This book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Licensesuccessfully on class projects may no longer feel comfortable doing so—or alternatively may now seek to be working
partners, but for social rather than academic reasons. Such changes do not affect all youngsters equally, nor affect
any one youngster equally on all occasions. An individual student may act like a young adult on one day, but more
like a child the next. When teaching children who are experiencing puberty, , teachers need to respond flexibly and
supportively.
Development of motor skills
Students’ fundamental motor skills are already developing when they begin kindergarten, but are not yet
perfectly coordinated. Five-year-olds generally can walk satisfactorily for most school-related purposes (if they
could not, schools would have to be organized very differently!). For some fives, running still looks a bit like a
hurried walk, but usually it becomes more coordinated within a year or two. Similarly with jumping, throwing, and
catching: most children can do these things, though often clumsily, by the time they start school, but improve their
skills noticeably during the early elementary years (Payne & Isaacs, 2005). Assisting such developments is usually
the job either of physical education teachers, where they exist, or else of classroom teachers during designated
physical education activities. Whoever is responsible, it is important to notice if a child does not keep more-or-less
to the usual developmental timetable, and to arrange for special assessment or supports if appropriate. Common
procedures for arranging for help are described in Chapter 5 (“Special education”).
Even if physical skills are not a special focus of a classroom teacher,, they can be quite important to students
themselves. Whatever their grade level, students who are clumsy are aware of that fact and how it could potentially
negatively effect respect from their peers. In the long term, self-consciousness and poor self-esteem can develop for
a child who is clumsy, especially if peers (or teachers and parents) place high value on success in athletics. One
research study found, for example, what teachers and coaches sometimes suspect: that losers in athletic
competitions tend to become less sociable and are more apt to miss subsequent athletic practices than winners
(Petlichkoff, 1996).
Health and illness
By world standards, children and youth in economically developed societies tend, on average, to be remarkably
healthy. Even so, much depends on precisely how well-off families are and on how much health care is available to
them. Children from higher-income families experience far fewer serious or life-threatening illnesses than children
fromlower-income families. Whatever their income level, parents and teachers often rightly note that children—
especially the youngest ones—get far more illnesses than do adults. In 2004, for example, a government survey
estimated that children get an average of 6-10 colds per year, but adults get only about 2-4 per year (National
Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, 2004). The difference probably exists because children’s immune
systems are not as fully formed as adults’, and because children at school are continually exposed to other children,
many of whom may be contagious themselves. An indirect result of children’s frequent illnesses is that teachers
(along with airline flight attendants, incidentally!) also report more frequent minor illnesses than do adults in
general—about five colds per year, for example, instead of just 2-4 (Whelen, et al., 2005). The “simple” illnesses are
not life threatening, but they are responsible for many lost days of school, both for students and for teachers, as well
as days when a student may be present physically, but functions below par while simultaneously infecting
classmates. In these ways, learning and teaching often suffer because health is suffering.
Educational Psychology 45 A Global Text