Can anyone recommend books/articles/etc. on the subject of childhood development? I think this info would enhance my teaching and would be great to know for when I have children of my own. Thanks!

A book on Piaget.

Where artistic development is concerned, Viktor Lowenfeld's "Creative and Mental Growth" is a brilliant study. It is easily one of the best books on the subject I've read, and many of the ideas apply to areas outside the visual arts.

A related webpage is here:

http://www.learningdesign.com/Portfolio/DrawDev/kiddrawing.html

Buy it here:

http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Mental-Growth-Viktor-Lowenfeld/dp/0023721103


Two more books on my "Must Read" list are John Holt's "How Children Fail" and "How Children Learn."

Go to a used bookstore (real or online), type in "Developmental Psychology" and pick up any of the 3-4 year old textbooks that you should be able to get used very cheaply. (Publishers come out with new editions every 2-3 years so the slightly older ones can be had for little $ and would serve your purposes fine.)

Or, for a book written for the general public:

"Ages and Stages"

David Hargreaves has written a couple of textbooks on music specifically, "The developmental psychology of music," and "The social psychology of music," that might be even more relevant to your teaching. You can probably get your library to order them for you through interlibrary loans.

While I would never question the contributions made by Piaget, I'd recommend something a bit broader in scope for the O.P. that would attend more to middle childhood than focusing so much on what goes on in infancy.

I would question the contributions made by Piaget (and Inhelder) which is why I suggest a book on. Infancy?? Formal operations??

I'm well aware that Piaget addressed later childhood, but before you get to formal operations you have to slog through a WHOLE lot of less relevant (and deadly boring, imo ) stuff on primary and secondary circular reactions in the sensorimotor stage.

I just didn't think that level of specificity was what the O.P. was looking for.

All of the above, and then visit a preschool/kindergarten to observe for a day, and then a first grade classroom to see all the things you've learned and make your own conclusions on how to tailor your teaching to young children.

It might be a good idea to do a broad reading to get a well-rounded perspective. I have read Piaget like every teacher has, also John Holt's "How Students Learn" and "How Students Fail", but also the work of Rudolf Steiner who founded the Waldorf schools. I have also visited Waldorf schools, talked to the teachers, and observed them in action. There were two mainstream alternative schools that I visited, each following different philosophies and ideas on pedagogy. Finally, the arts magnet school which my son attended was geared specifically for creative self-motivated artistic types, and the pedagogy plus philosophy had a much different spin to it. It's probably advantageous to not just read books, but talk to teachers, invite yourself to various learning environments and get as full a picture as you can.

Not for the child it isn't!

One caveat about visiting classrooms - There is a difference in teaching a group of children and one-on-one instruction with its inherent responsiveness. There is also a certain "institutionalized behaviour" necessary in the classroom that does not have to be when working one-on-one.

You can see that most readily if you watch a gathering of homeschooled, never-schooled children at a formal lesson given by someone who is used to schooled children. (Ours was at a sewage treatment plant lecture for 7 - 9 year olds). The teacher will say "When we walk down the street, we usually see.... ? ", voice trailing off, expecting hands to shoot up in the well known ritual. The kids sit there, waiting patiently for her to finish her sentence, wondering why she has stopped.