Re-read Questions and Blog on :
“Difficulties During Diaper Change” and “The Contested Doll”
As I re-read the questions and my blog I noticed that I felt comfortable in my answers, however, it was missing something. My blog was told from my perspective and how I thought the teacher and Laura felt. I went off of my knowledge and what I thought was right. I notice now that it would be important to include, yes, some “big” questions along with my answers.

“Difficulties During Diaper Change”
Since this would be Laura’s 4th day of school it would be important to know some information from Laura’s parents, such as: “How is Laura when she goes home? How does she react when she comes to school? Does Laura have a difficult time when you change her diapers at home? What are some things that you do with Laura during diaper changing? Who usually changes Laura’s diapers? What kind of baby is Laura? What are some of her likes and dislikes? How do you think that we could make Laura feel more comfortable during diaper changing at school? What are some things that we can do for Laura to make her feel more relaxed at school? How do you feel about us? Do you think we could change something that would benefit Laura, what?”

Besides only asking Laura’s parents questions we can also ask ourselves, the teachers, questions, like: “How can we make Laura feel more comfortable at school and during diaper changing? Would it have been better to change Laura’s diaper quickly or was it better to do it the way that it was done? Why? How important is it to have Laura feel comfortable in the school? What is Laura feeling during diaper changing? Is Laura feeling this way at other times during the day, when, why? How can we involve Laura’s parents in her adjusting to school? Should Laura bond with one teacher or all? How is Laura around the other children? Should we be concerned with Laura not be adjusted to school yet? Is it important that Laura always feel comfortable, why or why not? Is what Laura feeling during diaper changing normal?”

“The Contested Doll”
I feel that in this scenario I would also ask questions to get a better understanding of what happened, some of these questions I would ask my colleagues would be, “How important is it that this was Laura’s first time arguing over a toy? How do you thing she handled it? Do you think intervention was a good thing to do or not, why? How is Laura with other children? Does she play with them? How long? Is this type of play important for children her age? What can we do to increase Laura’s play? Would Laura have only reacted this way because of the doll or would another object get the same reaction?”

Also to get input from Laura’s family would be a good idea to get a more rounded understanding of Laura, questions that could be asked are, “Does Laura play with other children her own age, or a different age, what age? (does age even matter?) How is she with them? What kinds of toys does Laura like to play with at home?”

I wouldn’t be surprised if I could come up with even more questions but I think I made my point. I have learned through this course that communication between staff, parents, and child is very important. Not just the kind of communication that we already have and do but to have a deeper type of communication. One that isn’t swept under the rug or put into a file without ever to be looked at again unless a red flag comes up. To me it has become apparent that I need to step up my communication and ask questions.

Final Reflections

I’m surprised at how much one class can change my place of work. Where I work we focused on 10,400 documentations and assessments each year, that is if we just keep it to two observations or pictures per objective (generally I have at least 3 – 9 per page – depending on the objective). And this semester we started a new curriculum – Teaching Strategies, which I have not been trained for (I’m just winging it) that has 65 learning objectives – 15 more than last year. We attempted to be more organized and put on the calendar what objectives we are going to be observing each week, what units we were going to teach for the semester, and what lessens we would do each month. I was extremely overwhelmed and frustrated. I felt like a robot. I really wasn’t enjoying my job and I couldn’t wait to go home. Even when I was at home I was still doing work related jobs. I think I was making myself physically sick just so that I would be forced to rest.

However, things have changed dramatically due to taking this class with my co-worker, Val. Through each reading every week, assignments, and blogging we have learned a different way of learning and our eyes have opened to new ideas. These ideas were brought to our director’s attention and she was and is willing to try out these new ideas we have been learning about. At first each idea that was brought up was something extra for us to do on top of everything we were already doing, such as: group learning, big questions, and look again at child-centered activities, lessons, units and projects (instead of teacher-centered).

Last week there was a break through, our director is willing for us to go back to children-centered activities and projects. We are also beginning to use “big” questions with each other and the children (I’m still learning this one), the weekly assessments went in the trash, group learning is beginning to be a part of our assessments, instead of over loading the children with multiple activities per day for “a higher level of learning” we have gone back to the basics first, and instead of the children learning one concept per day we are going to try one concept per week or however long it might take.

There are a lot of changes going on in our preschool and I believe it is the best for the children and teachers. I could see the frustration in the children when we had to pull them away from what they wanted to do so they could do what we wanted them to do. I was frustrated myself. This week will be the first week we are going to implement all of our learning with full cooperation with all the staff. I’m so excited to go to work today!

