A Reflection on the Personality Development of Children

What shapes the personality of a child?  How a few children alone can excel in education and communication and as a personality? Personality development of children is a subject that I am relatively passionate about. I set out to find answers to these lingering questions through this post.  I put together in this post all the knowledge (though few) that I acquired from my under graduation (with sociology as specialization) and post graduation (with communication as specialization), out of a few years of work experience at various corporate offices and internships with special schools, such as Vidysagar (formerly Spastic Society of India) and ESK learning center (a special school for Dyslexic children) and from my own observation of children in my family and neighborhood including me. I will be happy if this post can shed some light on how a child should be treated at home and school and what kind of environment that parents and teachers should create for the child to become a successful human being.

Before jumping on to the subject of the post, I would like to share some facts about the agents that shape the personality of a child, on the context of which I am planning to base my entire post. These agents are called the agents of socialization. The agents of socialization are the family, school, peer group, community, state and the mass media. When a child is born in this planet, its mind is a clean slate. These agents contribute to the thoughts that the child have about him or her and others and influence the personality of the child. For a country like India, the family is the core of the entire society. A child spends most of the time at home with the family till he or she is three years old. It is said that 85% of the core structure of the brain develops in the first three years of life. So the family can make or mar the life of a child. How the elders at home treat the child decides the perception of the child about his or her own self. It contributes to his or her self image. If the elders at home encourage and appreciate the child for its actions, it will grow into a confident and positive being. On the other hand, as many parents do, if the elders compare and discourage the child, it will only develop into a personality lacking self-esteem. So elders should highlight the feats of a child, no matter how trivial it is and communicate the shortcomings gently and understandably. Then, how elders at home treat each other also contributes significantly to the personality development of the child. The parents or elders should be role models, whom a child can mimic and not instructors, who can only preach but not practice.

The same rules are applicable to the school and teachers as well.  So parents should take extra care while putting a child into a school. For instance, Sita (name changed), who is an above average and intelligent student could score only 77% in her tenth CBSE boards. On the other hand, Vinit (name changed), who is an average student, could score more or less, the same marks in his tenth CBSE boards. Similarly, Vinit is an outgoing person with excellent communication skills whereas Sita is very poor at communication and is a shy person. After a few years, Vinit landed up in a plum job whereas Sita managed to secure a job with only a moderate pay scale.  This example is taken from the life experiences of people I know, though the names have changed. So what could have made the difference here? The school that they studied and their family environment, undoubtedly. Moreover, the family and school present the peer group, which is another agent of socialization. A child bonds with the children of his or her same age in the family and school. Therefore, if the condition or the quality of the family and school is good, the quality of the peer group will also be good. Similarly, the country, state or city where the child lives and the community that he or she belongs also shape the personality of a child to a grate extent. So, if elders blame a child for an unwarranted behavior, they should remember that they have their own share in such actions of the child.

Similarly, media can also influence the way a child think and act. Of late, television, movies and internet are acting as the primary agents of socialization. So, keeping a watch on what kind of movies and television programs that a child is exposed to is crucial.  The children could perceive the bad situations and people that are portrayed in the movies and television as real. It can make a permanent dent in their attitude, feeling and personality. So encourage your children to watch television programs and movies that would promote peace, happiness and well-being. Ensure that you and your family watch movies that only make you feel good. Hope this post answers some of your queries as well. Also, remember I am not an expert in this field of study and what I have expressed here is purely out of my own limited knowledge, observation, and experience. Your feedback is welcomed.

Spin a Yarn

You are an instructional designer at A to Z technologies. You have dutifully jotted down notes for your e-learning course from the SME. You also get some related documents from the SME and managed to get some content on your own through research. How will you convert these pieces of information into an engaging e-learning material?

You can consider the following two methods:

• Convert the content into a package. Chunk the information into categories, correct the grammatical errors and incorrect sentences, add a few static graphics and some basic animation and deliver the course to the client in a jiffy.
  
