Some Suggested AE Units – Remember, AE stands for Authentic Education – Keeping it 100. Notice the units not strictly cultural, but very open-ended so children can build the concepts listed in the previous blog.

Our Favorite Veggies, Using Big Muscles, Dental Health Week, Using Small Muscles, Field Day/Mini Olympics, Fine Motor Relay Day, Community Helpers, 100th Day of School, Things We Can Count, Let’s Build Shelters, If I Was President, Using Our Words

Or:

Let’s Learn Another Language (English, French, Spanish, Arabic, or Sign)

Local Event Celebrations (fairs, parades, community anniversaries)

Birthdays! (children in the class, teachers, & staff members) MRS. B. IS 63!  

Personal Achievements and Milestones (first tooth, first word, crossing the monkey bars, printing your own name, new baby, new house, or Out of My Crib Day!)

Family Events (What We Do on the Weekend, Our New Apartment, Daddy’s Home!)

How About:

Transportation   Grandmas   Clothes   Everybody Dance!   Friends   Same & Different

Folk Tales   Places I’ve Been   Favorite Books   Machines   Bodies   Music I Like

Places People Live   Holidays   My Name   Heroes With Capes   Heroes With No Capes

Farms   Pets   Animal Homes   Green Food   Colors   Day & Night   Balls   People Homes

Jobs People Do   Buildings   Hats   Babies   Land and Sea   Water, Wind & Weather  

Growing   Look In the Mirror   All About ME!   Socks & Shoes   Lines   Dirt

And Just a Couple More:

Make New Friends  –  My Family Tree  –  How I Got My Name  –  Best Jokes

Big & Little  –  Zoo Animals  –  Winter Time Fun  –  Talking

How We Move  – Care for Earth  – Happiness!  –  All Kinds of Breads

I HATE Broccoli!  –  I LOVE Broccoli!  –  Clean the Playground  –  Tools

How to Help Others  –  Around the School, Around the Block, & Around the World  

Next Blog: More About AE and ME  

 

 

 

WHOO HOO! One of the best ways to create and maintain an Environment of Emotional Safety is to celebrate and commemorate milestones, holidays, and special events in the classroom. Celebration builds self-esteem, relaxation, enthusiasm, and a sense of community.  Celebrations are wonderful ways to gain knowledge and build strengths.  Children who are actively involved in celebrating rituals and events are actively involved in learning in an atmosphere of emotional safety. 

Celebrations may be seasonal, faith-based or family based, personal events and milestones, historical events, or simply ways to introduce facts and concepts and practice skills in an interesting, novel, relevant, and enjoyable way.  They may arise spontaneously or may need to be created by teachers.   Create experiences and commemorate events that will be meaningful and interesting to the children, and design Experience Plans (lesson plans) around these celebrations showing the Strength Expectations (educational objectives) it is hoped the children will gain by the celebration.

By assigning each member of the community responsibility in the planning and carrying out of these experiences, celebrations create learning opportunities in every Learning Domain (Body, Mind, and Spirit). Celebrations and commemorations are not just parties with cupcakes and favors.  They are reasons to create learning experiences that are relevant, personal, or historical, and a way of sharing learning within the community of learners.

Happy Birthday, but More – There are thousands of ways to party at the preschool, but when I say ‘celebrate’ I mean commemorate in a purposeful way.  The trick in celebrating is to make sure it is a learning experience.  Cut down on the individual birthday celebrations – or celebrate them with a special food at snack or lunch or a song or by awarding the birthday child a coveted classroom job for the day.  Make it special, but not overwhelming, and by all means watch the junk food.  The following ideas are some appropriate celebrations that are meaningful and relevant to the development of program objectives.

One way to make sure you’re using celebration correctly is to add the educational element of MULTICULTURALISM. What?!?!?!

