“He’d ask a question or make a casual observation, then repeat each comment and hang on to it until a link could be established to a previous statement. He and the children were constructing paper chains of ideas, factual and magical, and Bill supplied the glue.” (Paley, 1988)
I think that this is an important thing that I have learned as an educator. We may not realize that we are expecting children to respond and react in a “correct” type of fashion. If we are searching or fishing for a particular answer/behavior, this limits the children. They may not end up saying what we expect them to which can hinder the learning process and potential ongoing conversation. “I paid attention only long enough to adapt their words to my plans.” (Paley, 1988) By doing so, it halts the discussion and keeps it within certain boundaries that you as an educator have set. I believe it takes a lot of practice, time and self reflecting for an educator to make these types of changes within their classroom. Using a lot of open ended questions, expansive vocabulary words and allowing the children to build off of ideas/responses can broaden their learning. When using this type of approach, the possibilities become endless. Educators can engage with the children in a more effective way because they are going off of their own interests and remain actively involved. Being attentive and supportive to what a child is saying or doing allows you to get to know them better and make deeper connections to their learning.
Learning stories are great ways to document a child’s learning through play. This provides a foundation for teachers to build their curriculum in a meaningful way based on the diversity within their classroom. The combination of observation and documentation that it uses allows teachers, children and families to reflect on what happened and gain understandings from it. It also allows educators to track children’s developmental progress over time. “Learning stories can respectfully connect teachers with families and build strong relationships. When they write stories, teachers become better observers of children and develop their storytelling voice to joyfully share with the entire community.” (Pack, 2016) I think that being intentional is very beneficial when teaching or planning and this allows educators to do so. Creating a strong relationship network between teachers, students and families allows for greater learning opportunities. Educators can gain a more in depth understanding of each child when they learn about their family background, culture, behaviors at home etc. Taking time to get to know families will also break potential barriers, build trust and gain mutual respect.
I personally love to use pictures, artwork, observations and videos to help me document a child’s learning. This gives me the opportunity to reflect on what was happening, analyze it in a deeper way and use supportive evidence. Videos help me a lot in recognizing something that I may have failed to realize or address in the moment due to the dynamics of the classroom. Overall, these readings have reinforced my thoughts of the importance of child initiated play, interaction and conversations. I strive to become more self aware as an educator. I love to hear about new ideas or strategies because I feel that we as educators are constantly in a learning process as well. Something that may work for one child, may not work for another. We are constantly adjusting and accommodating to the diversity within our environment. Children learn through various ways. We can promote this by recognizing what works best for them and implementing these techniques within the curriculum. Educators provide the glue that helps to link and connect children's ideas and learning.
Hi Courtney! Thank you for sharing your post. I agree with what you said about limiting the children when we are always correcting them. An old professor of mine told me the same thing too. Children are learning new things everyday and it may take them a while to fully understand or say something correctly. Young children especially fall victim to this. When they are learning to talk, some people say, "No, that's wrong." And when the person says that to the child, the child then takes it as, "I did it wrong, so I'm not gonna say it again." What we should do is acknowledge what the child said but say it correctly. We do not have to let them know they are saying it wrong because they are saying it the best they can. I love to use children's pictures and artwork to document their learning and development. It shows them the pace of their development and it is great for the families to see.
ReplyDeleteHi Courtney,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your post. I loved how you pointed out the idea of not looking for correct answers from children. I think this is really important for us to remember this as educators. I find that when I do group discussions with children about different topics I get various responses and I do my best to acknowledge each response and try to go into depth with each response. I try to remember that the thought process is much more important than necessarily looking for correct answers.
Aloha Courtney,
ReplyDeleteI really liked the quote that you used. I think that it is great to talk about learning from the students or allowing them to lead, but this goes a little bit deeper and describes how he is doing it. This gives the reader or potential teacher an example of what he actually did to help the children make connections in their learning. I find it refreshing to hear your thoughts about not putting limits on children. This is something teachers do without realizing they are doing it. They are looking for a certain answer and the child’s response may be “incorrect”, which may make the child’s next response be more of the teacher’s answer than their own answer. I think I had mentioned this in another blog, but I find it fascinating, I just recently learned that children get less creative as they age, and the reason for this is that they are taught that there is just one answer to a question. I find this detrimentally limiting to the potential of a human being. Our schools system is so focused on scores and grades and memorization that we are missing out on deep thinking, analyzing, innovating and creating. Recently, I read an article about how our society emphasizes perfection in girls, which leads to girls to not trying new things if they believe that they can not reach perfection. I don’t want to see this happen in our schools. Children who believe they are bad at math should not be afraid to try, even if they do not do well at first. We all can not be great at everything, but we should at least be encouraged to keep trying and teachers should be open to seeing how a child’s mind is thinking about the subject and perhaps finding creativity harness it.
Aloha Courtney,
ReplyDeleteYour comment about the importance of play, interactions and communication is an important one, and one that differs a lot from our earlier conversations about the assessment systems we were analyzing earlier in the semester. Though those three things take place in systems like Brigance, etc. they never quite reach the level that Paley does, or that Pack suggests we aim for when writing learning stories. You'll notice that the readings are taking more of a story like approach in general - what if we approached assessment as a form of stories about young children? How would this differ or be similar to forms of assessment we've previously done? What are some of the advantages of using story telling as a form of assessment, but what also might be some of the drawbacks? Mahalo for sharing your thoughts, and especially the really thoughtful observations about Paley's work!