The next thing I would like to take on is the portfolios. The portfolios are one thing that our director has not approved of how we want to do it – not yet. If I was able to I would like to be able to make stories for the children’s portfolios instead of impersonal objectives. I asked my co-worker for help because I’ve been doing portfolios for 10 years a certain way where we weren’t able to put in our emotions and thoughts into it. It was just hard core facts based on objectives. I want to be able to tell stories, what I think of each child and add their personalities to it – but I don’t know how. I think one way I can help myself is by writing down observations and concentrate on the children.

This has been an extremely exciting new way of learning and teaching for me. How has this class inspired you in your ways of teaching? Have you been able to make changes where you work, how? Are your co-workers open to new ways of doing things? If not how or what can you do to get them to look at it from your point of view and also the children’s point of view? Out of everything we have read and learned about what are the ones that stand out to you the most, why?

Questions

This week’s readings are about questions. The main purpose of asking questions is to gain information. Asking questions are an important way of communicating with others. All day long we are asking questions or listening to their answers and vice-versa. I don’t think that there is a day that goes by that you don’t ask someone or yourself a question; like: “Is it going to rain? What should I eat for breakfast? What should I wear today? Should I go grocery shopping?”, and so on. I my children also ask me a lot of questions; my favorite one (actually my least favorite one) is “What’s going to be for dinner?” We go through our lives asking and answering questions, and perhaps not even being aware of it. I bet if you had to tally how many times you asked or answered questions it would be very high.

We are also answering many questions throughout the day, such as: “When you go to the store can you pick me up some gum? My child is coughing can I bring him to school? Can you put paper in the Xerox machine? What are you going to do tomorrow? And so on. If you think about it asking questions, listening to responses, and having questions asked of you and you answering them can be more challenging than one might seem. Especially questions that you dread to ask or questions you don’t want to answer and you try to put it off to the very last minute until there are no other excuses until you need to ask or answer it. Those are ones I don’t like.

We are taught as preschool teachers to ask the children “open-ended” questions to encourage the children to give more information than a simple “yes or no” answer. What is also important is to be an active listener when children answer your questions. It can make them feel like you care and believe what they have to say is important. Do you think that you are an active listener to the children, families, co-workers, and your friends and families? Is there a difference to how you listen to “work” related adults, children, and “personal” people? Why is that?

Even in this class we were told to ask questions in our blogs for ourselves and our classmates. Questions can make us have a deeper understanding of what we are thinking about and also what we want to know about. So, what do you think about questions? Do you think that questions are an important means of communicating with others? Why?

American vs. Reggio

There are a few things in this week’s reading that popped out to me. The first one is where documentation in Reggio schools is viewed as “assessments” and for American schools documentation is viewed as an evaluation. I’m an American and went to American schools all my life and I can identify with this. American schools are focused on the individual and not the group. When being graded it is all about the individual, even when doing group projects you are still being graded on what you contributed to the group. There have been those rare occasions where I was graded within a group and hated it. I felt that way because I felt I did more and deserved a better grade. I feel that we are taught to do our own work and if anyone would help it would be considered cheating. We do get graded for the work we do and it gets recorded in our individual records. It makes me wonder how Reggio based schools grade their students, if not as individuals but in groups, how? This sounds weird to me.

Another thing that popped out to me is the fascination that Americans have with Reggio based schools. Why is that? I’m one of them. I’m surprised with myself with how I’ve taken to Reggio based schools. No other school has affected me the way that Reggio has. I love everything that we have been learning about. My co-worker and I have also been able to verbalize what we are learning and try to implement it into our school. The only problem is that our director adds it to what the children are already doing which has now become a problem. But I try to look at it as a way of learning and things just need to be ironed out more (however I am also frustrated too). Are you also fascinated with Reggio schools and what we are learning about them? Why? I like the way Reggio schools document learning from a whole group, how the portfolios look, the way the children pick what they want to learn, how the environment is set up, and how the teachers teach the children. We even tried to put it in our assessments but it doesn’t fit with the objectives in our curriculum, just more things to iron out.

