One of the requirements for the YES Abroad program is to complete a capstone project. This project is pretty much completely open-ended and we were giving great freedom in choosing what we wanted to do our project about. The main goal is to pick a part of our host country's culture that was interesting to us or some part of our experience here that was important to us and explore it more fully. I decided to compare preschools in the US and here in Turkey and discuss how culture effects education. It is kind of long, but I thought I would share it here in case anyone would like to read it.
Children Learn What They Live
How Culture Influences Preschool Education
Early childhood education is one of
the most important stages of education, as it is the first formal education a
child receives and sets them on the path towards future success, both in education
and in life. This remains true throughout various cultures. However, the
education itself will inevitably vary in different cultures, as cultural
standards vary. Behavioral ideals for children often differ greatly based on
the culture and these differences can be seen easily in a classroom setting. The
goals for the child’s education and style in which classrooms are conducted
show many similarities, although contrasts can be found as well. One of the
most obvious demonstrations of a cultural difference can be found in the amount
of responsibility children are given for their own education, versus how much
of that responsibility is put on the adults in the child’s life. Cultural
differences manifest themselves in every part of life, however, the attitudes
and ideas surrounding education and children is one of the most obvious places
to see them.
Standards of
behavior for children vary greatly by culture and these variations can be
easily seen in schools. From the beginning of my time in Turkey, it was quite
obvious to me that the expectations for Turkish children’s behavior is very
different than that for American children. In Turkish culture, it is rare to
punish children and they are generally allowed to do most anything they want
and the parents will not see a problem with it. Coming from American culture, I
felt that the children I saw were incredibly badly behaved. As time has passed,
I’ve come to understand how this is related to the culture here, and while it
still often catches me off guard, I understand why they behave the way they do.
These behavioral differences were especially clear to me after I started
helping out at a local preschool. It seemed to me that the behavioral problems
I saw there were greater than most that I could remember seeing in the US, but
that the “punishments” usually only amounted to them being told not to do it
again. At most, they would be told to sit a little apart from the rest of the
group. When I asked a teacher, they told me that they don’t believe in
punishing their children. The separations seemed to only last for a few minutes
until a teacher stopped telling them to go back to their chair and they
wandered back to the main group. In my mother’s classroom, punishments, usually
being isolated from others for some amount of time appropriate to what the
child did were given out if a child was hurting or disturbing other children or
if they were damaging property. The same idea was used in the Turkish
classroom, with children being put apart from the rest of the group if they
were disrupting the class, but the punishment was less strictly enforced and
therefore less effective. This was probably the most obvious difference between
these two systems of education to me, while the goals of the education itself
remained fairly similar.
Education is
either helped or hindered by the environment in which the learning occurs, and,
while the classrooms in Turkey and the ones in America had some differences, they
both were effective learning environments. There are many different aspects
that create a good environment for learning in which children will better be
able to accomplish their learning goals. I found many similarities between the
classrooms I have worked in in the US and in Turkey. In both countries, the
classrooms are decorated with projects the children have done and various other
posters and pictures that further the children’s learning. As playing is just
as important to a young child’s learning as structured class activities, there
are also games to be played at appropriate times. Games had to be shared
between children to teach them the value of sharing and there were many
different ways to use the different objects around the classroom. However,
children were rarely allowed to bring toys from home in the classroom in
America, while it was common practice in the classroom in Turkey. Field trips
are also common in both countries as a learning tool in which the children can
very actively participate in their own learning. Encouraging physical activity
on a regular basis was another similarity between the two countries. In the
American classroom, the children went to PE several times a week and had
recesses every day to play outside, while the Turkish children had dance
classes and were also given several opportunities each day to play outside. The
biggest difference I observed was in the use of technology as a teaching and
learning tool. In the Turkish classroom, technology was used a considerable
amount, whereas it was used very conservatively in the classroom in America. In
Turkey, they often play songs and various learning videos as a way to entertain
the children as well as one way of teaching the lessons. In the classroom in
America, technology was used very sparingly as a teaching tool because it was
believed that the children would learn better by doing an activity related to
the subject matter rather than just seeing someone else do the activity on a
screen. Technology was especially widely used in the children’s English classes
in Turkey, which start at 3 years old. Preschool English lessons and songs
mainly made up their English classes, an interesting change from the American
classroom, where children rarely begin to learn a foreign language so early in
life. The classroom environments in both countries were very effective and
while they had a few differences in teaching styles, the main parts remained
the same.
American
culture places great emphasis on children growing up and accepting more and
more responsibility while they are still quite young and continuing to take
even more as they get older. Turkish culture views remaining dependent on
parents longer as the best way of staying close to your family, which is very important
to the Turkish people. This means most children stay home with their families
for much longer than an American child would. These differences in the
expectations for the children’s future clearly affected the goals of their
education, even at this age. In the American classroom, children were already
being taught how to be responsible for their own things, including homework,
and being given a wide range of choices in their days, from choosing their own
library book to what activity they wanted to do. This is so they could begin to
learn how making certain choices affects them and teaching them to have the
responsibility for their own belongings, and in the future, their own
education. For example, if they forgot to bring their library book to return,
they would sit at a separate table while their classmates were able to pick out
new books. Children often did better remembering to bring their books when they
knew they wouldn’t get to participate in the same activities as their
classmates if they didn’t. By giving these types of responsibilities to
children beginning at such a young age, the goal of them becoming independent
at an earlier age in is more easily accomplished. In Turkey, family is the most
important thing, and children often remain living at home much longer than
children in the US do. Responsibility and independence are not as important to
the Turks, and are therefore not pushed as much in early education. The
children I interacted with tended to have fewer choices when it came to their
activities and were given fewer responsibilities in the classroom and in their
education. While the main goals of the education in both countries was to start
the children on their path to continued learning and the desire to seek out
their own education, the amount of responsibility and independence taught was
very different between the two countries.
Parental
involvement in a child’s education is viewed as being vitally important in both
countries. A child’s parents are their first teachers and they are the ones who
continue educating their children outside of school so their level of participation
is very high in both countries. While parental involvement was more obvious to
me in the American classroom where parents would regularly come into the class
and work with the students, there was still a high level of contribution from
parents in the Turkish classroom. Many came and spent time with the students in
their child’s class and were expected to continue the learning with their child
at home, through reading and other educational activities, much as parents are in
the US. Parents are also highly involved in the classroom during field trips
and time spent as a class away from the regular classroom in both countries.
Teachers in both Turkey and the US felt that parents need to be highly involved
in helping their child with their learning, both at home and in the classroom.
While
differences abounded between the styles of teaching and the methods of keeping
order in American classrooms and in Turkish ones, the most important things
remained the same. Teachers in both countries want to teach their children a
love of learning and a desire to learn for themselves without the pushing of
others. Turkey takes a more relaxed-seeming approach when it comes to their
early childhood education, but with a far greater emphasis on learning foreign
languages and interacting with the other students. The American classroom
tended to place more importance on the learning of proper behavior and self-control,
while also becoming more independent in one’s choices and education. Most of
the differences between the two classrooms seemed to manifest themselves
because of the significant cultural differences, especially those surrounding
young children. The learning that young children do is some of the most
important that will happen in their lives, and while teachers in Turkey and
teachers in America had different approaches when it came to how their children
would be educated, the goals of life-long learning and growth were the same in
both countries.
