Character Development within the ECE Curriculum

 

I have also commented on Sheila Eden Gibas and Farhana Bari's work.

 

Sheila Eden Gibas

Great work here Sheila. I like how you used highlighting to clearly show the edits for this activity and activity one. I only used the suggestion function but now I feel I should go back and highlight things to make sure it is clear.

I liked the Self-awareness, Self Management, Social Awareness, Relationship Building, Responsible Decision-Making ideas for character development in Early Childhood Education. Another one I would suggest that is equally important and can tie into relationship building, self-management and social awareness is kindness. It is important that children can be kind to others and celebrate others success. This can relate to differences between each other and how differences should be celebrated and that we should never make fun of someone because they are different and that we all have something we can be good at.

I like your relationship-building pairing children of the same interests together to help them socialise about topics of mutual interest. I would take this a step further and try to teach them how to use the skill the teacher used to divide them. Help them to understand they need to find something in common as it will be an easy way to talk. Give an example of walking up to a kid playing with blocks and you like block play too. What can we talk about? Get students to state the obvious that it is blocked we can talk about. Create a few more scenarios and then challenge them to make three new friends today by using this tactic at home, in school, at playtime or in their communities.

 

Farhana Bari

Great work here Farhana. I like how you used highlighting to clearly show the edits for this activity and activity one.

 

Great work on introducing character development around empathy to the children. It is really important for maintaining friendships and navigating social situations if we learn to show empathy to others. I know a lot of people that have never learnt this and it is a little sad to think that this important SEL characteristic is not covered as well as you covered it in your lesson. Another one I would suggest that is equally important is kindness. It is important that children can be kind to others and celebrate others success. This can relate to differences between each other and how differences should be celebrated and that we should never make fun of someone because they are different and that we all have something we can be good at.

One thing I would note for diversity reasons and differences is that some people may have two mummies or two daddies so it could be good if we change it to a caregiver instead of mummy. Draw someone who looks after you and loves you. Give them the option to draw both a mummy and a daddy or two mums or two dads in their picture too. So that they know that what they have is normal and is nothing to be hidden.

I liked your idea of empathy and respect for character development for children and will be implementing them in some of my future lesson plans. These are core parts of character development all kindergarteners should have an understanding of before continuing their studies. Without the teachers like you focusing on these important character development goals, our society would be worse than it is now. I would adapt this lesson slightly to include the different caregivers and weave respect, empathy and understanding into this topic.

Thanks for the great ideas.