GROW PLAYING

"A good kindergarten is one where they ask you to bring a raincoat and boots to walk in the street when it drizzles." This is a quote from Yevgeniy Komarovskiy, the famous Ukrainian pediatrician and host of the TV programme "Doctor Komarovskiy's School". And it hides a very deep meaning indeed.

Most of the advice from Dr Komarovskiy has been tested by many sane mummies and daddies in practice. Without exaggeration we can say that today Dr Komarovskiy "lives" in the family of every parent who prefers to raise his child without panic and hysteria.

So, kindergartens. Speaking of common sense, we want to see our children healthy not only physically, but also psychologically. And as you know, everything begins from the cradle and later, from kindergartens. Why are we raising this issue once again? Our children are growing up, and at every stage of their growing up, we come to the appropriate conclusion in practice. It's time to say that today's parents should not turn a blind eye to the negative trends that have emerged in our society with the development of the infrastructure of private kindergartens. And in public kindergartens thing are not going so smoothly.

Concerning the raincoat and boots 

It is a sore point! Because, perhaps, only one out of ten of today's parents will give a negative answer to the question of whether he likes the fact that the kindergarten shows cartoons to children. Many do not think it over and will answer - what's wrong with that? And those who think it over turn out to be odd types, who look like demagogues in the eyes of kindergarten teachers. In the worst case, a parent who decided to criticize the work of kindergarten teachers will get a hostile attitude to his child, which is why he has to keep silent. Otherwise, take the child and send him to another kindergarten, which, frankly speaking, is not easy today for a variety of reasons mentioned in our previous articles. Kindergarten teachers shamelessly switch on cartoons for children in order to sit quietly for half an hour or in the worst case for children, for an hour.

Child grows up playing

In fact, the valuable time of a child, which kindergarten workers "spend" on watching cartoons, should be directed either to the child's education or to playing. And the latter, as it turned out, is almost the most important aspect of a child's development. We are saying this because, unfortunately, some owners of private kindergartens who have no idea about pedagogy mistakenly believe that a TV set in the kindergarten is an indicator of its elitism. Surprisingly, many parents feel the same way, not realizing that "putting" children on cartoons does not lead to anything good. International scientific journals publish dozens of results talking about one thing: whether they are small or older - the less children watch television, the healthier they are. Watching TV and cartoons becomes a drug for children. The more a child watches television when he is small, the more he will watch it as an adult.

TV is not a nanny 

Ideally, it is better not to watch TV until 2 years old and watch it only a little bit until 3 years old (20-30 minutes a day maximum). Only by 2.5-3 years old, does the child become able to follow the course of very short and simple stories. Kindergarten teachers need to understand that television should never act as a nanny.

In France, for example, even the broadcasting of children's channels is not allowed, as they do not contribute to the development of children. When the kids are watching TV, they are physically inactive. They are deprived of actions that would allow them to develop their intelligence, mobility, speech and communication, because a child develops in motion, being active. Even if the discussion of what he saw is taking place, some scenes may injure the child's psyche as they have an impact at the unconscious level. The fact is that until 6-7 years old a child is not able to understand that this is not for real and distinguish virtuality from the reality. Therefore, nightmares, waking up at night and bad sleep are possible...

When there is too much television, it affects speech: the average child hears 13,000 words a day, but if he and his environment are busy watching TV, then they talk to him less. The kid is deprived of the pleasure to talk and as a result, hears one-third fewer words. He also speaks less, and his vocabulary is 30 per cent smaller. The imagination and creativity of children who love watching TV is poor too. Images on the screen give a child everything and he does not get bored, i.e. he does not build his own imaginary world and does not come up with games to occupy himself ... By the way, state-owned kindergartens currently show cartoons to children in the morning and evening without agreeing their content with the parents. They spend an hour or so on classes. Maybe it's good. But something else is bad.

