Dear Gymboree parents, in the past two months, Gymboree Qingdao Center paid a return visit to parents to get their opinions on the curriculum and other aspects. Among them, many parents mentioned such a question:
Gymboree's lessons are too repetitive.
Parents usually ask this question from the perspective of adults, without considering the needs of children.
Adults don't like repetition, they like change. Adults think that different things are interesting, and more changes in the curriculum can arouse children's interest, otherwise children will soon feel bored and lose interest.
This understanding makes sense: babies aged 0 to 3 really need rich experience. Rich experience can produce rich stimulation, and then promote the development of the brain. These rich experiences will produce short-term memories. Therefore, we also very much agree with "being well informed".
But this is only one aspect that children need to grow up. Another aspect that parents often overlook is that experience needs to be repeated on a rich basis. Repetition can transform short-term memory into long-term memory and make the brain structure change essentially. If constant change can arouse children's interest, then repetition can really build children's memory ability and self-confidence.
I believe that parents have this experience, and children (no matter what age) will keep repeating what they like.
For example, my baby 14 months old liked the sea very much, so he said "the sea" many times every day.
Gradually speaking better and better, expressing more and more happy and confident. Another time, he was very interested in clips and kept asking us to clip them on his clothes.
A few days later, he was able to pick things up by himself. For another example, he is very interested in bubbles, so he keeps saying "bubbles" when he sees bubbles in the water dispenser, bubbles in the bath, bubbles in the soup, and even circles in the mobile phone screensaver. It takes a process to turn different shapes of circles into bubbles. This process is repeated, but each repetition is different.
If you want your child's experience to be deeper than the superficial freshness, then you must pay attention to repetition.
Another potential reason why parents don't like repeating classes is that spending money should lead to richer experiences. Otherwise, the money spent is not worth it. In fact, Gymboree's course has been done for almost 40 years, and it's not that I don't understand parents' thoughts. Gymboree can completely change the teaching plan if she wants to meet the needs of parents. For example, Gymboree's play class has a theme every two weeks (there are many themes in each stage). We can change it to one theme a week. Music has a style every three weeks, and we can change it every week. However, what is the purpose of this change? Can children's experiences be truly internalized? Can it reflect the value of the course? We insist on what is best for children, rather than catering to parents, which is why Gymboree's courses have established such a good reputation over the years.
In our practical work, we should try our best to communicate with parents and help them understand their children's real needs. Admittedly, some parents will eventually not understand, and we can only express regret. Most parents can begin to understand their children's following behaviors: 1.
Read the same book over and over again. Therefore, mothers will not worry about their children's mental problems or too little study, but patiently accompany her to read the same book. )2.
Play the same game over and over again. So my mother is not worried about being too obedient to him, but patiently playing the same game with her. )3.
Sing the same song. Therefore, the mother will not think that the child is not creative or boring, but will sing it to him. )
Gymboree's courses are repetitive, and many other early education centers will use it to attack Gymboree, saying that Gymboree is not cost-effective. What they use is that parents don't understand early education and don't understand the real needs of children. Different from some centers, Gymboree course is a game, but it is not only a game, but also a game to achieve the purpose of learning (this kind of learning is essentially different from school knowledge learning). Therefore, parents need to be patient and know more about their children to see the effect.
In practical work, we often find that parents want their children to be confident, creative, expressive, gregarious and positive. This is also Gymboree's goal. However, in the actual parenting process, parents used the wrong method. The direct result is that after a few years, none of these wishes can be realized. For example, parents want their children to be independent, but everything should help him or hinder him; Parents hope that their children can study hard in the future, but they don't know how to cultivate their children to develop the habit of reading; Parents want their children to be reasonable and obedient, but they are too lazy to reason with their children when they encounter problems, and directly reprimand or insult or threaten to solve them; Parents want their children to be gregarious and sociable, but they can't stand the fact that their children are wronged a little and everything should be top-notch. Therefore, early education, to a large extent, is not so much to teach children as to teach parents. If parents don't have the spirit of learning, the problem of education will be difficult to deal with.
In addition, careful parents can feel that there are actually some changes during the two-week theme repetition. Even in the same activity, the feelings and reactions of children in each class are different.
The attached documents explain these different purposes to you in detail. I hope parents can realize the importance of repetition!