The other thing that popped out to me was the way the book outlined the differences of American schools and Reggio based schools. One difference is where American teachers notice, document, and report only on the work of the individual, where Reggio teachers focus on the group and the ways in which individuals move, interact, contribute, and learn from “the ways of learning of others”; and the second is where American’s focus on outcomes, achievement, and measurement of improvement over time, as to where Reggio’s focus on the actions of teaching, learning, playing, thinking, and other epistemological considerations. (p. 311). It’s amazing don’t you think? What’s amazing is this is the American way. Is this the American way you want for our children’s future? When it’s written out this way and placed side by side it makes me wonder why? How did we get to this point? Why didn’t we question it? Why are we continuing to teach this way? But even now knowing the difference and wanting a change, do you really think we would be able to change? A small change? Or a big change? If we were able to learn to teach the Reggio way what would it mean for the children and their future? I would love to see studies done with adults who were raised in Reggio based schools and see how they turned out.

4 Features of Learning Groups

In this week’s reading I noticed that the author’s broke up learning groups in to four features: (1) The members of learning groups include adults as well as children; (2) Documenting children’s learning processes helps to make learning visible and shapes the learning that takes place; (3) Members of learning groups are engaged in the emotional and aesthetic as well as the intellectual dimensions of learning; and (4) The focus of learning in learning groups extends beyond the learning of individuals to create a collective body of knowledge. Each of these features is important in their own right, which I will comment on.

In the first feature I do think adults are and can be a very important part of learning groups. Where I work we are constantly on the lookout for families who want to be involved in their child’s learning or wanting to do something yet are unsure of what they can do to help out. Just last week we had a parent who taught the children Fire Safety for 3 hours. His job is a Fire Inspector. He had different fire fighters come to our school, two different fire trucks, many different uniforms the children tried on, Sparky the Dog visited, we also did a fire drill with two exits, learned what was safe and unsafe, and so much more. The children were very much a participants of this. Two other parents like to draw so when we need a picture we ask them and there is such pride when the children see their parent’s work up in the room. We also ask families for information about things, especially their culture. We also go beyond families and ask the community. People in the community are another great resource for preschool teachers. Most of them seem so willing to help and love to have visits from preschoolers. The above are examples of adults helping the school but we have adults who learn from what we do. Families will come and talk with me about what their child is learning because their child is telling them about it. Some parents get really involved and ask to come when we are learning about certain things on the Calendar. One child told there mom about the volcano at school and she asked about it and I told her and gave her a copy of the recipe. Another parent didn’t have material for the volcano so I was able to supply it for them. Each of the parents was happy to be able to make volcanoes at home with their child. Do you have parent/family participation where you work? Is it mandatory? Is having families come to visit an open invitation?

The second feature is about documenting the children’s learning processes. This is where I need to work on more. I would love to take a class on how to appropriately take documentation of children and their work. I think with all the different learning going on there should be a class for teachers to take on different ways of documenting. It not only benefits the teachers but it will help families to see what and how their child is learning. As a teacher I would like to get to the “meat” of the child’s learning but I feel I only scratch the surface due to time or should I say the lack of enough time. How do you take documentation at your school?

The third feature deals with the members of the group’s emotional and aesthetic learning as well as the intellectual dimensions of learning. I’m really not too aware of this feature. As a teacher I do focus on the cognitive part of learning not the emotional. Why is this? I believe it is the way American schools are taught. I do believe that if emotion is put into the learning that perhaps more learning will take place. When I do portfolios or documentation I am told not to put my feelings into it or guess how the children are feeling, I’m told it is not professional. This is something I do but I don’t agree with it. It brings me back to the book, “The Story of Laura”; I actually enjoyed reading the “feelings” in the pages of the book. It sure wasn’t sterile. I feel that families would also like to have the feelings put into the documentation instead of how the child looked, for example: “Timmy was so excited when he completed making his zoo that he jumped up ran to me and begged me to come and see.” Instead I would have to write: “Timmy went to a teacher and asked her to see his creation he built.” Now what one would you rather read? Are you aloud to put feeling into your documentation? If not would you want to? What do you think of how you do documentation? Would you do it differently?

The fourth feature is about learning groups that extend beyond the learning of individuals to create a collective body of knowledge. To me this is what the last readings were focused on. This also pertains to feature2. I would like to learn how to better document these learning groups. I want to be able to document the whole group and be able to add it to many of the objectives and different children instead of just one for one child. But now that I’m aware of it I’m trying to take more group learning documentation that can fit into different objectives. What do you think about learning groups?

Learning Group

This week’s readings made me realize that our school isn’t really allowing time for the children to have group learning that can be extended for days. We do have group learning every day, however it is basically group learning at Circle Time, introducing the lesson of the day, during teacher-directed small group and group learning that is encouraged or guided by the teacher.

