How do you work on your own self-development? That is, how do you discover your own characteristics and let go of traits that (still) do not suit you but receive a lot of attention in today’s society?
Joep Dohmen made us aware of this beautifully during his lecture. His magnum opus titled “Becoming Someone” is about the philosophy of personal formation. Education also plays an important role in the upbringing and formation of children. The German translation of formation is “Bildung.” Bildung is about striving for erudition, civilization, and mental flexibility; developing thinking skills, personality, and character, so that you can deal with the complexity of the current world and with the unknowns of the future world. The author believes that personal formation should precede citizenship education. Becoming someone therefore means searching for your own values and norms and not wanting to become someone you are not, which we are often tempted to do in the TikToks, Instagrams, and YouTubes of today.
Kazimierz Dabrowski discovered during his studies that gifted children naturally engage in constantly breaking down their own values and norms and replacing them with better fitting ones. He described this in his Theory of Positive Disintegration. In the April issue of “Talent” in 2016, I wrote an article about this. You can read it here.
In connection with this, I would like to draw attention to the teaching material Soy Don Toro. In this part, pupils not only learn the first Spanish sounds, songs, and an Argentine fairy tale, but in each chapter they learn to answer philosophical questions and discuss them with each other. Ana talks about herself and asks questions to the children, and to Don Toro about topics such as: What do you like to do, what do you like to experience, what would you wish for yourself? The questions that invite young children to discover who they are and to express that, to draw about it, and to sing songs about it. Those songs are in Spanish, so as a byproduct they learn some Spanish sounds, words, and phrases.
I could summarize the vision of part 0 as follows:
Offering challenges to young children who are just entering primary school. Introducing language children aged 5-8 to a different language and culture. Engaging young children in conversation about life questions such as: What do you like to do, what dreams or desires do you have, and what would you like to experience, and many other questions. Drawing, coloring, and playfully getting acquainted with the Spanish language with songs embedded in the same philosophical questioning and a beautiful fairy tale story.
Action: Discover part 0 by ordering a trial copy of the workbook with instructions.
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