Textbooks

So I never in a million years would have thought that I could enjoy reading a textbook, but I do now that I'm not a student! It is one of the best things ever! I talked to one of my teachers about still wanting to learn and not really having the resources and she gave me 7 textbooks of hers. Her specialty is in language development so most of them are on language development and language disorders. But there is also one about the approaches to childhood education which is exactly what I studied so it is an awesome review. I probably sound really lame right now about being excited to read more textbooks...oh well! Here are just a few things that I have learned this week:

• "Living in a world that does not value your individual needs and opinions, no matter how young you are, will not result in the development of a strong sense of self."
• "During the first 3 years of life...a lack of opportunity for movement can result in discipline problems as children seeking motor activity and challenge resort to pushing, biting, and hitting to satisfy their need for physical movement."
• I have always known this but here it is said perfectly, "Expecting a 2-year-old to sit quietly at a table for 20 minutes goes against who they are developmentally and sets them up to fail and you to be frustrated!"
• "for every behavior you take away ('Don't do...'), a behavior should be given back ('You can do...')."
• "It is important that the choices you offer are real choices and that you can live with whatever choice the child makes."

I love the way that these concepts are stated. These are things that I studied over and over again...I just can't explain as well as they do. :) Just to give reference the book is "Approaches to early childhood education." (Roopnarine and Johnson) Thanks for putting up with all my random thoughts!