• Take the traditional approach. Know Your audience. Weave a story around the subject accordingly and make the entire course into a movie.
  

Which of the above methods according to you will create an impact on the learners? 

The undisputed answer will be B. Isn't? To understand it better, let us go down the memory lane.Some of the bed time stories that we listened as children are still fresh in our memory. What is the reason behind it? The reason is our grand moms were grate story tellers. Similarly, you could have had a strong inclination and liking towards a particular subject over others at school. What could be the reason? Same. The story-telling skill of the teacher. Pick up some lessons from them and hone your narrative skills to make your e-learning course more engaging and interesting.

Want A Career in E-learning? ReadOn!!

Classrooms are passé. Online learning is in vogue.  The electronic learning or e-learning industry is poised to grow at an unprecedented rate surmises Ambient Insight, a research firm. A new analysis and forecast released by this firm shows that e-learning reached $27.1 billion in 2009 and this figure is expected to double by 2014. According to its report, which is titled, "The Worldwide Market for Self-paced eLearning Products and Services: 2009-2014 Forecast and Analysis," e-learning will reach a dollar volume of $49.6 billion by 2014. The report further maintains that North America will continue to be the largest e-learning market for the next five years. North America will be followed by Asia and Western Europe as the second and third largest e-learning markets, respectively by 2014.

  

If you want to be a part of the e-learning industry and witness the growth, you have a plethora of opportunities wide spread across the industry. Some of the job roles that you can consider in the e-learning industry are project managers, graphic developers, instructional designers or curriculum developers, content writers, technical writers, subject matter experts (SMEs), programmers, and quality analysts. The good news is except for the role of a SME, you do not need any specific qualification or field of specialization for the other roles. They are skill-based and the minimum requirement is a bachelor’s degree. However, as the name suggests, you should be an expert in a particular field of study for being a SME. Most of the e-learning companies hire an external SME for their projects. However, a few companies also have a team of SMEs internally. If you want to be a SME, you should be armed with the necessary qualifications and certifications in a particular technology or subject. For instance, e-learning vendors that create online certification courses on Microsoft products can only hire trainers approved by Microsoft. They are called Microsoft Certified Trainers or MCTs.  The MCTs are the technical experts on Microsoft products and are the only authorized persons by Microsoft to provide content for training on their technologies. However, the SME only supplies the raw content, which needs to be converted into a suitable e-learning material. This is where the role of an instructional designer fits in. An instructional designer creates the high-level design or the blue-print of an e-learning course and suggests appropriate learning strategies and media treatments. After creating the high-level design, the instructional designer should also develop the content for the course.

In some organizations, the instructional designer only designs the course whereas content writers write the content based on the design strategy suggested by the instructional designer. However, by and large instructional designers design and create the content or storyboards for the e-learning courses. If you aspire to be an instructional designer, you should have excellent writing skills, strong grammatical skills and the ability to design and visualize content for e-learning courses. Once the instructional designers develop storyboards, the graphic developers should create the graphic elements. The graphic developers should be well-versed in various designing software applications, such as flash, Photoshop, and Dreamweaver as well as the e-learning tools, such as captivate and articulate. The graphic developers should finalize the media treatments in the e-learning courses along with the instructional designers. Once the course is created, the quality analyst has to verify the course for its quality and integrity. While hiring a quality analyst, the e-learning companies look for a person with strong editing skills. He or she should be prompt in grasping the standards followed by the organization and should have an eye for details. Apart from these functional roles, e-learning companies also hire project managers to plan and implement projects. A project manager should have strong managerial skills and the capacity to plan and implement projects on time. The opportunities in the e-learning industry are unlimited. With the spurt in the number of e-learning providers, the demand for e-learning professionals has increased. So you are limited only by your preferences. Reflect on your strengths and weaknesses and find out how you can make the best use of the opportunities that the e-learning industry is promising to offer.