Education and the Mental Life of Young Children

Abstract

Considering children's mental life in terms of educational interests tends to direct attention towards future attainments. In relation to these aims, the mental life of young children is commonly seen in terms of little knowledge, narrow experience, and generally lacking the qualities which the process of education is designed to bring about. If we try to consider young children's mental life as exemplified in the oral culture of childhood. we may see a set of sophisticated sense-making techniques at work, techniques that have a number of features in common with those found in oral cultures throughout the world. The paper examines a number of these techniques, and considers the implications of their parallels with oral cultures for how we might reconceive early childhood education.

Keywords

child development cognitive processes early childhood education imagination literacy oral language

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