PERSPECTIVES IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT

An apt comparison by Friedrich Froebel “school is a garden, teacher is a gardener and student is a sapling” implies the need to understand and develop the teaching-learning garden called “school environment” with potential student power.  When the teacher is good enough to understand the attributes like developmental dimensions, individual differences, personalities, interests and attitudes of students, he/she can mould the school environment into a highly productive garden with the saplings (students) blossom to full extent.This book starts with an introduction to “Psychology and Educational Psychology” to help the student teacher to gain some basic understanding of psychology during his journey of B.Ed. course. The content is presented in such a way that the book should be useful even after completion of B.Ed. to assist in their preparation for CTET, TET and Teacher Recruitment Tests. Immense care has been taken in citing relevant examples, appropriate diagrams, comprehensive flow charts and tables to easily grasp the essence of the topic. A very brief introduction of the psychologist, who is largely concerned with the topic, is given at the beginning of the some chapters.The syllabus in this book is divided into five units. The first unit “Approaches of Human Development” explains growth and development of the individual from birth to adolescence with its dimensions in physical, cognitive, emotional, social, moral and language aspects. The second unit “Theories of Development” covers cognitive, moral, emotional, psycho-social and psycho-sexual developments. Since the syllabus is concentrated around child development, the third unit “Childhood as a Period of Socialization” gives detailed information on various developments, socialization and socio-cultural contexts of childhood. The fourth unit “Adolescence as a Period of Transition” deals with adjustment issues, problems and remedies during crucial stage of human development i.e., adolescence. Being the largest of all, the fifth unit “Individual Differences” elaborates cognitive abilities like intelligence, creativity, personality, aptitudes, interests and values, learning issues and learning styles.All the stakeholders of Education are welcome to give suggestions, directions and comments for the improvement of content in the future editions. The Author solicits valuable guidance and constructive criticism in this regard.