Improving Self-esteem through Changes in the Primary School Curriculum

Introduction

During the learning process at primary school age children lay the foundations for their success as learners in future and for the upcoming achievements. At these school years they learn language and how to use it; develop thinking and analytical skills, learn about environment, and learn to be a part of community. Important decisions about self worth, own importance and capabilities are made at that time. It is critically important to develop and nurture this early learning in order to help children realize their individual potential as learners (Dempsey 2004).

Primary school curriculum serves a mean to enable children to acquire knowledge and skills that are necessary to become a valuable member of society, build self confidence and provide for further development and learning. In the 21st century it is important that the primary curriculum is relevant and imaginative and appropriate to children’s needs (NCCA 2006). Primary curriculum must serve the most important needs that children face at primary school age. During the early school years child must live a full life as a child and to realize his or her potential as a unique individual, to develop as a part of society through learning to co-operate and communicate with others and so contribute to the good of society. It is also important that primary school curriculum makes it possible to prepare the child for further education and lifelong learning (Dempsey 2004). Most primary curriculums include such general subjects as language and mathematics; provide social, environmental and scientific education as well as physical education and arts education. These subjects provide the background for further development. The curriculum may vary in different schools, yet the basic set of subjects usually remains the same (Filer, Pollard and Thiessen 1997). Schools are taking efforts to adjust, broaden and balance their curriculums in a way most efficient for better learning for children and easier teaching process for staff members. Handbook for Inspecting Primary and Nursery Schools (OFSTED, 2000) says that schools must aim at curriculum which “interprets statutory requirements in stimulating as well as structured ways, providing for high achievement, particularly in core subjects, and offering pupils a wealth of additional opportunities” (2000 p.66) Not only this document but many other governmental and nongovernmental documents stress the importance of curriculum to be beneficial to the state, the school and the child (Smith 2002, p.63).

A Guide for School Leaders and Teachers (Smith 2002) suggests that “all pupils should have access to a curriculum of similar breadth and balance irrespective of their level of ability” (2002 p.63), which touches the topic of children with special educational needs. Some of these children depending on the specifics of their educational needs study in specialized schools while more and more children in recent years are enrolled in mainstream primary schools. SEN students have very individual learning needs, and it is important that their educational experience provides them with all that is available to their peers. Children of a primary school age with certain disabilities may experience difficulty in processing information they get at school and from their environment, and need encouragement to initiate activities, develop communication skills, and build up their self esteem (NCCA 2006).

Special and Mainstream Education for SEN children

This is necessary to realize that whether child has special educational needs or not, this is a primary objective to create equal opportunities for child to learn and develop as a society member. In the middle of 90’s many schools turned to the practice of educating SEN children in mainstream schools, which previously was not a common educational practice (NCCA, 2006). The debates are taking place now concerning the issue of such practice being useful for children with special needs. At some point feeling a part of a “normal” society is important for developing child’s self-esteem. It provides equal opportunities in curriculum which gives child a chance to get the same amount of knowledge as other kids do even though this can take longer time and more effort than it normally does. Attending regular school helps child to learn communication within regular life settings and prepare child for adult life as society member. (Beveridge 1999, p.62). This approach, however, does not take into consideration the fact that a child who’s abilities require significantly more effort may feel disappointed about own skills and abilities in comparison to his or her classmates. On the other hand this is a controllable factor given the cooperation of school staff members, parents and classmates (NCCA 2006). It is also possible that child’s self esteem may be even improved if he or she recognizes the importance and significance of own achievements in comparison to achievements of classmates. According to Beveridge (1999) special schools for children with particular educational needs are beneficial as they allow special attention to be paid to individual educational needs, allow children to study in specially adjusted environment, and provide for special activities which enhance both feelings of personal worth (p.62). However, this is also true that in the environment where every child has own special needs this is hard to come up with a curriculum which will be suitable for all. At this point curriculum will turn out to be adjusted for the weakest pupil in the class which will result in lower than possible performance of the rest of the classmates (Beveridge 1999, p.63). This is also important that children who go to special school may feel depressed about being unable to communicate with peers from regular school and perform as well as they do. The concept of “special” school may leave a child with lowered self esteem as he would not feel the equal member of society. The conclusion may be driven from the above discussion that whenever this is possible children with special educational needs must be enrolled in mainstream schools even though this requires special effort of school teachers and parents. This educational approach will result in building better self esteem of the child and be helpful in fulfilling the purpose of raising an equal member of society with equal educational opportunities.

