Curriculum
Integral to the success of CSI is its developmental-interactive approach. CSI’s curriculum was designed and is taught utilizing this method. The developmental-interaction approach refers to the patterns of growth and ways of understanding and responding that characterizes children and adults as they mature. Interaction points, first, to an emphasis on interaction with the environment, an environment of children, adults, and the material world. And, second, it points to the interaction of cognitive and affective development; that is, thinking and emotion are not seen as separate but as interconnected spheres of development.
These concepts apply to the education of children and adults of all ages. However, a basic principle is that one has to understand the stage of development of those one is teaching. Therefore, concepts need to be adapted or translated for children and adults of different ages, capabilities, and cultures. Perhaps most important, children are different from adults. They are not just a smaller version, or even a smaller, less-knowing version; their ways of thinking and expressing themselves are different from that of adults.
CSI’s developmental-interactive methodology and curriculum can be easier understood by appreciating their governing principles:
These concepts apply to the education of children and adults of all ages. However, a basic principle is that one has to understand the stage of development of those one is teaching. Therefore, concepts need to be adapted or translated for children and adults of different ages, capabilities, and cultures. Perhaps most important, children are different from adults. They are not just a smaller version, or even a smaller, less-knowing version; their ways of thinking and expressing themselves are different from that of adults.
CSI’s developmental-interactive methodology and curriculum can be easier understood by appreciating their governing principles:
- Development is not a simple path from less to more; and it is not an unfolding, like the unfolding of a flower. Development involves changes or shifts in the way a child or an adult organizes experiences and copes with the world, generally moving from simpler to more complex, from single to multiple and integrated ways of responding. The concept of stages of development is crucial. Stages are approximate and are only loosely related to age.
- Individuals are never at a fixed point on a straight line of development, but operate within a range of possibilities. Earlier ways of organizing experience are not erased, but become integrated into more advanced systems. How one moves from one stage of development to the next is one of the puzzles of learning.
- Developmental progress involves a mix of stability and instability. A central task for the educator is to find a balance between helping a child consolidate new understandings and offering challenges that will promote growth. The fundamental concept that development involves the interaction of the individual with the environment leads to the fourth principle.
- The motivation to engage actively with the environment - to make contact, to have impact, and to make sense of experience - is built into human beings. The growing child gradually adds more ways of actively engaging with the world as she develops. Generally, the progression is from more physical, body-centered ways of responding to perceptual and them more conceptual, symbolic ways. Probably one of the most-agreed upon principles of development is the importance of developing a sense of self as a unique and independent individual.
- The child’s sense of self is built up from his experience with other people and with objects; knowledge of the self is based on repeated awareness and testing of one’s self in interaction.
- Growth and maturing involves conflict - conflict with self, and conflict with others. Conflict is necessary for development. The way conflicts are resolved depends on the nature of interaction with significant figures in the child’s life and the demands of the culture.