Tomorrow, 14 February 2015, the Pervasive Media Studio will celebrate it's seventh birthday. As we are not (all) in the habit of coming in on Saturday, we had a lovely wee tea and cake party this afternoon. I stood on a bench and said a thing (once a drama student...) and I thought I might share it with you too:

[reference: scholastic.com]

At the age of 7, a child reaches the conclusion of their pre-organisational stage.

“A hallmark of completion of the preoperational stage is the ability to manipulate symbolic elements, such as having control over written language and symbolic play. Completing this stage means that children are now able to mentally manipulate information and begin to take another person’s point of view or infer what another person is thinking, spontaneously and independently. The full development of these abilities will take several more years. The end of the preoperational period marks the decline (although not the obliteration) of a child’s egocentricism (his belief that what he thinks and feels is felt by everyone else as well). The ability to (begin to) take another person’s perspective means that children understand in a new way that other people think differently than they do, that other people may literally and figuratively “see” things differently. As a result, they can begin to role play and take on multiple personas

These accomplishments notwithstanding, children this age still remain magical in their thinking. Their lingering egocentrism often comes out in their convoluted stories and ambiguous references.” 

So here’s to the completion of our preoperational stage and may we always remain magical in our thinking. Here’s to the Pervasive Media Studio.