The presence of the
teacher in the classroom at school is important. The absence of the teacher
means that children do not have the standard to compare with and follow.
Children under 12 years old are in the phase of adaptation to relationships.
They have to learn how to form and manage relationships not only with friends
who are their own age but also with adults who can be good role models.
Children who are over
12 years old are in the phase of formation of self-identity. They have to learn
how to establish self-identity and prepare themselves to be adults interacting
with and being guided by adult role models.
There are some classroom
experiments where children study and interact among themselves with only a
minimum level of teacher guidance as a facilitator. It doesn’t seem to be
problematic from the perspective of knowledge learning in the sense that this
type of learning system encourages students’ active participation.
However, the teacher’s role cannot be
emphasized too much in promoting healthy development of child psychology since
the teacher becomes the standard with which children can look at the world they
will experience as adults in the future. Teachers should be able to protect and
guide children to freely make trials and errors and build their own thought
standards making reference to the teacher as their role model. Interaction with
friends and interaction with teachers are equally important in school life.
Minimizing the role of
the teacher in the classroom may negatively affect psychological development of
children by limiting the opportunity to be engaged in interactions with
teachers in the classroom. Then, children may have to learn anew how to adapt
themselves to relationships and form self-identity as adults, which will be
much more difficult than they do as children.
Adults who fear new
environments and new tasks tend to be the ones who were less interactive at
school with friends and teachers even though they were good at accumulating
knowledge. They can learn adapting themselves to new environments as adults
making trials and errors but adults have to take full responsibility for each
and every action they take. Please, remember that teachers are important people
for children’s healthy psychological development.
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