For those of you who may have just stumbled upon my articles, I am an early childhood and special education major. What does this mean? Well, in short, I take verbal abuse from people who think the early childhood setting isn't fit for a man, townies who think it would be best for me to stop chasing education when I could get a job doing hard labor and expect to make literally fractions of what my friends will make in their professions. One can assume that despite all this, the fact that I still want to teach is purely based on my drive to get my degrees and actually enter the field.
In my classes, which more and more I am convinced every new parent should take an ECH course to prepare them for the child, I have learned a plethora of important lessons on child development, but I think one of the most insightful lessons I learned was fixated on the transitional process from the home to the out-of-home care.
Newsflash, the new environment of the school that the child will be entering, minus the children who are home schooled, can be a bit stressful in the same manner that freshman year of anything could build anxiety. One of the ways to combat this stress would be implementing a morning/welcome song and a goodbye song.
Upon learning this, I reflected back on my life. While I couldn't think of any song that was designed for hello or goodbyes in school, I did realize many children's shows are very aware of this trick.
The songs help the child not feel as nervous about their new setting, as to create a positive connection with the classroom and teacher so they are more willing to interact and learn in the next step of their life. In the same way, the shows capitalize on catchy beats and inviting characters to make children more inclined to watch the show. Not only does that apply to children shows, it applies to any show really. Theme songs can make an adult more likely to watch the show.
In a sense, it is classical conditioning. In the educational setting, connect the songs to a happy memory/familiar person, and they are more likely to relax by association to that memory/person.
