The Importance of Self-Identity, Agency and Belongingness in Children
The purpose of this report is to enlighten the reader about the importance of development of sense of agency and self-identity in the children. The report evaluates the role of early childhood teacher in the promotion of collaborative learning, sense of being, social responsibility and belongingness for children birth to 5 years. The report is further divided into three sections, the part one of the report explain the understanding of sense of agency, self-identity for children birth. It further discusses about the importance of development of self-identity in a child. The part two of the report evaluates the teaching strategies and skills that early childhood teachers need to adopt in order to promote the ability of self-identification in children. Lastly, the third part of the report analyse the learning experiences of children along with the collaborative learning environment. Further, more details about the report are discussed below:
From the very beginning, when a child is born, he/ she are exposed to the external environment that helps them in learning who they are. By touching their own face or body, grabbing things, the children start to enjoy the influences of their actions their actions in the environment. However, it is noted that soon after a child enjoys their second birthday, they get to develop a sense of self to which they are able to reflect that in the external environment as well. One way in which a parent can analyse the objective of self-awareness in a child is by analysing that thee child has started recognizing themselves in the mirror or photograph (Scales, et. al., 2016).
Being a child of age 3-5, it is very difficult for them to analyse their personal characteristics and the aspects that can help to understand their personalities. Self-recognition and social responsibility are two most important aspects that a child should have in order to groom themselves for the future prospects of life. The age till 5 is an age in which a child in not aware of anything that is happening with them, they also face difficulty in differentiating things as good or bad. During this time, parents and educators train the toddlers for various aspects (Fabiansson, 2018). Like, they help them to understand about stars, their body parts, names of their family members etc. Further, becoming refers to the process of building children and shaping their identity through their evolving experiences. Children naturally develop the sense of self-identity by their capability to make use of self-referential language like you, I and me and my. Further, appearance of various emotions signifies that a toddler is developing sense of social responsibility and belongingness. Like, the feeling of possession of a toy or the feeling of embarrassment can explain the aspect of self-identity in a child (Laoire, Carpena-Méndez, & White, 2016).
Coming up to the next part that is evaluates the importance of developing children’s sense of agency, self-identity, social responsibility and being, belonging and becoming. It should be noted that it is very important for the educators to help the children this type of sense in the beginning only. In elder people lack of self-identity leads to various mental health problem like depression, etc. Further, the process of self-identification contributes in the development of self-esteem and wellbeing of a person as doing something for oneself gives a sense of achievement to people. Development in the behaviour of a child will subsequently help them in future prospects of life (Fang, Sun, & Yuen, 2016).
Teaching Strategies
For instance, if educators and parents are unable to teach the aspects of self-esteem to a shy child, then the child will always face difficult in making their place in a group when he is young. Further, sense of agency is when a child feels that he has a control over his belongings and the external environment as well. Presence of this feature in a child makes them more attentive and responsible in the environment. All these features combine together to form the nature of a child and this nature is maintained in a person throughout their existence. So, the sense of agency helps a child to monitor external environment and take of the actions that affect them. Along with this, sense of belongingness helps a child in understanding the importance of relations. Thus, it should be noted that all the features are important for a toddler as they help them in grooming their nature and growing up in a better way. If a child attains sense of self-identity by the age of five only then they will not tolerate disrespectful behaviour of any person in future (Green, Kalvaitis, & Worster, 2016).
It acts as the role and responsibility of the teachers and educators to train the children in such a way that they attain various attributes of self-identity in their nature. Along with teachers, parents also play the lead role in training their child in early childhood. Further, below mentioned are some of the teaching strategies and skills that early childhood teachers perform to promote the children’s sense of agency.
- Intentional Learning: In this process of learning, the educators intentionally organize activities in such a way that it helps the children to learn various things. Through such actions, the educators make the children active and help them to identify various features present in their attitude. The also motivate the children to work in such a way make children learn and enjoy at the same time. Like, they ask them to research on animals and their behaviours etc. (Weinstein, 2016).
- Responsive Interactions: It refers to the process of respectfully talking with children and having deep conversations with them as well. The fact should be noted that children catch whatever they see, at the age of one to five they do not have a proper sense of right and wrong due to which they inherit every aspect that they like in their personality. Thus, the nature of teacher also highly affect the sense of agency, self-identity and belongingness in children. The teachers strategies to talk to the children so that they come up with new and innovative ideas and work on them. They are aim to give opportunity to children to lead their own learnings. Interactions helps the children to talk about the things that they like or dislike that subsequently generate the feeling of self-identity within them (McGovern, & Devine, 2016).
- Work Sharing and decision-making: The educators can strategies to team up the children with elder children for play and work. Children of age group until five have very strong catching power due to which they quickly grasp what they see. So, they will see an comparatively elder child taking care of their belongings and having an identity, then they will also perform the same. This aspect increases the feeling of belongingness within them and subsequently makes them more interactive as well (Mentha, Church, & Page, 2015).