AGH!!!! NOT ‘ME’! – To some people, “multicultural education” (ME) has come to mean FORCED POLITICAL CORRECTNESS – WHICH IT IS NOT.  So to help us understand and accept it more easily, let’s change the term to Authentic Education (AE). Adding an element of authenticity means incorporating non-judgmental facts and concepts of real life as it exists today, into the experiences, activities, themes, lesson plans, materials, equipment, and classroom décor. AE is right because we must ‘teach’ facts, and like Multiculturalism, AE is about inclusion and respect because inclusion and respect build both self-esteem and community.

AE is NOT just about ethnicities and cultures, Not about forcing a sense of diversity, NOT the espousal of one religion, faith, or belief over another, NOT about political correctness, NOT about creating units of study based on visits to foreign lands with stereotypical party favors and costumes, and it is NOT an annual celebration of Cinco de Mayo, Kwanzaa, or Chinese New Year (especially if those holidays have no relevancy to any child in your class.

AE IS talking about and celebrating the uniqueness of each child in your class and helping your children build intelligence, empathy and community by respecting that uniqueness.

It is the daily depiction of real life and the incorporation of that life into the learning community.  It is the presentation of diversity for the purpose of building skills of Body, Mind, and Spirit.   The emphasis in AE is on real life from existing cultures.  It is offering a realistic, non-stereotypical view of the world in which humans live so that young children may learn facts and increase respect for all persons. 

When AE is done well, it leads to the accomplishment of the mission we all must agree on – that of optimal brain development.  It increases the amount of information offered and broadens the knowledge children have about the world. More information means increased intelligence.  AE prepares children for the world as it currently and realistically exists and prepares them to deal with that world in an intelligent, realistic, and meaningful way.  It encourages scaffolding of new learning built on existing knowledge and moves the children to a higher plateau of intelligence.

When each child is seen and treated as an important part of the community of learners, respected for simply existing, not in spite of, but because of the uniqueness of his race, ethnicity, culture, faith, gender, social or financial place, physical ability, age, appearance, mental capacity, family history or life circumstance, both individual and group learning and behavior improve. When AE is incorporated into your program using developmentally appropriate, experience-based, active learning methods it gives teachers the opportunity to evaluate their methods and helps teachers determine if they unintentionally have different expectations for children based on their race, ethnicity, social or financial standing, gender, ability, or their family value.

AE CONCEPTS – Non-political truths that young children can understand through AE are listed below. THESE ARE NOT THEME TITLES. THEY ARE IDEAS AND CONCEPTS CHILDREN MAY UNDERSTAND AND TALK ABOUT WITHIN A THEME, OR WHEN A QUESTION OR CHALLENGE ARISES.

• Everyone is equal, deserves respect, is worthy and lovable, is important, and has feelings
• Some people look, sound, talk, and move like me and some people do not
• People are alike and people are different
• Some physical attributes stay the same and some change
• It is important to listen to everyone
• It is important to be curious and interested in other people
• We can learn about the daily lives of people we know and those we don’t know
• People come from many different kinds of families
• There are people who live near us and many who live far away
• People can do many different kinds of work and people can work together
• Some things are real and some things are not
• Some things seem fair and some seem unfair
• Different does not mean bad

None of these truths are either preferential or threatening to any faith or culture, but are simply facts of life. Dive In!

Next Blog: A Few Ways to Celebrate

 

I Do it Myself! – Specific Ways to Assign Responsibility and Grant Ownership

Potty Processes – Rather than swooping in and scooping up your diapered friends only by the class schedule, wait until you hear a baby fuss (or you can tell by your other senses that someone is in need of a fresh diaper).  Say, “OK, Baby.  It sounds (or smells) like you’re asking for clean pants.” Or “Toddler, we’re going to change your diaper in two minutes”, or “Hey, Three, your pants are wet.  Help me pick out some dry ones from your cubby”.  Some children are nervous about their bodies and have a heightened sense of privacy – respect that – and let them be more responsible for their bodies and functions.