I liked how the children came up with the idea of sending a letter to a place that if far away that was quicker than by mail, which was the way they were doing it. The teacher did not give the answer, she allowed the children to come with their own ideas, like, rocket, eagle, wind and telephone. The children even drew their own ideas. After having a conversation one of the children came up with the fax machine and from there they involved a parent. We don’t do this at our school. To be honest there isn’t any time. Last week during a Staff Meeting our director had us go over the monthly Calendar and added more things to it. No longer is it only filled with lesson plans but now we have maybe two or sometimes three teacher directed activities. I asked my director that there was no time available if the children wanted to learn something else, and her answer was, “There always is.” But there really isn’t and this is sad. My co-worker and I tried to show her that our days are filled and there is no breathing room but she continued to add more things to do on the Calendar and said we can always fit it in.

I would love to have these learning groups that are children-directed. Everything here is teacher-directed. I’m feeling so over whelming because I’m learning about new and exciting things and want to implement them into the school but if we do it’s added on to what we are already doing, it’s too much! How can teachers change the minds of their directors? I’m getting discouraged. I promised myself that I wouldn’t complain in my blog this week but I am. I believe in what I’m learning and want to make it happen in our school. I really believe that it would be for the betterment of our school, the children, parents, students, and teachers. How can this be done? Are you able to have group learning directed by children? How is it done where you work?

At our school we sometimes get visits from frogs and insects. How fun would it be to have the children, who often are excited by this, learn about them and come up with ideas that we could make happens and come alive! We also hear the train whistle or see helicopters and airplanes fly over our school. The children often point them out the teachers. I bet if it was allowed we could have child directed group learning. Another special visitor is the Nene Goose. The flock will fly low and we often see them every few weeks. Children bring to school a nest to school that they found, a bug they put in a jar, or a shell that they found. I believe if we aloud the time for this, these things could be great learning experiences.

I often hear children tell stories to each other when they play and after reading this week’s reading it makes me wonder if we could extend this type of group learning? I would like to. I look at the different centers that the children are playing in and think of the group learning that is taking place, as well as how it can be extended. Is there a way to do this? How? Do you think group learning is important? The book goes over in detail the Seven Propositions of learning groups, what do you think of them? Aren’t the children learning from each other? Isn’t play an essential part of learning? Is it important enough to let go of old ideas to let new ones take place and form?

Group Play

This week’s readings are based on group play and how teachers observe and support this type of play. In the book it describes how Reggio teachers use different means to document what the children say and do, such as: taking notes, photographs, videotapes, tape recorders, and what I found interesting, sketching. Soon after, usually that day, the Reggio teachers will go over their observations with each other and work together on what direction they will be following the next day. This is something that I find very interesting. Ultimately this would be ideal for me, but it is never what actually happens. Usually the documentation on the observations and assessments will be taken, put away (hopefully in a safe place), and looked at when it’s time to do the portfolios; which is usually several months later. What I would like is time each day to do this and to collaborate with my co-worker on what we should focus on the next day.

I have been noticing, since the readings, how important group play can be. Children in group play can and do learn many things, such as: learning strategies, communication and language, knowledge-building, imagination and creativity, form friendships, and much more. This past weekend I went to the Oahu HAEYC Conference where I took a workshop in play. For the first 20 minutes the class played solitary play and then in the following 25 minutes the class did group play. I much preferred group play. But it made me think of my children in the classroom. How can we focus on small group play? What can I do to support group play? Even in a classroom that does units and lessons there has to be a way that I can incorporate group play as part of everyday learning, but how?

Right now the unit we are on is “All About Me” but tweaked with also learning about the children’s cultures (something new for us – and exciting!) I already have ideas flowing through my head that the children can do that can be group play, but not activity focused (which is what we do at this school). We are learning about our island so I started a mural that the kids could use to grow on – but it didn’t work out so much. So now I will try something else, perhaps bring boxes that the children could work on to make a home or several homes to be played with in the Block Center. Or maybe ask the kids what they would like to do. I’m still thinking on this.

Two weeks ago I was lucky enough to visit the Reggio-based school at Mid Pac. The teacher met with us for almost 2 hours. We looked at the classroom which I just loved and I got more ideas that I wanted for our classroom. I have already implemented a few of them. One of them is using sand as continual art. This is where I went to the beach and got 2 buckets of sand, placed it in a large, shallow, see-through container and placed it on the table along with other material that I collected from the beach: drift wood, coral, different types and sizes of shells, kukui nuts, hamburger nuts (that’s what I call them), opihi shells, small coconuts, and little twigs; which were placed in containers next to the sand. The children then use the material to make art with. It’s wonderful to see them doing this instead of building sandcastles or volcanoes. Also the children played in small groups and came up with how they wanted to work with the materials. I haven’t gotten a chance to observe them close up but I will try to soon.

