by Tom Garfield, Superintendent
I Cor. 13:11: “When I was a child, I used to speak as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things.”
Children are profoundly different than adults – not just smaller versions. They speak but it is a different speech we must understand before we can correct it. They think but along lines different than ours. For example, impressions are made more through all the senses, not just seeing or hearing. They reason but not in the kind of adult logic we must train them in. Again, to we need to understand this in order to best correct and guide them to maturity.
1. Problems with ignoring or not studying the unique elements of this age group – I will state up front and clearly that I wanted to address this topic out of a concern I have for what I perceive is a widespread misconception in ACCS schools. That misconception is that children entering school for the first time, five and six year olds, should be taught and trained in the very same way as students who are eight and nine. So the age group I am identifying as being in the Pre-Polly stage are students from about five to seven, or as we normally place them, students in kindergarten through the first part of the second grade.
Essentially the problems with not identifying and “cutting with the grain” of this age-group are the same problems we would have if we ignored the distinctions between the Pert and Poetic stages. That is:
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