First reflection on role of the teacher: entertain or facilitate

Ohttp://www.janetlansbury.com/2013/05/stop-entertaining-your-toddler-in-3-steps-2/

In this link, Janet Lansbury discusses the role of the parent in play with toddlers.  As I was reading through this for use in my infant-toddler class, I was struck by the thought that we know how important it is for young children to gain independence and gain a sense of autonomy in their toddler years.  Janet discusses that an adult who steps back but is an active observer of children at play as explorers and meaning makers of the world is more crucial to learning than engaging more actively in their play and on the whole, directing children's play.  We know this as being essential for toddlers and yet here we are in an educational environment where teacher's are still the director of learning in preschoolers, elementary and even high school.  Play in young children becomes active, hands-on engagement in high school where students become intrinsically motivated in their own learning and managers of knowledge and yet curricularly, we are far from allowing this to happen in our schools.
Are we as Janet Lansbury discusses entertainers or teachers?  I have observed this repetitively that teachers feel they need to entertain children and always keep them active by directing all they do.  I was currently discussing this issue with a teacher who was in second grade, but is currently in preschool.  She struggles with the curriculum of her school, complaining there is no role for play, children need to get ready for kindergarten.  And so she has taken it into her own hands to "teach" the children in her classroom by rotating them every 12 minutes during what she still calls "center time", directing all that happens with in their centers in the name of learning and kindergarten preparation.  It is time we question how we define kindergarten readiness.  If we continue to direct and entertain children the ability to self-regulate, engage in sustained focus on a task and persist through tasks, just to name a few, will fall short.  I had to point out the irony to this teacher who then discussed how many behavior issues she had in the classroom.  If we control everything the children do then how do we just assume they will be able to control themselves and regulate their engage behavior.  Just like the parent whose child can never engage in solitary play because the parent always feels they need to play with them and entertain them, the teacher who feels it necessary to completely control the curriculum can not expect the children to suddenly be able to manage their own behaviors or to really learn.
But when we step back and actively engage ourselves in the process of observation children are provided the space to engage meaningfully in the process of learning we not only see that half of what we thought we needed to "teach" them they already have mastery over, but we help them to develop key social skills that are the true key to success not only in kindergarten, but life. 

learning from children

I realize that I tend to post a lot of videos, but they are what often inspires me as a teacher and teacher educator.  This one in particular because it is a child, a child (or mature human individual) who challenges us as adults and educators to see the full potential of children and their potential.  We as adults, our educational society and society as a whole sets low expectations for young children, leading to misdiagnoses and labelling of all types of disorders.  And yet, all children have the same potential as Adora, they just don't have the right adults to support them.  We set the bar so low, and as Adora so eloquently states, children will sink to that low expectation.  We so often talk about collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity as fundamental skills children will need, they don't need them, they exists, the problem is, in the words of Malaguzzi, we rob them of these skills.  No one has to teach a 2 or 3 year old how to be creative, it comes naturally, but we take that away from their lives.  And so I challenge us all to raise the bar, not only for children, but for ourselves.  I am currently reading Mind in the Making, but within this I am thinking about and pursuing the concept of passion and aesthetics.  These will be the topics and source of new postings as I feel they greatly connect to Adora's statement.  She had a passion for writing that is an aesthetic form of communication.  It took a nurturing environment to support and allow that passion to take root.  So consider this, what passions do children have that we can support and allow to take root? And with that, what are your passions, what brought you to teaching?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-bjOJzB7LY

Is our educational system modern day child labor and abuse.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhpM_jbVopo


I was lucky enough to attend a TEDx conference at Miami University, OH and this is one of the presentations that truly stuck with me.  Fromberg poses such really thought provoking questions within this presentation which I also pose to my students, although not so eloquently and definitely not so strongly.  I urge you to watch this link and ask yourself what we are doing to our young children, what are our expectations and to see the detriments of an approach that truly is reflective of child labor and abuse.  Don't our children deserve more?

why do we need Enhancements in Early ChildhoodEducation?