Also at the Mid Pac school the centers were free to whoever wanted to play in them, without nametags. I found this interesting and would like to visit when children are there. The teacher also shared with us numerous portfolios of the children and also the children’s work. The project they had been working on at the time was wind. It was amazing to see the activities that came from wind: the children drew wind, named their wind, went to field trips about wind, made things that would move in the wind, and etc. It was truly based on what the children wanted to learn about. In the pictures it did seem that there was a lot of group play. It was different to see this instead of what I’m used to: a teacher on a table with 3 to 4 children doing an activity. If possible I would like to blend group play with learning the objectives that we need to follow. How do you see group play as part of learning in your school? Would it be possible to do assessments in a group? What about the quiet children in the group how could you get a true assessment on them? Is one on one assessment no longer necessary? I’m not sure, but I would like to look over our objectives to see if group play (not the group play with the teacher at the table) be incorporated into our assessments, how about you?

Different Styles

It doesn’t surprise me that these teachers have different styles of taking documentation and also interpreting the observation in their own way. I believe that since each of the teachers has a different background they most likely will have a different perspective on how to do things. For example I feel that it’s much easier to take a picture to help jolt my memory when I put the observation into the portfolios and it also takes less time away from the children. I sometimes write down observations, however, it's very time consuming and especially when I’m doing a lesson it’s even harder to write down, word for word, what the children say. When I do assessments with the children I will write things down and take the picture. On the other hand my co-worker seems to prefer to write things down and she will also take pictures. I have also noticed the students that come through the lab school write things down and take pictures, however, I rarely see what they do unless there is a red flag with the child, something extra ordinary that happened, or something to do with how or what the student wrote down.

I have seen many different portfolios and no two are alike. Some are really good and others not so good. I have never been trained to do a portfolio and I think that could be why it’s been so hard and time consuming. I will have ideas of how it should be done and will do it that way. Every few years our director changes the program and then I would come up with a new way of doing them, well, actually now that I have a new head teacher – WE have come up with new ways of doing the portfolios. I also have learned from some of the student’s ways of documentation on observations and have intertwined it with the way that I do mine.

Something I would like to change is how we do portfolios. I think it would benefit everyone if the teachers, students, and director participated in the documentation in each of the portfolios. After this week’s reading on the three teachers and how each of them viewed the observation on the children, it made me question how can we change how we do portfolios so that we can maybe getting a better rounded picture of each child. As of right now the class is split in two, where I take 10 children and my co-worker takes the other 10 children. Each of us tends to focus on those 10 children because we are doing their portfolios. However I wonder if there is a way were we both can be equally responsible of all 20 children. We have tried some things in the past to make this happen, such as: writing on note pads and putting the note pad in a documentation folder of each child. This way we would be getting all the teachers and students documentation on each child. However the flaw I had with this is that on top of, at the time 50 objectives, there wasn’t enough time to add those documentations to the portfolios and at times the way the observation was written was questionable. I have also tried sorting the pictures into each child’s folder (on the computer) but the problem was that the pictures I didn’t take, I truly had to make a judgment call on what I thought was actually happening in the picture. If anyone has some ideas – throw them my way – please!

I do like how by reading each of the teacher’s documentation on the children there seemed to be a fuller picture of what happened, because if you just read one teacher’s observation (apart from the others) you would have a different view of what happened. But is this way of documentation reasonable in you place of work? Why or why not? Is there a different way of documentation that you find easier and still meet the criteria of your school? What is it?

Documentations

Documentations

Documentation and assessment seems to be one of my main jobs as a teacher. In fact I can’t get away from it. I always have a camera in hand so I hopefully don’t miss that most important documentation needed that will fit into the 65 different objectives that needs to be covered per child, times two (this is because our director wants at least two documentations per objective to prove where the child is at). However not only does my director want this each semester but she wants it twice a semester – once in the beginning and again at the end of the semester. So that means my co-worker and I are doing 260 documentation and assessments per child, we have 20 children in the classroom, so that would be 10,400 documentation and assessments each year.

In my opinion this is crazy! But the reason behind this is because we are an accredited college lab school, we need to be doing the latest trends and be a role model for other preschools and their teachers and for the students that come through the school. When I have talked to other preschool teachers and students who have graduated from this preschool they say that the real world is not like this lab school. I have to agree, we are not like other preschools.