Food Functions – Never force a child to eat anything he does not want to eat and never demean his family food choices.  Never use food as a punishment or reward.  Model manners at the table, include nutrition education in your curriculum, and give each child responsibility for his food choices. Use small pitchers so they can pour their own juice or water and have blunt-point scissors at the table so they can open their own packages. Let them help each other.

Dress Designs – With the exception of safety and health, always let a child’s choice of clothing be his responsibility.  Let them try to dress themselves as often as possible and give them time and opportunities for practice in this area.

Behavior Business – Use a system of behavior management that calls for clear rules about harmful behaviors and assure that age-appropriate consequences occur when rules are broken.  This is how children learn how to behave appropriately and take responsibility for their actions.  React immediately if anyone is being hurt, but if possible, let children work their issues out by themselves. 

Cleanup Clashes – Clean up WITH the children, not as an overseer or cleanup director. Use a visual or audible signal like turning off the lights, clapping hands, chanting, or singing to give everyone time to finish up their work and always have a ’countdown’ signal too, so there is time to prepare – “5 MINUTES TO CLEANUP, FRIENDS!” Require that ALL must help, but make individual assignments (Block Boss, Art Aide, Dressup Diva) so that everyone is interested in the activity.  Try to have an incentive for cleanup time.  “When our room is clean, we can go to the playground.” (Not, “We’re not going anywhere til we find that #%&**?!’n hamster!”)

Classroom Chores – Have a job for every child every day.  Jobs are important to the self-esteem of every child, and for creating a sense of community. They are great for meeting the attention and skills needs of individual children. Some examples – children who are nervous or insecure make great Door/Gate Closers; children who need math practice can be Head Counters; children who say mean things to others need to practice positivity as Smile Keepers (making sure everyone is happy); children who have a tendency to run need to be Crossing Guards; every child needs to be Line Leader – front, back, and middle of the line.

Every day, every child must be given a job!!!!!

Remember and Believe This:

The more children can do for themselves, the more competent they feel.

The more competent they feel, the more eager they will be to try and to participate

The more they try and the more they participate, the more they learn.

The more they learn, the smarter they become.

Mission Accomplished!

Psst! – (Two more secret side effects of ownership and responsibility are that the greater the ownership, the better and behaviors and the better you look to parents during Teacher Appreciation Week).

Best Jobs Ever! – Line Leader, Line Middle, Line Caboose, Door Opener, Door Closer, Song Chooser, Cleanup Crew, Dressup Director, Dustbuster (ask your parents or administrators for a portable hand-held vacuum for your room), Crumb Catcher, Table Sprayer (water, not bleach), Recycler, Napkin Captain, Juicebox Helper (or Straw Sticker), Chair Stacker, Floor Sweeper, Plant Waterer, Pet Feeder, Cage Cleaner, Weather Watcher, Pledge Leader, Prayer Picker, Folder Filer (makes sure folders with ‘work’, notes, notices between home and school are put in teacher’s box), Office Assistant, Kid Counter (takes attendance), Crossing Guard, Smile Maker (makes sure everyone is happy – good job for a bully), Hand Holder (good job for a runner or for assisting a hesitant or special rights child), Wheelchair Pusher, Shoe Tier, Monkey Bar Monitor, Center Checker, Bathroom Boss, Block Boss, Art Arranger, Science Supervisor, Swing Sargent (gives each child a push for each year of age), and many, many, more.

Next Blog:  Emotional Safety – Celebrations!

In talking about the environment of emotional safety and giving children ownership and a sense of responsibility, the essence of good early education practice is that the ‘work’ MUST be developmentally appropriate. Here are some developmentally appropriate ways to assign ownership at each age level.

