How does a two year old relate to an animal? We know that at first young children attribute the same feelings and thoughts to animals that they attribute to humans. But soon after the animal's lack of human response causes the child to rethink what sort of creature, say, a bird really is. Do we want to dissuade young children from thinking that birds are "happy" when we give them food and "unhappy" when their swing is stuck? Aren't we, in essence, treating the bird as a medium to engender compassion and empathy toward all creatures, including classmates? Yet some educators worry that this anthropomorphic bias clouds the child's observation of what the bird actually does do that is intelligent in its own right, independent of how close it matches human psychology.
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Reprinted with the permission of Videatives, Inc. © 2008, Videatives, Inc. All rights reserved.
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