Educational settings

Regardless of the school type whether this is a specials or mainstream school it must offer all that is possible to provide child with an opportunity to study and live a full life which is crucial success factor for child’s learning process and for his or her development as a society member. Deprivation of some facilities and opportunities that are available to others may result in lowering self esteem of a child and make pupil feel uncomfortable and miserable about own physical or mental condition (Ashdown, Bovair, Carpenter 1996, p.113). In mainstream schools this is highly important to make all resources available to child. This includes physical education, arts, easy access to library and any other learning resources. Curriculum must provide low-achievers with an opportunity to learn and develop without affecting the successful learning process of other pupils (Farrel 1997). The great role here plays the combination of teacher characteristics, teacher actions and interactions with students, instructional material and media, subject matter, characteristics of the learner, characteristics of the group, and outside forces. This is hard to distinguish the most important factor of the learning environment as all of the above may result in positive or negative outcome of the learning process of a child with special educational needs (Goodwin, Klausmeier 1966, p.90). Proper organization of physical environment and timetable can increase the chance of a child to feel safe and comfortable in learning environment which can help child to feel more confident about own abilities, status and opportunities (NCCA 2006). Even though physical environment is very important in facilitating educational process this is also very important to ensure that curriculum in terms of timetable provides for best learning opportunities. In classes where children with special needs study this is necessary to foresee their individual needs such as best concentration time, accommodate time for breaks and therapy if this is applicable, allow flexibility for special events and extracurricular activities (Cole 2003, p.70). The other concern about adjusting learning environment for SEN children is the routine in learning process. This is hard to find balance between routine which is necessary for child to feels comfortable about the learning process and expectations and activities that fall out of usual routine to let children rest form repetition in the process of their study. As case studies have shown routine is able to build on communication and learning system and initiate interactions and studies in a systematic way. This way self confidence of a child is built as he or she knows what to expect form environment and what this environment expects from pupils (Morgan, Tilstone, and Williams 2004, p.154). Accordingly routine is a necessary part of building up self-confidence of a child but this is also necessary to teach child to act normally in changing environment, that is why extracurricular activities and surprises must take place in learning process. Ability to perform well in changing environment and under certain pressure form time to time can increase the level of self confidence in a child and prepare him or her to a life within changing environment and society.

The conclusion may be driven from the above that learning environment which includes physical settings, time settings and opportunities for interaction with peers can play a significant role in developing or lowering child’s self esteem. This is possible that child deprived of such necessities as easy access to all school facilities or who lacks communication opportunities or who’s timetable makes learning process difficult, may feel depressed and disappointed about own self worth and may feel abandoned. This is definitely hard to adjust learning environment to fit the needs of each student, especially if this is a child with special needs. However, the effort must be made to bring in special adjustments on individual level to make child with special need feel more comfortable about own learning process. This is important though that if such adjustments interfere with convenience of the rest of schoolmates this may result in child’s lowered self esteem as he or she may be blamed or blame oneself for being a burden to the rest of peers.

Partnership with parents

As Kumin discusses in his Guide for Parents (1994) children with special needs require additional attention to partnership between parents and teachers. Links must be tight between learning environment of school and home. Parents, teachers and others who are involved in the child’s education must collaborate in order to receive the maximum benefit from the curriculum. Consultation with parents helps teachers to come to a deeper appreciation of children’s needs and so to plan more effective learning experiences, develop and adjust curriculum to those special needs of children. It is also important that such collaboration helps parents to understand better their child’s progress, appreciate it and praise achievements. Receiving support and praise form the closest and most authoritative people such as parents can help improving child’s self esteem (Kumin 1994). Yet this is necessary to remember that parents are very often far from proper understanding of educational process in primary school and may be very demanding to adjust curriculum to the needs of their child while ignoring the needs of other children. This is necessary for teachers who plan curriculum to find the balance between individual and group needs. This is also true that parents often tend to overly evaluate achievements of their children. This may lead to the lack of effort child makes to study and learn and may leads to negative outcomes when child comes to the next level of educational process or deals with problems in adolescence or adulthood. Child who was overly praised for educational achievements in primary school may feel depressed or loose self confidence when discovers himself unable to deal with problems outside school environment or with problems of a more difficult nature. Child must be prepared to meet new challenges with self confidence and that is what parents must understand when taking part in their child’s education.

