부산대학교 도서관

The article focuses on several common misunderstandings about the thinking and learning of young children that seem to be current today. Parents and teachers are equally prone to regard a child's thinking process as similar to their own. Adults often nurture the notion that young children learn best while sitting still and listening. This misconception arises because parents tend to generalize from their experiences as adults. The young child is, however, not capable of thinking in the same way as an adult thinks. He learns through engaging in real actions involving tangible objects. The belief that young children can learn and operate according to rules is another misunderstanding. The young child's inability to learn rules has special implications for the educational programs prepared for him. Another widespread misunderstanding about young children is that acceleration is preferable to elaboration. Children who have been intellectually deprived can, however, make significant gains in intellectual performance as a consequence of intellectual enrichment. In large measure, all of these misunderstandings derive from a contemporary overemphasis on intellectual growth to the exclusion of the personal social side of development.