I can't believe that it has been a week since I have returned from my conference and trip to Atlanta, but have yet to post anything since there were so many things I want to post and discuss.  I will start with post because for some reason it continues to be something I think about following our trip.  While I spent the majority of my day in sessions (of which I also hope to share), my last day following my sessions I was able to accompany my family to the Atlanta Aquarium.  I always struggle when I go to a zoo, aquarium or such because it calls me to question whether this is a better environment for them than their natural habitats.  As you can see this is similar to my questions about quality practices in early childhood.  This will become more explicit as you read the followign.
While we were looking at the Beluga Whales, one of them began to play with and pull to the surface of the water an object connected to an according type band.   While we were watching this, the woman from the aquarium discussed how they provide "enhancements" so the whales don't get board and are challenged.  I found myself thinking that if they were in their natural environment there would be no need for "enhancements", they would just naturally occur within their daily encounters within their habitat.  Having come from numerous sessions, I immediately began to consider how we do the same thing to children.  We put them in such artificial environments that we then have to provide "enhancements" to support their engagement in the classroom.  And yet, if we just allowed them to engage with their world in meaningful ways, there would be no need for ehancements or what are often called "specials" because children would naturally engage in meaningful ways with the knowledge, content and skills of the world.  This whole idea of artificially engaging students when there is such a context for natural, meaningful and authentic means of interacting with the world proves so meaningless and wasteful.  Projects provide the context for meaningfully embedding quality learning and teaching experiences through what Slyvia Chard defines as "local" topics.  By engaging children in things of their world, we don't need enhancements, we merely need to face the world with the same inquisitiveness as that of young children as they take a simple walk around the block. 

What ever happened to the pre-operational stage?

How many times have I taught my students and covered the stages of Piaget, particularly those which most affect the field of early childhood education, the sensorimotor and pre-operational stage?  And yet suddenly we were having the discussion about the shift from sensorimotor to pre-operational in one of my classes and it struck me that in many of our educational practices currently and the incredible high stakes testing push we are skipping this incredibly important stage and the repercussions I feel will be severe.  We quickly remove active learning for passive, abstract thinking when we know children cognitively cannot process half of what we ask of them, all in the name of what?  Worksheets according to Piaget would prove obsolete to the learning process and yet teachers continue to cling to them as proof that children are "learning".  Learning what, to follow directions and robotically complete them as fast as they can in order to escape this mundane work?  On the whole we continue to appropriately support children birth to three and yet the removal of developmentally appropriate practices continues to be pushed to younger ages.  One student shared with me that she observed word of the week in a toddler classroom (what are we doing to our young childen?)  We are robbing our children of childhood which in mind truly is a criminal act that will prove detrimental not only to the children, but society as a whole.  It is time to return childhood back to our youngest, to support them developmentally and stop cramming obsolete, unnecessary experiences into our early childhood classrooms.  We need to engage them with the things of the world, not disengage them from who they are and how they learn.

http://www.earlychildhoodwebinars.org/presenters/dr-sylvia-c-chard/

Dr. Sylvia Chard has been a wonderful mentor for me and so I invite anyone interested in pursuing projects in more depth to explore this wonderful opportunity and resource.  Sylvia is open and willing to take you to another level of work in project work, but more importantly in how you see children, the world and teaching and learning.

The power of Nature

My students and I were truly lucky to have the possibility of having Linda Rose, teacher and administrator of Out and About Preschool.  The power of nature and outdoor experiences in the lives of young children must be advocated for over any other experience, skill, and knowledge in earl childhood education, but so far removed from children's experiences.  We truly must question the lack of scientific inquiry and hands-on experience that children used to naturally have. Linda discussed the role of emerging themes, building on children's interest and engaging them in the "skills and knowledge" deemed necessary in meaningful ways.  Consider this, how many preschoolers truly understand the life cycle. Linda took the teachable moment of a deer being hit outside of her preschool classroom and provided numerous experiences that build upon social skills (moving the deer off the road and into an area for investigation); science (decomposition and what leads to decomposition); social studies (the animals that live within the region of Ohio that live off of the deer); and language (oral discussions, vocabulary, observation drawings, etc).  While there is still so much I wish to share about her visit with my students and the power of projects I leave you with this at this time, when a parent responded to the documentation of this experience with young children in a repulsive way. "oh, that's gross", her daughter came up to her and said, "mom, that's not gross, that' life".  When do we stop protecting our children and begin to provide experiences that teach them how to engage in the content of the world and support them as the competent individuals we know them to be.