Infants and Babies – Although their single biggest responsibility for growth is simply to learn to trust in the knowledge that they are loved, infants and babies can be encouraged and assisted, to develop responsibilities and take ownership of their learning in each area of growth. To do this we need to:

Body – Provide continuous opportunities for movement and use of the senses so they will develop responsibility for gross motor movement and sensory exploration; Offer choices in toys and assure that toys are at baby level so they can reach them by themselves so they will develop responsibility for fine motor movement,

Mind – Provide opportunities for them to express themselves verbally before over-correcting, editing, and jumping in with translations of their attempts at language so they will develop responsibility for expressing thoughts and language; When possible, wait for them to express need for diaper change or food and then meet that need immediately so they develop responsibility for expressing need; Patiently wait for responses from older Babies when you ask questions so they can develop responsibility for responding in a developmentally appropriate amount of time; Ask older Babies to say words for objects (in verbal or sign language) before giving objects to them so they become responsible for using words as expression

Spirit – Have conversations and give them toys to hold while diaper changing so they develop responsibility for self-soothing; Assure that families are involved in the program so all learners take responsibility for bonding and separating appropriately

Toddlers – The basic developmental responsibilities of children from one to two years of age are to begin to talk and walk, to begin to listen with some understanding, and to begin to take part in LIMITED group play. We need to:

Body – Offer continuous opportunities for Toddlers to move their bodies and use their senses so they become responsible for active learning: Ask Toddler if he needs a change before scooping him up on a class schedule so he begins to take responsibility for awareness of his own toilet training; Encourage Toddlers to feed and try to dress themselves so they begin to be responsible for nutrition and fine motor development

Mind – Have an organized storage system and show Toddlers where the toys belong so they can be responsible for attempting to put them back after use; Ask Toddlers to help you do things so they develop responsibility for understanding the processes, concepts, materials, and words needed

Spirit – Use fair, age-appropriate consequences for harmful behaviors so Toddlers begin to take responsibility for those behaviors by connecting action and consequence; Ask Toddlers to assist in daily classroom routines like clean up and table setting so they begin to take responsibility for the learning environment; Encourage and appropriately praise attempts made to move, choose, and achieve skills so all learners become responsible for continuing to try; Assure that families are involved in all aspects of the program so all learners take responsibility for bonding and separating appropriately

Twos, Threes, Fours, and Fives – Each age group, from Two through Five years has basic general developmental responsibilities that accompany the vast amount of specific skills and concepts that will be acquired.

Twos need to separate from the oneness of parent/child or caregiver/child to become their own individual and unique persons.                                                                                                      

Threes need to express themselves through art, music, dance, and drama and to try to learn self-coping methods when they are upset.                                                                                                                                                                    

Fours need to gain self-control and to hone their listening skills.                                        

Fives need to relax, use humor, and build their self-esteem in preparation for kindergarten.

All of the children in these age groups can benefit from teaching techniques that grant them ownership and assign them responsibility for their learning in these ways:

Body – Require, urge, coax, encourage, or lure them into moving their bodies and using their senses on a daily basis; Move from gentle encouragement to firmer requirement to perform or try to perform hygiene and self-help skills on their own – provide time and patience here

Mind – Assure that there are many appropriate attractive and interesting experiences to choose from and encourage them to work in a variety of interest centers; Require that they select, act, complete, and reflect on learning; Require that they use words rather than gestures or actions; Do not answer every question they ask, but require them to think and research first; Wait a developmentally appropriate amount of time for them to think, recall, and answer questions you may ask so they take responsibility for individual rates of response

Spirit – Use fair, age-appropriate consequences for harmful behaviors; Require that all learners take part in daily classroom routines and assure that each learner has a specific daily task to accomplish in the community; Encourage and appropriately praise attempts made to move, choose, and achieve skills ; Assure that families are involved in all aspects of the program so all learners take responsibility for bonding and separating appropriately

Next Blog: Best Jobs Ever!

Many preschool teachers see themselves as                                             

GREAT GRANTORS OF KNOWLEDGE, BENEFICENT BESTOWERS OF BEHAVIOR, and MIGHTY MAVENS OF MANNERS!

whose job it is to impart their personal versions of facts, developmental timetables, and social norms to the little minions in their realms.

NO WAY!

