Understanding The Diversity In Preschool Children

There are many paths toward productive and worthwhile participation in our diversified society. Besides, a growing body of evidence shows that human minds are not all the same. There are many different ways of knowing and thinking about the world. Thus, we object to the idea that all the children should be expected to learn the same things in the same way. Instead, we should try to find their typical intelligence strength and proclivities.Based on those points, a collaborative research group from Harvard University's Project Zero launched Project Spectrum-aneffort to identify distinctive intellectual strengths in young children, hoping to raise the consciousness of teachers, parents, and the children themselves to the broad array of intelligences, styles and proclivities that each child presents, and to the many possibilities for productive expression of potential that a wider view of abilities might bring. By trying to acknowledge each child's intellectual strength and interest, by trying to base our teaching on their ability strength, we can help our children to learn at their best.So a positive study has been under way for half a year, during which Spectrum has been applied in a kindergarten. This study may be divided into four parts.: applying Spectrum to identify the children's intellectual abilities; collecting information about how teachers evaluating and thinking of their children.; finding some underlying problems by comparing those different assessment results; and analysing those results. The author makes a conclusion that the diversities of children's proclivities and intelligences haven't been given enough attention in the field for two possible reasons: the underlying ideas about intelligence is one reason; and the lack of available assessments is another key reason. So the author summarizes the features of Spectrum, expecting that with the help of a set of effective assessment tools, it will be easier for the teachers to recognize the special qualities and abilities that each child presents.