Skills that are valued of children in class
Most teachers divide their students into temperamental groups based on their behavior in class: moved, inhibited, shy, extroverted, emotional ... This classification that is done after the return to school helps them in their task of educating to value if they have an easy or difficult class, and so trace their line of education and teaching.
This pattern of work or line of educational education to depend on whether the group has a greater or lesser capacity for attention or ease to distract.
Temperament is different from ability, motivation and also, personality. It deals with the individual characteristics of each child to respond to the world around him and interact with him. It is the "how of the behavior". Temperament contributes to the uniqueness of people. Although it has a clear biological and genetic basis, it influences the temperament of each child, the educational style and the atmosphere in the home.
Skills that are valued by students in class
- Temperament or behavioral style. How it does what.
- Intelligence. What does.
- Motivation. Why does he do this.
- Personality Emerges after the time. On the other hand, individual differences in temperament can be recognized very soon.
Groups of children in the classrooms
After returning to school, many teachers divide the children into groups that show similar temperamental patterns. Thus, they group the inhibited, uninhibited, self-confident, emotional, impulsive or reticent. The psychiatrists Thomas and Chess, based on their clinical experience, described in their study New York Longitudinal Study three primary typologies of similar temperamental characteristics:
- Easy: easy children are characterized by regularity, adaptability to change, positive response to novelty, positive mood and moderate emotional intensity. They are kind, sociable and extroverted children. They do not get frustrated or angry easily. Teachers and classmates are comfortable with them.
- Hard: they are characterized by their irregularity, negative state of mind, little adaptability to change, intensity of reaction and negative response to novelty. They show exaggerated reactions and get frustrated when things do not develop to their liking. Often, teachers find them irritable, because they do not adapt easily to class rules; They may have problems with their peers.
- Slow reaction: slight negative responses to novelty and a slow adaptability to change predominate. Often, these children who find it difficult to take action need special support and patience because they tend to withdraw rather than participate.
Learning differently at school
There are students that better retain the subjects through exploration and others, through direct teaching. Children may become frustrated or bored because the teacher's teaching style and strategies do not match their temperamental needs.
The researchers Martín, Olejnik and Gaddis defined three temperamental characteristics that have an important influence on learning: activity, ease of distraction and perseverance.
- Activity "Vigor engine". There are children who can not sit still, have excess energy and have difficulty modulating their activity. On the other hand, others have little energy and prefer quiet time and sedentary activities, to physical games. Excessively high or low motor power influences performance.
- Easy to distract. Those who are easily distracted have problems to stay focused on their work, are aware of the noises and conversations. These have a lower yield.
- Persistence The child who abandons a task when it can not finish it quickly, who stops working when the task is difficult and who seems unable to finish a job, has little evidence. On the other hand, others manifestly constant, can be involved so much in an activity that they are not willing to stop or change what they are doing and besides, it bothers them that they interrupt them.
Teresa Pereda
Advice:Barbara K. KEOGH. Clinical psychologist University of California (USA). Author ofTemperament and school performance.Editorial Narcea.