It is our job, our purpose, our mission, to encourage children to use their own bodies, brains, and hearts to explore, discover, and learn HOW to learn. We must be:

Renderers of Resources, telling children where they might find answers and offering them choices in work and play along with opportunities to make and use mistakes
Lenders of Language, asking the children for words, writing and displaying them, and offering words when a child need them
Models of Methods used to solve problems and conflicts appropriately

So, stop answering all their questions; stop using one dimensional one-way-to-do-it worksheets; stop talking quite so much and do more listening; NEVER stop writing and displaying THEIR words; stop making them eat their lunches in a particular order; NEVER push them to the potty; and sometimes let a harmless argument, tantrum, or fuss be solved by the children themselves.

Look at the Big Picture – A good ‘whole child’ curriculum consists of a continuum of Evidence (knowledge of sound child development facts); Expectations (what the children will learn); Environment (provision of physical, emotional, and educational safety); Experiences (how the children will learn); Execution (how the learning is delivered); and Evaluation (measurement of the quality of the learning – were the Expectations met).

Here are the child’s responsibilities in each aspect:

• Evidence – The child has no responsibilities in this area except for his innate natural growth
• Expectations – It is the child’s responsibility (with parent and teacher encouragement) to make efforts to reach the Expectations through curiosity, interest, and participation.
• Environment of Physical Safety – It is the child’s responsibility to developmentally acquire respect for the care of the environment and for the safety of all members of the learning community by growing in the skills of self-regulation.
• Environment of Emotional Safety – It is the child’s responsibility to make attempts to developmentally gain the skills of self-awareness, self-expression, and humanity (bonding, playing, empathy, respect, turn-taking, making friends, cooperating, and caring for others).
• Environment of Educational Safety – It is the child’s responsibility to developmentally acquire the skills to SARA – Select from given work/play options; participate Actively; Reflect, recall, and remember to the best of his ability, how he has taken part; and Apply the learning to new experiences.
• Experiences – It is the child’s responsibility to developmentally acquire the skills to be curious, to show interest, and to take part in the experiences offered.             
• Execution – It is the child’s responsibility to developmentally acquire the skills to regulate his behavior and participate so the learning process can proceed.
• Evaluation – The child has no responsibilities in the formal assessment procedure as no child under the age of eight should be held accountable for determining the measurement of his strengths or needs, BUT teachers must give children the responsibility for making judgement calls when it comes to their WORK. The more approval and satisfaction they get from their WORK, the better off they are in self-esteem and ownership. Instead of you saying “I LOVE IT!” or “GOOD JOB!” try, “DO YOU LOVE IT?” or “WOW! LOOK AT THAT RED!” or “YOU CLIMBED TO THE TOP!” or the best of all, “HOW DID YOU DO THAT?!?!”

Next Blog: Assignment of Responsibilities, Developmentally Speaking

Long, long, long, really long years ago, when television was newer, there was a character on “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis” (about teenagers in the 50-60’s) called Maynard G. Krebs. He was a beatnik – later called hippies, now slackers – who never had a job. Every time another character said the word, “work”, Maynard would do an exaggerated repulsed shudder and yell, “WORK?!?!” It was funny in 1960.

When it comes to young children, there is no better way to build self-esteem and to build your classroom into a cohesive community of learners than to put everyone – EVERYONE – to work every day.

Work engenders ownership and the benefits of ownership for young children are these:

• When they have ownership of their bodies, they learn to use them more appropriately and to protect them with safety, nutrition, and health
• When they have ownership of their environment, they learn to respect and care for it
• When they have ownership of their actions and behaviors, they learn to be more aware of the consequences of those actions
• When they have ownership of their attempts and their mistakes, they learn to keep trying
• When they have ownership of their decisions, they learn to make better ones
• When they have ownership of the learning process, they become increasingly self-sufficient, independent, and smarter (and Mission Accomplished!)

