November 1, 2000
Bos: Childhood on verge of extinction
Childhood educator Bev Bos speaks at children conference
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Childhood is an endangered state on the verge of extinction, childhood educator Bev Bos asserted Saturday morning, waking up her audience of nearly 300 childcare providers, teachers and parents.
Bos was the keynote speaker at the Together for Children, the 21st Annual Northern Michigan Child Development Conference held Saturday at Traverse City West High School. Sponsored by the Northwest Michigan Child Development Conference, a consortium of area service agencies related to young children, the conference also featured a free family concert on Friday evening by Bos.
Together for Children also featured two dozen sessions throughout the day on topics ranging from storytelling to nutrition to sign language for young children. Legal issues for early childhood educators and supporting families going through a divorce or experiencing domestic violence were also discussed.
"I got some pretty good information on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome that will tell me what to look for," said Tina Kanary, a preschool teacher at Central Grade School. "Bev Bos was wonderful."
Many attendees relished the chance to connect with peers at the conference, an infrequent opportunity in their day-to-day work lives.
"Part of the thing I like is just talking to other providers and seeing what they do," said JoAnne Berle of Empire, owner of a home daycare. "I think ongoing training is so important just to keep stimulated."
Bos was certainly stimulating to her audience, some of whom came from downstate just to hear her speak.
After 32 years as a teacher and director of the Roseville Community Preschool in California, Bos bills herself a consultant for children, not a teacher. She exhorted her listeners to celebrate young children for their uniqueness and to give them a natural environment for playing in; learning will naturally follow.
"A brain-compatible environment for children encourages divergent thinking and curiosity," said Bos, a recording artist and author of three books on childhood education. "Children need three basic things: wonder, discovery and experience. Experience is not the best teacher, it is the only teacher."
She asserted that today's children have little chance for hands-on experiences with their natural environment, rarely playing with dirt, sand or water. She noted that instead of this natural play, society encourages children to dress, act and even play like adults.
Bos said that realistic toys, such as child-size cars and or plastic food, and computer games are examples of unnatural, non-child-led activities. Realistic toys deprive children of the chance to use their imagination, Bos noted, and encouraged the audience to use natural items such as rocks instead of play food.
The Roseville Community Preschool emphasizes music, art and hands-on natural experiences and lets children guide the learning. Instead of a teacher talking about the weather, for example, the children go outside to experience it
"Experiences have to be incredibly, incredibly sensory for children to learn," she said. "If something hasn't been in the hand it cannot be in the body."
Even reading comes under fire from Bos, who advocates waiting to teach children to read until they are at least 8; waiting until 11 is preferable. While this idea finds little merit in most education circles, Bos and some educators believe that a child's brain will be developed enough at these ages so they quickly and easily learn to read.
"We are pushing reading earlier and just because we can doesn't mean we should," she said. "Kindergarten, first- and second-grade are to make sure kids are socially competent, so they can make friends."
With children placed into structured settings at ever earlier ages, academics are assuming a greater importance, a trend that Bos does not support. She believes that making a child be quite, sit still and listen for blocks of time before they are intellectually or emotionally ready stunts their learning process in the long run, regardless of perceived early academic gains.
"Ninety-seven percent of what we learn is from the neck down," Bos said. "Nature and biology tell children what to do and we keep saying, 'Oh, is he hyper.' We keep labeling them for doing what is natural and I'm horrified."
Instead of fighting children's natural desire to move around, Bos and her staff at the Roseville Community Preschool embrace it.
"I removed the chairs in my school because learning is a whole-body experience," she said.