Overview

Hailed as a classic in developmental psychology, The Learning Child is as relevant today as when it was first published in 1972, if not more so. Drawing on the findings of psychologists like Piaget, and on the author's own experiences teaching child development at New York’s Bank Street College, Cohen explores the crucial links between learning and the successive stages of childhood, and shows parents and teachers how to turn a child’s natural instinct for inquiry into a talent for learning that will last a lifetime.   “If American parents will read and listen to Dr. Cohen’s sensible, wise analysis of the way young children learn, my faith in human beings will be restored! . . . It was refreshing and reassuring to read a book by someone who approaches childhood with love and profound wisdom.” —Eda LeShan, author of When Your Child Drives You Crazy

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-If American parents will read and listen to Dr. Cohen's sensible, wise analysis of the way young children learn, my faith in human beings will be restored! . . . It was refreshing and reassuring to read a book by someone who approaches childhood with love and profound wisdom.---Eda LeShan, author of When Your Child Drives You Crazy

If American parents will read and listen to Dr. Cohen's sensible, wise analysis of the way young children learn, my faith in human beings will be restored! . . . It was refreshing and reassuring to read a book by someone who approaches childhood with love and profound wisdom. --Eda LeShan, author of When Your Child Drives You Crazy

Dorothy Cohen has taught for many years at New York's Bank Street College of Education - thus older cicerones of the progressive movement (Lucy Sprague Mitchell, for example) appear to balance out the more recently fashionable Piaget and Montessori. Her overall objective is to direct the child toward life in an open, plural society, where people take priority over things. More specifically she discusses the younger child's learning capabilities within the present day cultural/ environmental context (not stressing, deliberately, inner city extremisms) and in relation to the content of the school program at various stages. Thus the five year-old, however cocky and curious about everything, is still not ready to read (the Rorschach, not the IQ tests, supports this) and the school day should center around blocks, crafts and discussion. By the primary years the youngster is more independent, egocentric, untruthful, group-minded and ready to learn. By ten to twelve, she is concerned, as well be the older child, with the larger questions - moral, social, sexual. Ms. Cohen's book has a firm basis in theory as well as experience; much of the illustrative material - out of the mouths of babes - is enlivening; and it is a thoughtful work - correlative rather than innovative, avoiding Procrustean beds and rigid sets while attempting to harmonize education and socialization. (Kirkus Reviews)

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"DOROTHY COHEN was a brilliant teacher, a prolific writer, and an internationally known educator whose books The Learning Child, Kindergarten and Early Schooling, and, with Virginia Stern, Observing and Recording the Behaviour of Young Children are classics in the fields of child development and education. She traveled widely in the United States and abroad and was a frequent public speaker on behalf of the political and social principles that were her life-long passion. Dr. Cohen was a Bank Street student in the 1930s, then studied at Teacher's College and New York University, where she received her doctorate. She returned to Bank Street College in the 1960s as a member of the graduate faculty, advising, teaching, and writing until her death in 1979. Throughout her professional career Dorothy Cohen inspired and encouraged generations of graduate students, teachers, parents, daycare workers, and colleagues to participate with her in broadening the notion of education, to, in her own words, ""safeguard the humanness of our children."""

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