It is hard for some teachers to give ownership to very young children. Obviously, the teacher must ALWAYS be present as an integral part of the process by assuring physical and emotional safety, setting the stage, offering concepts and language, encouraging continuous progress by asking the right kinds of questions, and assessing progress and need, but she must know when to step aside and let learning happen.

I call this Hokey-Pokey Teaching – you should know when to put your whole self in and your whole self out.

Some of us find this giving of ownership and assignment of responsibility hard because of our feeling that teachers should be LARGE and IN CHARGE to keep everyone safe and to keep the classroom from becoming chaotic. Many of us feel that giving young children so much independence reflects badly on US and some of us feel the day simply runs more smoothly if the teacher handles everything.

STEP BACK, ladies and gentlemen of the early education persuasion!

It is smarter and easier – though it may be messier and harder to watch on occasion – to give the job of learning to the little learners.

Next Blog: Work II – The Art of Letting Go

 

Every Child, Every Day Has the Right to:

Be greeted daily with a sincerely welcoming and friendly smile with his name spoken in an attitude of warmth, respect, acceptance, and if need be, forgiveness

Be protected from actual or threatened harm and illness and from any emotional injury

Have his name and his family’s name pronounced and written accurately

Have his ethnicity, culture, faith, appearance, gender, and abilities honored and his personal belonging respected and protected

Be offered experiences that develop optimal natural brain growth through opportunities in movement, exploration with the senses, manipulation of appropriate materials, construction, role play, and self-expression

Be offered experiences that are real, relevant, purposeful, and presented within age appropriate time frames using Developmentally Appropriate Practice

Be offered experiences that challenge without frustration, in which learning from errors is accepted and encouraged and through which learning can be repeated and applied

Be offered opportunities for choice, decision-making, and problem-solving

Be read to and offered experiences that develop literacy, math, science, and social studies

Be allowed freedom of expression in a variety of ways without judgment

Be listened to with active listening techniques

Be allowed to learn at his own pace and offered learning options if that pace is either delayed or accelerated from the majority of his fellow learners

Be given opportunities to work alone and work with others

Be given developmentally appropriate responsibility and ownership of his learning, his behaviors, and his role in the community of learners

Be noticed for appropriate behaviors and corrected but forgiven for inappropriate ones

Be sent home daily with a sincerely warm, hopeful, and if need be, forgiving, farewell

 

 

Next Blog: Assignment of Responsibilities – WORK!

 

Special Rights for Special Needs?  The 3 D’s

Each and every child in a class deserves individual attention and an individualized learning plan, but there must be an awarding of uniquely designed rights for children who have diagnosed Disabilities, developmental Delays, or Differences in learning. Some children arrive in the classroom with diagnosed conditions of any of these 3 D’s, while some of these conditions will be discovered by a teacher’s careful assessment of each child using observation, collaboration, documentation, and referral.

We have gone through many changes over the generations in the way educators talk about, look at, treat, and work with children who have one or more of these three D’s. We’ve ignored them, institutionalized them, experimented on them, drugged them, developed therapies for them, excluded them, included them, and renamed them.

In this blog I will refer to the children as 3D Learners and their rights as 3D Rights.

I underline the word diagnosed, because it’s important for classroom teachers NOT to DIAGNOSE or give labels to any of the D’s without professional determination of a child’s individual issues. There is a careful system of determining need and diagnosis and the preschool teacher and the parent are only the first responders. The process begins with observation – non-judgmental observation that does not compare one child to another in any way; moves to collaboration with parent or trusted co-worker; includes documentation of observation; and ends with referral to a professional specialized diagnostician.

It’s Hard – If possible, every 3D child should have his needs met by accommodations within the curriculum. These may include hiring of extra staff or specialized therapists, making facility renovations, altering space and equipment, and providing specialized training for existing staff.  I have encountered situations in which a program cannot afford the special accommodations needed, but every program – public, private, faith-based, or government-funded, should make every effort to grant these rights to 3D children through the use of their own curriculum.

