All About Me: Gareth Matthews

Hello Scholars and Educators, Welcome to my blog "All About Me: Gareth Matthews." Here, you will find statements and ideas about my personal philosophies, and how they relate to children. Fondly, Dr. Gareth Matthews

  I was born on July 8, 1929 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. At the time of my birth, my parents were participating as missionaries promoting Christianity in a foreign country. When I was growing up, my family moved a few times. I spent the majority of my childhood in Jackson, Tennessee, and later my adolescence in Franklin, Indiana. I spent a lot of time on my studies as a child; education was always important. I graduated from Franklin High School as the valedictorian of my class in 1947. I continued my life in Indiana by attending Franklin College--where my father worked as a professor--and received my A.B. in 1951. I furthered my education by receiving my Master of Arts from Harvard University one year later. During my studies with Harvard University I spent the year as a Rotary Fellow at Tubingen and the Free University of Berlin in Germany. The Rotary Foundation that I worked with strives to achieve peace and world understanding through many agendas. The foundatio...

My philosophy is that children can and will explore philosophical ideas as naturally as any other subject such as music or sports (p. 36). I have studied the abilities of children through informal interviews conducted by myself and college students. These interviews show that some children’s thinking process are philosophical in nature. Kids ask questions for practical purposes, and children come across these questions by reflecting on their experiences (p. 28). While some students devote time to philosophical matters infrequently, other students may persist with these inquiries and continue to reflect on them (p. 96). I believe that the role of adults is to foster youngsters’ natural need for philosophical thinking. Teachers, parents, and communities can encourage children’s inquiries by discussing the questions students bring to them and analyzing the responses together. Adults can also provide literature that is engaging and deals with philosophical whimsies. My ph...

Engage We adults need to give more credit to children. As a society, we have deemed children incapable of complex thinking because of their young age. However, we, too, were once curious children like those of today. So, in order to understand children’s development, intelligence, and thinking, we must not dismiss their curiosities. Children are “natural philosophers…all they need is a creative environment to be left alone in to discover” (274). We shall cultivate their wonders and allow children to question the world around them. Developmentally, abstract thought occurs earlier than Piaget originally believed, as noted previously. Before age twelve, children observe and engage in the world around them. So, the idea that children use abstract thought in those experiences is a valid statement. In my time spent studying how children interact with higher level thinking, I can concur children, indeed, understand the deeper meaning. Evidence shows “some children a...