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How Children Learn

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What is Your Philosophy of How Children Learn?
By Kate Wright
April 24, 2013

Parents, I wanted to welcome you to my class and fill you in on my philosophy of how children learn. This information will help you understand the reasoning behind why we do the things we do in class, and will help build a school to home connection for all families. There are many theories about how children learn by many different theorists. After much studying of the way children learn, I have come to identify most with the theorist Urie Bronfenbenner. Bronfenbenner’s theory is called the Bioecological Theory. It states that a child’s environment deeply affects the child’s development. A child’s environment includes not only his home and school, but also his relationships with the people in these settings, the experiences he has here, and the child’s culture and family beliefs (Marotz, 2012). All parts of a child’s environment work together to influence the child’s development. In addition to this, I also identify with the Essential Needs Theory. This theory states that our physical needs, psychological needs, learning needs, and need for respect and self-esteem must be met in order to properly develop (Marotz, 2012). Through several years of teaching my experiences in the classroom and the observations I’ve made support each of these theories. My first year of teaching, I had a sweet boy in my fourth grade class, for the sake of privacy, I will call Tim. Every day Tim came to school wearing dirty clothes, smelly, and hungry. The first thing he would do upon sitting at his desk was to fall asleep. One day in particular that sticks out in my mind is the day he came to school late and soaking wet. I asked Tim why he was wet and so late. His response was that his dad would not wake up to take him to school so he walked all the way in the rain. When I would try to

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