- Supporting agency: This type of activity makes the educators to take a step back from deciding everything for the children and let the children make decisions for themselves. With this process, the educators should create an environment along with learning experience that can support and motivate the children to make decisions for them. The educators can do this by asking about their interest field and then telling them to draw that. The educators should ask the children to work on their own and become independent (Healy, & Richardson, 2017).
The indoor learning space should be creative and attractive for children. Not all toddlers like going to play school so if the indoor learning would be designed in an innovative way picture on the walls, then will attract the children to come and learn at such a space. Further, the indoor learning space should be occupied with comfortable seats and adequate space to roam around as well. Children cannot sit and learn all the time so adequate space will help them to enjoy in the indoor environment. The tools and objects kept should also not harm the children while playing. Further, the outdoor learning space should have a garden with grass and sand. It should also have various swings on which children can play (Kearns, 2017). There should also be a sitting area under the shed of the tree. The outdoor play space should foster an appreciation of the natural environment and it should develop the sense of environment awareness and learning. With such environment, the children should become socially responsible and respect the nature. Further, below mentioned is the list of learning experiences received to babies, toddlers and pre-schoolers that promote children’s sense of agency within them (Driskell, 2017).
Babies
It is very difficult to provide learning experience to babies because they are very small in age and they do not take interest in such activities as well. So, the parents can provide learning experience to babies by making them see videos and picture. Such videos will help them to understand that they are a girl or a boy and various other aspects about their nature as well (Williams, & Chawla, 2016).
Collaborative Space and Learning Experiences
Toddlers
Toddlers can gain learning experiences from the environment by taking part in summer camp activities. The summer camp is occupied with many children of same age and the tutors help these children to dance, sing and learn. Due to which subsequently they gain social responsibility agency and self-identity as well (Sykes, 2018).
Pre-schoolers
The educators can provide learning experience to pre-schoolers by conducting many activities at play school like Fancy Dress Competition. This competition will enable to children to learn about various occupations and the work performed by them as well. Resulting to which, the children will gain the experience of social responsibility and it will help them to acknowledge the occupation that they want to become (Fattore, Mason, & Watson, 2009).
Conclusion
Thus, in the limelight of above mentioned events, the fact should be noted that assessment conducted evaluate the importance of development of sense of agency, responsibility, belongingness and self-identity in a child. The educators play a lead role in helping the children to adopt various features in their nature that can help them to become more responsible in the environment. The above mentioned report evaluated the role of teacher in helping the children with learning experiences and the strategies used by them. It also evaluated the importance of such aspects in the nature of a toddler and lastly the role of collaborative indoor, outdoor and learning experiences in shaping their future.
References
Driskell, D. (2017). Creating better cities with children and youth: A manual for participation. UK: Routledge.
Fabiansson, C. (2018). Belonging and Social Identity Among Young People in Western Sydney, Australia. Journal of International Migration and Integration, 19(2), 351-366.
Fang, L., Sun, R. C., & Yuen, M. (2016). Acculturation, economic stress, social relationships and school satisfaction among migrant children in urban China. Journal of Happiness Studies, 17(2), 507-531.
Fattore, T., Mason, J., & Watson, E. (2009). When children are asked about their well-being: Towards a framework for guiding policy. Child Indicators Research, 2(1), 57-77.
Green, C., Kalvaitis, D., & Worster, A. (2016). Recontextualizing psychosocial development in young children: a model of environmental identity development. Environmental Education Research, 22(7), 1025-1048.
Healy, M., & Richardson, M. (2017). Images and identity: Children constructing a sense of belonging to Europe. European Educational Research Journal, 16(4), 440-454.
Kearns, K. (2017). Frameworks for Learning and Development with Student Resource Access 12 Months. Cengage AU.
Laoire, C. N., Carpena-Méndez, F., & White, A. (2016). Childhood and migration in Europe: Portraits of mobility, identity and belonging in contemporary Ireland. UK: Routledge.
McGovern, F., & Devine, D. (2016). The care worlds of migrant children–Exploring inter-generational dynamics of love, care and solidarity across home and school. Childhood, 23(1), 37-52.
Mentha, S., Church, A., & Page, J. (2015). Teachers as Brokers: Perceptions of Participation and Agency in Early Childhood Education and Care. Int’l J. Child. Rts., 23, 622.
Scales, P. C., Benson, P. L., Oesterle, S., Hill, K. G., Hawkins, J. D., & Pashak, T. J. (2016). The dimensions of successful young adult development: A conceptual and measurement framework. Applied Developmental Science, 20(3), 150-174.
Sykes, G. (2018). Building communities in early years settings and schools. In Young Children and Their Communities (pp. 28-40). UK: Routledge.
Weinstein, M. (2016). Consumption, identity and young people. In Rethinking Children as Consumers (pp. 118-137). Routledge.
Williams, C. C., & Chawla, L. (2016). Environmental identity formation in nonformal environmental education programs. Environmental Education Research, 22(7), 978-1001.
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