Do cows know about their friends? (Education and socialization):

By:

Maaz Mohammed A.Q

Ccels Learning Associates

Bengaluru

One evening I was passing through the road, I saw six cows sitting together on a bridge. The cows were sitting so close to each other in a group as if some close friends are sitting together. It was a very great sight to look at and admire. My question is, do the cows know that they are sitting in a group of their own species. Do the cows know that they have learnt to live in a community, as we can see them in current position of sitting together? Do cows understand the implications of socialization? Did the cows acquire the social skills by observing their other counterparts or it is genetically acquired?

Let us discuss the socialization of human beings. Currently in modern education curriculum it is highly advocated that the social development should be part of any curriculum. Some of the psychologists such as Vygotsky have contributed much on child development. Vygotsky believed that humans share some elementary psychological processes with animals, including basic attentional, perceptual, and memory processes. Within the framework provided by the culture as a whole, parents, teachers, and other care givers select and organise activities and social interactions that they deem appropriate for children (siegler & Alibali, N.D). By looking at the sight of this cows one will easily question, even though they do not go to school how they have learnt to live together. Do they have innate characteristics of socialization? To extend our example a little, we also see the relationship the dogs have maintained with humans from generations. By all this, could we also believe that humans have innate capacity to socialize and live in the social life to its fullest?

Further insights into cognitive abilities required for learning from social interaction have been gained from comparative studies of children (siegler & Alibali, N.D). Perhaps the most basic cognitive ability needed for social and cultural learning is the ability to establish intersubjectivity, which is shared understanding between people that emerges through processes of mutual attention and communication. The capacity for intersubjectivity emerges at an early age for human beings (siegler & Alibali, N.D). That is why there is so much emphasis on social development in national curriculums of many nations. Further, if we analyse cognition required for social development we can see how animals have this kind of development without any training and conditioning. This opens upon a question, does our children really need a special emphasis on social development at schools, home and community.

Let us try to understand this. The conditions and the world in which humans live is complex compared to the animal world. The humans have to continuously deal with non-verbal as well as verbal language. This requires humans to learn the various transactional skills to deal with various behaviours and stimuli- at school, at home and with larger community. What implications does the schools have for this? The child spends equal part of waking time at school, as much as the time spent at home. And very importantly the children are the part of citizenry who will play an important role in the democratic machinery. (Dewey, 1900) as quoted by (Batra, 2011) viewed schools as miniature societies that could enable the cultivation of a democratic social order.

There are various approaches which view children differently- children as empty minds, children who have innate knowledge, or children have knowledge, but environment has to be created to learn. What role does school and the teacher play in the socialization process. The traditional view is that an effective teacher is one who can ‘control’ children by keeping them silent and attentive in class. The idea of control manifests in the popular conception of education which is to ‘socialise’ children in ‘desirable ways’ of ‘sitting’ in a formal class, ‘behaving’ in school and ‘following instructions’ from the teacher. All this is towards the larger aim of building character and morals as the most important goal of education (Batra, 2011). But progressive thinking is that the teacher should play a role of facilitator rather than a role of ‘I know it all’. The class room practices, playground, and friends play an important role in social skills development. The children should learn sympathy, empathy, patience, coping skills, learn to be non-judgemental, maintain healthy relationship, and care for larger community through active citizenship. As discussed in earlier part of article, the humans develop capacity of social development at early age. Thus this have implications for schools, particularly pre-school to develop the agendas to develop these skills- through curriculum, pedagogy, syllabus, co-curricular activities and like.

According to Michael Tomasello, and his collaborators, only humans are capable of certain, more advanced forms of social learning that require understanding of others as individuals with intentions and goals. According to this view, what is crucial in learning from social interaction is humans’ ability to understand other people as being like themselves, and in particular, as having intentions and mental states like their own (siegler & Alibali, N.D). Do animals also understand their counterparts that they are also like them?

In this article we have discussed about children who go to school, but there is also other part of population who are not part of school. There are children who are child labourers, who are out of school due to disability, children at juvenile centres and so on. What are the policies and procedures the society, and particularly the bureaucracy has to take, to foster the overall development of these children as well?

References

Batra, P. (2011). Teacher Education and Classroom Practice in India: A Critique and Propositions (This Review Paper is based on the presentation made at epiSTEME-4 Conference, 5-9 January 2011. ).

siegler, R., & Alibali, M. W. (N.D). Sociocultural theories of development. In Children's Thinking.

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