In this regard, there is a clear sociological agenda which initiates with the expectation that boys will be attracted to certain features in their toys and that girls will be attracted to certain other, divergent features. Ultimately, this denotes that it will fall upon the shopping parent to determine which type of toy is more valuable to his or her child. To my perspective, those toys which lack an apparent sociocultural agenda do so because they are inherently flexible to the innumerable needs and ambitions of the developing child.

Adolescence:

Paper Clips (2004) is a compelling documentary in which the children of an elementary school in Whitwell, Tennessee have been engaged in a project designed to better conceptualize and put into perspective the enormity and horrors of the Holocaust. The class would center on teaching the students tolerance, and would prove directly well-suited to the adolescent stage experienced by most of the students who involved themselves.

Indeed, it is during this phase of middle childhood that we begin to develop an understanding of moral schemes as something more complex than simply that which is defined by consequences. This conforms with Piaget's idea about moral growth as it coincides with the stages of development. Here, our research notes that at around "10 or 11 years -- children's moral thinking undergoes other shifts. In particular, younger children base their moral judgments more on consequences, whereas older children base their judgments on intentions. When, for example, the young child hears about one boy who broke 15 cups trying to help his mother and another boy who broke only one cup trying to steal cookies, the young child thinks that the first boy did worse. The child primarily considers the amount of damage -- the consequences -- whereas the older child is more likely to judge wrongness in terms...

This leads into a greater sense of the world as separate from ourselves. In the segue into adolescence, we begin to view ego orientation separately from society, ethical coding and the formation of relationships both formal and information.
For the children involved in a Holocaust memorial project in which paper clips were gathered as a symbolic representation of those lost to intolerance and hatred, this experience would clearly produce a sense of empathy and sadness for those millions of unknown people who were lost. As Piaget would observe, the fact that these children had come to appreciate the moral implications of the Holocaust and that they had begun to see themselves as having some custodial role in preserving this memory and preventing the occurrence of such events ever again is demonstrative of the stage of development where young individuals begin to see themselves as part of a larger body that is humanity.

Indeed, the development of the capacity for moral judgment as well as for the critical deconstruction of certain human behaviors are important dimensions of one's emotional, psychological and intellectual growth. The documentary here would help to place a group of young and otherwise isolated learners into a context of human continuity, empathy and collectiveness. These are crucial features of developing from a being of pure impulse to one with the ability to engage the world critically

Works Cited:

Crain, W.C. (1985). Theories of Development. Prentice-Hall.

Harder, A.F. (2002). The Developmental Stages of Erik Erikson. Learning Place Online.