And Sometimes It’s Too Hard – If ALL options have been offered, a program may need to use its referral list for parents to find a program that meets the unique needs of their 3D child.

Sometimes a 3D child will have behaviors that are difficult. If ALL options have been used, when an individual child’s behavior caused by a 3D, does harm to other children or the curricular accommodations being made cause disruption of the learning process in the community, a teacher should realize this and suggest to administrators that her community cannot award the special rights needed with the quality the diagnosed disable, delayed, or learning-different child deserves.

Next Blog: The Early Education Child’s Bill of Rights

 

In creating and maintaining an environment of safety in which the best learning happens, teachers need to use warmth and humor, acceptance and respect (not just tolerance) and must protect the rights of each child to make decisions, express himself, make and use mistakes, and to have ownership of some personal rights. These personal rights are Privacy and Peace, Respect for Belongings and Names, Listening, and Forgiveness. 

Privacy and Peace – Children have a right to privacy when they are feeling singled out for either positive or negative attention during times of natural developmental self-consciousness; and a right to peace when they are anxious, unsure, or hesitant.

Privacy – Teachers need to know ALL children (child development) and to know THEIR children. There are times in their development (18 months, 3 and a half, and sometimes 5 years) when children are naturally hesitant to do things like separate from their parents, join in group play, or ‘perform’ in artistic expression, and there are some children who are simply hesitant by nature.

If there is a problem with separating a child from a parent on arrival at school, respect the parent’s system of separation unless it becomes a HUGE distraction to other children. Use humor, honesty, and distraction (“Sorry you’re sad. Mommy will be back at Noon. Mommy always comes back. Look at this elephant puzzle!” How long should they cry? My advice is to see how the situation affects the child (crying until he throws up or moves into a dangerous tantrum) and the other children. Be patient but be practical.

Always gently and positively encourage a hesitant child. Never put a child on ‘stage’ and insist they perform in order to “make that shyness go away”. This is simply cruel. NEVER label a child “shy” when talking to the child, other children, other teachers, or parents.

Always try to discipline a child in private so he understands he is being reprimanded without being shamed and named. Children who are publicly shamed become sad, have low self-esteem, and may even act out with aggressive behaviors against others in their anger. Shaming makes bullies.

Peace – Always have a safe place in your classroom where a child may retreat – NOT A TIMEOUT, NAUGHTY SPOT, or THINKING CORNER where ‘bad listeners’ go during Circle Time or biters sit when they’ve chomped a classmate’s arm, but a place where a child can read, sleep, listen to music, or play with soft toys when he is missing his mom or feels sad.

Personal Belongings – Some teachers find it difficult to protect and respect a child’s personal belongings as this means putting your opinions about pacifiers, bottles, blankies, and other lovies aside and assuring the child that whatever he brings to school for comfort will be treasured as he treasures it and available to him if he should need it during the day.

Think developmentally on this issue. If an Infant, Baby, Toddler, or Young Two needs his pacifier, he should have it! If an older Two or older child still brings his pacifier to school, let his parents know that it is hard to develop language skills with something in your mouth and tell the child, “I’m sorry. I can’t understand what you’re saying. Put your pacifier in your cubby, please.” Praise appropriately when the binkie is put away. “Ah, look at your wonderful face! I can hear everything you say.”

Since it’s hard to keep up with lots of extra “stuff” during the day, make a rule that if an older child brings a security item to school, he has to be responsible for it during the day. Work with parents on this rule from the beginning of the year. Limit the number of toys brought from home to special days only.

Over the years I have seen children bring security items like blankets, stuffed animals, dryer sheets and lovely pieces of lingerie that smelled like Mommy. One wonderful little gentleman whose parents picked oranges all day long, came to Head Start every day in a suit and tie and kept two pacifiers in his breast pocket – one for himself, and one for his little sister. I can think of no greater love – and that love is to be respected.