Communication Skills and Group Work

The primary purpose of early education is to cultivate basic skills in child necessary to acquire further education and become an adequate member of a society able to communicate own ideas, understand others and become a valuable member of community (QCA 2001). None of the subjects on its own is able to develop all necessary skills in child. Different researchers (Mittler 1996, Sebba et al 1993, Rose at al. 1994) argue the importance of certain subjects for developing child’s self esteem and life skills, yet this is necessary to understand that there should be certain balance between al these subjects to achieve best results. At this moment schedule in majority of primary schools is developed to serve educational needs of majority but few attention is paid to the importance of developing self esteem through the means of curriculum planning. Majority of children do not experience self esteem problems but when dealing with children who have special educational needs due to the lack of certain abilities one must realize the importance of self confidence and self esteem problems disabled children face when deal with educational environment (Mittler 1996).

One of the most important skills that child can be taught is communication skill. This skill ranges from an awareness of people and the environment, making eye contact, using gesture, signs and symbols to listening, speaking, reading, and writing (Whitebread 1996 p. 34). Usually child is taught to communicate when he or she studies language. In primary school most attention to communication skills is paid during language studies. Yet this is necessary to realize that child must learn to communicate at all levels and every minute. Normally school environment provides all that is necessary to learn communication skills, yet children with low self esteem may not be willing to take part in discussions and group work which leads to lack of application of newly acquired skills. Child may learn to read, write, and communicate at English lessons but without proper application of these skills child may remain unable to express opinions, argue and listen to others in practice (Richards and Taylor 1998). According to Galton and Williamson (1992) this is necessary that teachers encourage communication and discussions during lessons and break time (1992, p.56). Special attention should be paid to encouraging children with low self esteem to express opinions and ask questions in order to make them feel important part of school life and learn to communicate at different levels. This may be practiced at any time by the means of group work where children must cooperate to reach common goal, by asking direct questions and opinions encouragement (Galton and Williamson 1992). This is necessary to comment that even though this approach can bring positive results in developing child’s self esteem, yet being overly demanding to child who is showing low confidence in communication can even increase insularity of a child and hurt his or her self confidence as child realizes own inefficiency to correspond properly to teacher’s demands.

Creative Skills

Creative skills play an important role in developing child’s self confidence. The nature of the subject makes children of differing physical and mental abilities find it easier to work on similar tasks than is possible in many other disciplines. Traditionally, in art teaching, whether it is music, drawing, painting, craftwork, creative design or any other field of art, differentiation has been established through allowing for individual levels of response to a common task and through the teacher’s ability to responding to children’s work individually. Appreciation of artistic skills is individual and so can be teacher’s response to each child’s work, success and needs. Such approach allows minimizing difference between children with different abilities. Children with special educational needs and certain disabilities can express their individuality and self-actualize in this attempt (Coordinating Art across the Primary School 1998, p.92). Certainly creative skills that children express during art lessons help them establish more self confidence. It is important that in art there are no right or wrong answers, but only a variety of individual responses to different tasks. Low-achievers can compensate inability to learn math or science as fast and successfully as others during these lessons and build up their self esteem at this point (Coordinating Art across the Primary School 1998, p.93). This is necessary then to pay more attention to artistic education when developing a curriculum for primary school. Some teachers and parents regard such education of a little importance to child’s educational needs; however, artistic development allows children to learn expressing their personality, develop self confidence and learn to respond individually and creatively to different tasks. This is why more attention should be paid to artistic education in primary school. Clement (1993) discusses the readiness of primary schools to teach art and claims that at some point paying more attention to art subjects can decrease children involvement in other subjects. He argues that children ability to study for certain amount of time during the day is limited to certain number of hours and this means that increasing the number of hours for creative education can result in decreasing the amount of time children spend on science, math and languages. This is necessary to develop a curriculum which would balance science and art in child’s learning process (Clement 1993). Definitely artistic education is necessary and powerful tool to develop child’s self esteem, but this is also necessary that such education does not interfere with general education in science, math and languages. Therefore it seems possible to encourage using artistic approach to general subjects. Drawing numbers, visualizing new words and using drama to visualize passages from reading can help children with low self esteem to build up their self confidence in general subjects (Taylor 1992) as they apply art in their every day activities and learning process.