It seems that this preschool is made to look good on paper, but is that all so important to have? Isn’t there other things that are just as important? Or maybe even more important? Or couldn’t we do things differently and still have the accreditation needed? I believe there is an answer to these questions and the answer is YES!

I do think documentation and assessment is necessary, assessing the children show us where the child is at and what we could do to help the child move on to the next level of learning; but I also believe that it could be done differently, not by taking two (or more) pictures/documentation, observation, or assessment per objective. I believe that the objectives could be done in a much simpler way and also in a way that would be more teacher, parent, and child friendly. The child portfolios would be just that - child portfolios. It would be the child’s work, interests and wants. After all isn’t that what the parent’s want to see – their child’s work not the teachers. As of right now the portfolios are all the teacher’s work, nothing from the child. The portfolios show what the teachers can do, not the child. This makes me sad. I’m not saying that assessment and documentation is unnecessary I’m just saying that they way we are told to do it, is.

The book poses a question in this week’s chapter readings, “How can we help children find the meaning of what they do, what they encounter, what they experience? And how can we do this for ourselves (p.79)?” I think as teachers we need to put the children first. We have many rules at this school that I believe are unnecessary and also they may hinder the children’s learning. I like the rules my co-worker, Val, came up with. There are only 3 – Take care of yourself, Take care of others, and Take care of the environment. How beautiful that sounds to me, three simple rules that could easily be followed and also don’t you think these rules should be a part of life’s lessons?

Let me give an example, today I did journals. Each child draws a picture about the subject the teacher picks and then the teacher copies down their dictation. During one of these journals one child was drawing in his journal and started to pound down hard over and over with the marker onto the paper, splashing the ink everywhere, making the tip flat and causing the ink to seep onto the next page. As a rule we are not aloud to let the children do this so I stopped this at once. But my question is why? Isn’t this also a way of learning? Won’t the child learn the consequences of his actions? Wouldn’t it be more meaningful to the child if he sees what the result is? But now as I go over this scenario it looks as if I focused on the negative so here are some of the positive questions? Wasn’t he learning about how the colors splatter or mix together? Or how his different strength made different marks on the paper? This child later went outside and used the spray bottles to create what he may have tried to create with the markers. So what do you think the child learned? Was it really necessary to tell him that he couldn’t use the markers in that way? Do you think he might have learned more if he wasn’t stopped?

Group Learning

Group Learning, Why Not?

The first paragraph made me question again, the way I do portfolios, yet this time for a different reason. It is true that there is so much learning in group settings but up until now I never questioned why most observations, documentations, assessments, and pictures taken are focused on the individual child. I decided to look at last semester’s portfolio that we use in Parent/Teac her Conferences. Out of the fifty objectives there are only four that involve other children; they are in the area of Prosocial Behavior: (1) Plays well with other children, (2) Recognizes the feelings of others and responds appropriately, (3) Shares and respects the rights of others, and (4) Uses thinking skills to resolve conflicts. However, after reading the chapter I see so much more that would apply to other areas of development as well as how important group learning is.

Let me give an example of what happened earlier today. Outside on the playground the children take turns, two at a time riding the battery operated jeep for five minutes each. During one of the exchanges there were two children in the jeep who didn’t know how to operate it. Another child noticed this and went to their aide. He showed them what to do repeatedly until the driver understood what to do and was able to drive the jeep. While this was happening the passenger was also participating by pressing the buttons and helped to turn the driver’s wheel. I also noticed other children who were waiting to ride/drive the jeep were listening/watching this interaction. Because of the short clip of, “To Catch a Balloon”, I didn’t interfere and watched this interaction, were before I might have interfered to “help”. Now I’m glad I didn’t. What I didn’t mention was the next group who drove the jeep asked the boy to help them and he did. What wonderful learning took place; however, the way the portfolios are done I will have to place it in one of the four areas of prosocial behavior in the boy’s portfolio or pick apart this scenario and individualize it for each of the other children’s portfolios, why? How can this be changed?

