Most Critical Age of Development?

[flow]

I've decided I really want to be a teacher. I'm sure many of you have found this to be a satisfying career, as it is quite an intellectually gratifying position to take (assuming you teach effectively). I'd like to place myself in an area that I think kids would need the most careful of attention. I'd love to teach kids as their dominant traits start to express themselves, and the personality begins to unfold. I feel like it'd be around the ages of 3,4, and 5. Anyways, maybe some of you believe the critical ages to be later on in life. Opinions?

 

[Ermine]

Critical in which aspect? I think there's a few different critical time periods that are all important for their own reasons. Comparing them would be like comparing apples and oranges.

 

[flow]

You may be right. I think people go through several stages of development, certainly more than 1. I guess I'd like to position myself in a place where the first stage of development is, wherever that may be.

 

[Ermine]

In the context of teaching, I think the elementary school period is the most critical. It sets the stage for a child's attitude towards learning.

 

[walfin]

You may be right. I think people go through several stages of development, certainly more than 1. I guess I'd like to position myself in a place where the first stage of development is, wherever that may be.

That should mean childcare then .

Development's the most rapid at that stage, although it isn't always readily apparent.

 

[NoID10ts]

I agree that elementary is the most critical stage, but for an INTP, I would think that would be a hard age to teach. I work at a Middle School and oh my god am I glad I don't have to teach these little cretins. My wife is a pre-K teacher, and oh my god am I glad I don't have to teach those little cretins.

I would think upper level college and graduate classes would be ideal for an INTP teacher. It may not be that core developmental education like the fundamentals of math and such, but you can teach people to think critically and really shatter their proconceptions. Plus, more than likely, you would have a class full of people who want to be there and are interested in the subject. That makes it so much more lively and interactive. That would be exciting to me.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Ermine]

I agree. Elementary school seems to be more babysitting and enforcing the rules than actually teaching. It's a crying shame.

 

[fullerene]

*agrees with noddy*

college would be where it's at, I think, because people are paying for their education and really want to learn. Snail told me that she saw studies, once, on how the NFs and SJs oscillate their control of the elementary school system over time. I think the NT could be alright teaching there, but you'd have to be really creative. You can't teach little kids complicated concepts, or make good use of your mind in the way that comes natural to us (or at least to me) by critically thinking through ideas, but there's a lot of little crafts and stuff that go into elementary school. I think you could make it interesting for yourself to try to find something that interests everybody (you know... tell that kid who's good at math to try and add up the first 100 integers or figure out how to divide before his time, and let him work on it alone, while you try to encourage the more animated kids to write a play and perform it for everyone), but, again, it'd take a lot of creativity to impact kids at that age, and less deep or sustained thought.

I'd also imagine there's a whole hell of a lot more politics that go into school at that age... especially if you have to deal with parents who don't like your "style" or way of treating the kids. If a kid's just purely negative, hates everything about school, and doesn't want to be there, you have to put up with it and try to find some way to work it out. If you teach college, though, you can sort of challenge people, and if they don't want to be there or don't put out the effort, you can just say "ok, then you fail. sorry."


It might be worth trying it out, though. I would think that if you got along well with little kids in other contexts, you'd be able to handle the little 'uns. I dunno if I'd be able to, though, cause I don't have the skills needed to relate to them in all their differences.