Theatre of the absurd 

There is another aspect - the theatre of the absurd. It is preparatory private kindergartens, where children are educated almost hourly. Children are distracted only by eating or sleeping. Here is a true fact a teacher of this "elite" kindergarten told us. Children spend most of the day at their desks and fall asleep at them. What kind education is that? The director mistakenly believes that a kindergarten that only teaches is also an indicator of "elitism". Interestingly, teachers in such kindergartens have no right to express their views to the director for fear of losing their jobs. Moreover, they do not even have the right to reprove their pupils, who sometimes utter offensive phrases, expressions and even curses regarding their mentors. This is either a result of incorrect upbringing in the family and lack of respect for elders, or aggression accumulated in children as a result of excessive education. The director fears scandals with influential people and as a result, the departure of the child from the kindergarten and respectively loss of profit. But in this case, what kind of upbringing does the child receive in the kindergarten if he does not meet a balanced reaction to his negative action. Thus, the kindergarten creates a small model of a society in which everything is permitted to wealthy people. By the way, a 5-year-old child intuitively understands what social class his family belongs to. He knows almost everything about money and what resources his parents have. And he manipulates it very well. This is one side of the issue.

The other side is continuous classes. While some parents are not particularly interested in what their children are doing all day and if they have been shown cartoons, others, having read various guides and websites about early development on the Internet, mistakenly believe that children should always be educated. The latter do not always see their child as a biological object. Sometimes they think it is something like a vacuum cleaner, which should have instructions for use somewhere.

The mistake of all pedagogy applied in our kindergartens and schools is the failure to accept the fact that a child is a biological creature. And in both cases, it is a blind interest in fashion trends. It is exactly the case when "we hear the ring, but do not know where". An interesting article on this subject was written by biologist Katerina Murashova. "Children, just like all small animals, want not just to play, but also climb, jump, run, scream, crawl, hang, collect and pile things. In addition, they want to compete with other children in all of this to assess how it all turns out and whether they have already learned all this. And they also want to do nothing from time to time or do something mechanical - this is a period of synthesis. It is the visual-active study of the world. This is a stage. It should be. If you oust it with simple things like reading books, drawing, collecting a construction set, games on the tablet, educating games and watching cartoons, the displaced biology will always take revenge on those who did not treat it well. By the way, here revenge often turns into a strange and not always very healthy relationship with one's own body," Murashova writes.

Cycle of "connivance" 

According to psychologist Arzu Quliyeva, what is happening in kindergartens today is explained by the fact that today the area of preschool education is in the hands of random people who are far from understanding the basic fundamentals of child psychology. "Needless to say, the profession of a children's teacher is not held in high esteem in Azerbaijan. And universities in this speciality are attended by those who failed to get enough points on admission," the expert said. According to her, private kindergartens are also in the hands of non-professionals, because anyone with certain capital has the right to open them today. "To this end, it's enough to take advantage of the now fashionable cliches about the early development theory, conduct a small advertising campaign and recruit staff, maybe even from among your own acquaintances. Whether these people have an idea of how they should work with children turns out to be a secondary issue as a result," the psychologist said. According to her, many kindergartens, both public and private, have no psychologists who are required to be present in any preschool and school institution. The lack of adequate control leads to the fact that we have a cycle of ignorance of some parents, directors of private kindergartens, with some exceptions, and ignorance of teachers.

"A kindergarten should be clean and have good food, toys, kind and knowledgeable teachers - specialists in their field, and opportunities for learning about the world on examples. This seems to be elementary, but turns out to be so difficult," said Quliyeva. Interestingly, the expert says, many teachers, principals and parents do not even have the desire to learn, even though all the necessary training material on how to raise children in harmony is available - just log into the Internet.

As they say, all that glitters is not gold, in other words, not every private kindergarten, which is in good repair and has a TV set, is a good kindergarten. In this sense, Dr Komarovskiy is 100 per cent right.

BECOMING A TEACHER IN FRANCE

Excerpt from Pamela Druckerman's book "French Children Don't Throw Food"

"... ABC Ruericulture is one of the institutions that train teachers for nurseries. There are hundreds of excited women (and several men) in the queue, and all are in their twenties; the applicants shyly glance at each other or browse through entries in thick notebooks. It is understandable why they are so nervous: only thirty people of the more than five hundred applicants will be accepted for training. Examination subjects include logical thinking skills, understanding of the text, mathematics and human biology. Those who make it into the second level will have to sit an exam in psychology, a verbal story about themselves and an interview with a panel of experts. After this, the best thirty will have to study and practice on the basis of a state programme for a year. Students learn the basics of hygiene, sleep and baby food and learn to change diapers and make supplemental feeding for newborns. And then, throughout their careers, they will be attending weekly training and refresher courses."

BOOKS THAT KINDERGARTEN TEACHERS SHOULD READ

Irina Mlodik. "A Book for Unideal Parents or Life on a Free Theme"

Masha Traub. "Caution - Children! Instructions for Use"