I guess I went off a little bit, but I’m just so excited with everything I’m learning here, who knew I liked Reggio. I really like the idea of group learning and want to implement it but I’m not sure how. When I do my portfolios I use the camera to capture my observations and I also try to come up with games, activities, and lessons the children can play with that I will be able to use for my assessments. When the children play the games at the tables I feel like I’m in a car factory where I have the game and line up the children to play it so I can assess them, take their picture, and move on to the next game. How can this change? Also when I put my observation in the portfolio I’m not allowed to personalize the scenario or put any feelings into it, which is what I got from “The Diary of Laura”. This is not something I agree with but it is what I’m told to do. Why can’t I put the other children’s names in the observation? Or even write a teacher’s name in an observation? Instead I’m told to write “a teacher observed. . .” I want to make portfolios more personal-like and not so clinical, but how? I hope and know I will learn more with each chapter I read from the book – I’m looking forward to it.

The Diary of Laura” Questions

“Difficulties During Diaper Change”

What is going on at the emotional level during this diaper changing?
What do you think Laura’s mother might feel about this diaper change?
How does this episode relate to a relationship-based approach to infant-toddler care?
Does Laura now seem more “adjusted” to the infant-toddler center?

By this time, Laura has been going to school for 4 days and hasn’t become familiar with her new caretakers. It isn’t a surprise that she has stranger anxiety and separation anxiety which both occurs around 9 months of age. Her care takers should expect Laura, at 10 months old, to react differently to strangers in a new environment. It’s normal that Laura becomes fussy with her teachers during a diaper change. Laura can have many different feelings at this time, such as: sad, mad, scared, hurt, she may be moody and become easily upset at things, she can feel shy around new people, and also sensitive to other people’s moods.

This is only the fourth day of infant-toddler care and Laura needs time to get used to the new situation and the people who care for her. Her teacher must realize that everything Laura sees, tastes, smells, hears, or feels is a new experience for her and gives Laura the time she needs to understand it and adjust to it. From the observation I could tell that Laura’s teacher, Eluccia, was very understanding, patient, and gentle with Laura throughout this episode. Eluccia was very considerate to Laura’s feelings by not forcing the diaper change right away, cuddling her when she became stiff or almost crying; during the next attempt her teacher was more careful and gentle when placing Laura onto the changing table in an upright position (probably thinking that this position might be easier for Laura to handle); she also tried used distraction with a toy while changing Laura’s diaper, and used her calm body and soothing voice to calm Laura in the final process of the diaper change.

Laura’s mother might have thought what patience and understanding this teacher must have with Laura. She may not have expected the teacher to be so patient with Laura; after all it’s just another diaper change. Eluccia was so careful with each step she took throughout the diaper changing process that Laura’s mother must have felt like she picked the right environment and people to care for her daughter.

This episode does show the relationship-based approach to infant-toddler care. Eluccia knows that Laura has only been coming to school for four days, which means that everything is still new to Laura and Laura needs time to adjust to her new environment and the people who take care of her. Eluccia used a calm and soothing voice throughout this episode, she also didn’t force the diaper change on Laura, then the teacher used distraction with a toy and later with her glasses to ease Laura into finishing the diaper change, and of course the teacher used her body to make Laura feel more at ease during the process. Eluccia knows that she needs to develop a trusting relationship with Laura.

Laura is still adjusting to her new environment and the people who take care of her. Eluccia knows how important it is to have Laura feel secure in her environment and by tapping into Laura’s sensitive cues is an important step for Laura to develop a positive relationship with her caregiver and become adjusted to the infant-toddler center.

“The Contested Doll”

What was the teacher Eluccia trying to do when she intervened in this conflict?
What do you think of her strategy, and how does it compare to strategies you have seen?
Why did Laura become contented at the end of the incident?

When Eluccia tried to intervene during the conflict of the doll she was trying to stop the episode from getting bigger and helping Laura to calm down because the doll she was playing with was taken by the other child, Silvia. I believe that distraction works well with younger children and I think that Eluccia did a good job by intervening so the situation wouldn’t get out of hand and then going one step further and encouraging both children to participate in question and answering game with the toy they were fighting over. Laura is an only child and by reading the book seems not to have the interaction with other children and hasn’t learned how or what to do in this type of situation. Laura becomes content in the end because the teacher distracted her with the question and answer game.

Eyes Wide Open

Eyes Wide Open

This is the second diary documentation that I have been exposed to and I do have to say I find it interesting. It makes me think and question the type of documentation that I do where I work. I look back when I first began making documentations about each child in my classroom and I do have to say it has changed greatly. Ten years ago I never used a camera in the classroom and now I have one in my pocket every day – scared that I might miss an important moment, instead of being in the moment with the children. Back then I never used a computer and now I have a desk computer and lap top to put in observations and pictures that make up a portfolio. It’s only been three weeks into the new school year and I’ve already taken over 200 pictures and wrote numbers of observation that have been sorted and placed into each child’s folder on the computer. I know this might be a bad thing but I do enjoy the moments the camera needs to be charged or the pictures need to be emptied onto the computer so I have no choice but to do what I love the most – play with the children. Though in the back of my head I’m worried I might miss that much needed picture for the portfolio, oh well.