Names – Learn to pronounce and spell individual and family names correctly. If a child feels you haven’t the time to learn his name, what does this say about how he sees himself? If you make an error, correct it and apologize. “I am so sorry. I called you the wrong name, didn’t I? Your wonderful name is Dexter!” I learned this from my mother who always greeted her six grandchildren with a hug and said, “You are my favorite grandchild named (Margaret, Robert, Vanessa, Melissa, Stephanie, or Thomas). Worked every time.

Listening and Forgiveness – Two other rights of great value but that are hard to grant during a busy day are to be listened to with active listening techniques and to be forgiven for inappropriate behaviors and given an opportunity to correct them. It takes a BIG big person to give a little person the time, attention, and respect of listening and forgiveness, when the constraints of time and numbers of little people are not always conducive to doing so, but it is well worth your effort and vital for the emotional safety of each and every child.

Next Blog: Special Rights

 

 

 

 

Freedom to Make and Use Mistakes – Children need the freedom to make mistakes in their work and to use them to gain new knowledge. The ‘trial and error’ system is the most natural method of learning. If teachers create a learning environment which allows children to feel all right about making mistakes (and making attempts) and gives them time and opportunity to use those missteps – through the process of elimination – to find the best way to solve problems, they are giving children a lifelong gift.

All scientific discovery of note has been made using this method. The child who can comfortably have an attitude characterized by, “OK, that did not work well. Now I know there must be a different or better way to solve this”, is a child who can better deal with frustration and keep working until a problem is solved.

Wise teachers allow children to make attempts and mistakes without making immediate judgments or corrections. They relax about ‘wrong’ answers and assist both children and parents to understand the importance of trial and error learning which helps children learn strategies for using the mistakes to create new learning challenges. When a child knows what does not work, he knows more about what might work. When he is criticized, over corrected, or punished for mistakes, he is less likely to try again and more likely to either lose interest in an experience or not participate at all for fear of disapproval.

Young children quickly bond with and learn to revere and love teachers who are kind, warm, and offer much for them to enjoy. Five year olds, in particular, will treat the word of the TEACHER as gold, often saying to their parents, “TEACHER says. . . or TEACHER does it this way!” Teachers must assure they are worthy of that reverence by letting each child know that they are always respected in the learning community and that mistakes – in work OR behavior – will not change that respect.

Teachers must learn to use children’s mistakes as well. These missteps in the path to growth are signs that there may be a need to observe more closely, give more individual attention, or make curricular changes. Of course, children need to ‘hear’ about both mistakes and successes so they can be aware of their needs and take ownership of their work (and behavior) and there are many ways to celebrate success.

It’s tempting to use tangible rewards to celebrate these successes, but the best way is to use gestures, smiles, hugs, and praise that encourages intrinsic motivation which is praise that encourages the child to be proud of himself and his accomplishment rather than relying on praise from another person. Instead of saying, “I’m proud of you”, find a way to say, “You must be so proud!”, or “How do you feel about that?”

Tigers, Helicopters, and Trophies, Oh, My! – There is a lot of debate these days among parents, teachers and experts about the different styles of parenting and educating – the Tiger Mom or Tiger Teacher pushes her children to do better than other children and refuses to praise or even accept work that is of “lesser’ standard quality. The non-competition-everybody-gets-a trophy system unrealistically praises all children equally and plays down individual strengths. The Helicopter philosophy describes a parent or teacher so concerned about both safety and failure that they hover over a child, often doing much for him that the child needs to learn to do for himself.

Use common sense. Somewhere between the tiger teacher, the /nobody’s a loser’, and the helicopter, is the right place to be. Set standards and have high expectations for each child, but allow each one the freedom to find his own way of problem-solving; give his attempts and errors respect before correcting them; give him time and opportunity to correct them himself; never make snap judgments about mistakes or use them for diagnosis of a severe problem without a great deal observation, collaboration, and referral to a professional diagnostician; and adopt a relaxed attitude about “deadlines” in child development.

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