teachers value and recognize their worth are more likely to confide in adults than those who feel that their parents or teachers do not value them.
Need for Responsibility
It is a human tendency to be in control of his own affairs. There is no child who would not want to feel responsible for affairs that involve him. The teacher can help children to satisfy their needs for responsibility by involving them in decision making in affairs in which they are directly involved. In our society, there is The tendency for teachers and parents to make deliberate efforts at deciding everything for children. For example, how many parents allow their children to choose the clothes they would wear or the toys they want to use in playing? Children should be allowed to make their own decision and If need be, their own mistakes.
There is need to adopt a democratic process in dealing with children. In classroom management, the teacher should be child - centered even in the establishment of rules that guide on regulate children's actions. This could be done by involving pupils in the planning of their own activities. It is observed that, children would readily participate in activities that they have helped in planning.
Thank you and remain bless have a wonderful weekend I love you all.