I understand that I work in a lab school and we, the staff, need to be up to the minute speed with everything new, but it seems about every two years there’s a different assessment tool; new objectives, goals, and concepts; another way to evaluate and observe; and even new technology. Last few years I’ve been working with Creative Curriculum which has 50 objectives and finally got comfortable with and now I’m learning to use Teaching Strategies which has 65 objectives. I think that this is crazy. Its so time consuming, it took a month of my summer vacation to put 10 portfolios together not to mention all the hours spent collecting that information. I’m really getting to the point of believing that the way I do portfolios is not necessary. There’s got to be a better way. I work with people who are open minded to new ideas and are willing to make changes we just need the idea of how to.

Reading, “The Diary of Laura” made me start thinking about this again. Doing a diary type of portfolio seems to be so much more personal. I do understand as a preschool teacher there are certain things that are important to document and assess but could it be done in a friendlier manner, like in “The Diary of Laura”? I also like how there was more than one teacher putting in the information. For some reason where I work we have many teachers putting in observations and taking documentations but I’m not able to find a way to make it blend it when I’m putting the portfolios together. I think it would be great if there are ways where everyone puts their information into the computer and the computer just spits it back out for each child’s portfolio. But here I go again back to making impersonal portfolios. I hope that “The Diary of Laura” is just the beginning of opening my eyes to new ideas.

9/2/2010 Quotes, Perspective on Teaching, and Neo-Socratic Method

September 2, 2010
Quotes, Perspective on Teaching, and Neo-Socratic Method:
As a preschool teacher I see myself in a position to not only “teach” children but to learn from them as well. I love the moments where I can “see” the light bulb above their heads turn on, when they got whatever they were trying to do. It is true that my response to each child and what they are doing or making can affect them in a profound way - it could be a look, an action, the tone in which I speak, and/or what I say.
I’ll never forget during a third grade conference my teacher told my dad, “Susan is average; she’ll always be a “C” student.” When the teacher said this I was happy because no matter how hard I studied I would get “B” and “C” grades. I guess I had hoped my dad would stop harping on me about my grades now that a teacher told him that; well I was surely wrong. My dad refused to believe the teacher and set out to prove her wrong. I had to get up an hour earlier each school day to do vocabulary words from the dictionary, after school I had a longer study session, and some weekends I went with my dad to his office and did reports. Well, it paid off in the long run because my grades did improve.
I’d like to go one step further and say that it is not only the children that I “teach” but also educate their family (and they educate me too). Wow, I can’t believe I just said that! Let me tell you why. When I first began going down this path of becoming a teacher the only thing I didn’t want to do was interact with the parents – just the thought alone caused high anxiety within me. Well I got over that in my first year of teaching and I’ve come to not only enjoy the children but their families too. I enjoy the friendships that can occur, the morning and afternoon brief exchanges with families, and I believe that by developing a partnership with families the children do benefit by it.

I was introduced to the Neo-Socratic Method by Jeanne Iorio in one of her other classes. I do have to say that it made me question more than ever about things that have to do with being a teacher, what I think, and what I do. I work with Val (who is also in our class) and we have been able to question many things that used to occur in our classroom since taking Jeanne’s class. Once we started to vocalize our thoughts to each other, we tried to figure out how to implement them, then as a team we went to our director and “argued” our case, and then (almost every time) we were able to put it into action. If it weren’t for learning the Neo-Socratic Method I may have continued to be silent.
Let me give you an example so that you might understand what I’m saying. Where I work we have many rules (maybe too many), together Val and I went through the invisible list of rules that we give to the children and picked the ones we wanted to cross off, one of them being that teachers only put water in the sandbox. We question this. Why couldn’t the children do it themselves? They would be exercising their fine motor skills by turning on the faucet as well as developing their eye-hand coordination, the children would also be measuring the water content in the container as well as balancing the water from not spilling while walking, they would be experimenting how to make wet sand and what consistency they would want it and how much water to use or not use, use their creativity and imagination, and actually the list of positive learning experiences could go on and on. But I think I made my point here and yes our director agreed that we can let the children get their own water for the sandbox. I continue to move ahead with my new way of learning. I look forward to learning more in this class.