Green Preschool Practices

In pre-k some of the first concepts we teach are to identify and name primary colors. Colors are important because they help us organize the classroom and they help students to become aware of the world around themselves. Teaching children to memorize colors is one of the first ways we address academic learning, ie learning that does not necessarily have to do with survival. There are thousands of lessons on the internet to teach colors. Most teachers start with red. The STOP sign is a great way to introduce red and it can help students learn management cues. The teacher can hold up a stop sign when it is time for kids to transition to another activity.

This week I saw a great way to teach the color green. Usually we associate green with grass, leaves, and natural settings. Jennifer Mortarulo on The Alternative Press suggested that pre-k teachers capitalize on the green movement by teaching environmentally sound classroom practices in connection with the color green. Some of these ideas are really great and can be taught as classroom habits in the Fall and impact your classroom all year.

Here are some easy, green habits kids can learn:

• When using the sink, keep the water flow to a pencil-thin stream. This way they won’t waste water.

• Only use one sheet of paper towel to dry little hands. Less is more.

• Recycle the materials used in the classroom. Everything is better the second time around.

• Turn off the lights in any room that is not being used to conserve energy. Sunlight is usually enough light.

• Spend time outdoors. There is no better way to involve kids in nature than by playing outside.

• Pick up trash. It’s easy to do and makes a world of difference.

• Set a good example. If you do little things to help the earth, your kids will follow your lead.

Getting kids involved with being green is the future. And the earlier you teach them green habits, the more likely they are to stay with them for years to come.

 

Try some out and let us know how they work.

Image: http://greenoptions.com/tag/preschool

Book Review: The Case for Make Believe

Against the grain. Susan Linn has been going against the grain for 30 years. If you wanted to find another person from history to compare Susan Linn to it would have to be Ralph Nader. People forget that in the 1960s Nader, with his book Unsafe at Any Speed, almost single-handedly caused American auto makers to begin installing seat belts standard in all cars. He spoke out about the metal dashboards that caused serious injury at 20 miles an hour and "safety glass" that could kill. Thanks to his work, in 1966 Congress passed the Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966 which permanently attached the word "safety" to the word "automobile." Since then auto manufacturing and regulations have never been the same.

Susan Linn is that kind of advocate, only she is a champion for childhood, not cars. Her book, The Case for Make Believe - like Nader's book- points out the potential harm our profit-driven children's media and entertainment industries have caused. Susan Linn is Associate Director of the Media Center at Judge Baker Children's Center and Instructor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

In The Case for Make Believe Linn speaks truth to power. She discusses how children's make believe has been co-opted by product placement. She highlights how in the past some children's play was violent but it would evolve and become more about problem solving. Now, that violence, based in media, is mindless imitation of games and videos that glorify violence. There is no evolution of thought or learning, the natural result of play. Linn points out that we, yes the adults in our children's lives, are robbing our own children of their imaginations but constantly distracting them with purchased videos, toys, and games. In this book Susan is going up some of the biggest names in the children's market and she doesn't pull any punches. She names names like Hasbro, Mattel, and Disney in her indictment of our children's corrupters.  In fact here she is discussing her organization, the coalition Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, and its suit against Disney for describing its Baby Einstein videos as educational.

It was hard to read this book at times because I felt guilt, remorse, and sadness for my own children. I was heartened though, to realize that I had not fully participated in their "commercialization." We have avoided some of the key imagination-killer brands in our home including Bratz, Barbie, Transformers, and Power Rangers. I felt even more sadness for my former students whose parent's will never read this book. The Case for Make Believe helps parents and teachers understand how this commercialization happens, how it affects learning, and what they can do to protect children's play.

This book gets a hearty Hallelujah from this "children's chior". I just hope we can sing loud enough for those outside the church to hear us.

Linn is also a ventriloquist who worked on the Mr. Rogers show. If you would like to check out Susan showing off her rapier wit ala Judd Apatow style humor check out this video of her and Audrey the Duck, both of whom have appeared on the Mr. Rogers show. It is not for kiddies even though there is a puppet. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooy_qvFY_Bw

Preschool Pros

There is nothing like 16 - 20 preschoolers to scare the heck out of a teacher in their first preschool classroom. Even teachers of older children - in school, church or camp - are rarely prepared for that first day of preschool. Thankfully there are a bunch of pros out there who are writing about it including A Teacher's Mind, and Literacy Launchpad. One of these pros is Trish at Preschool Playbook. She is a seasoned teacher with 20 years experience who just published a post about what her classroom looks like right now. She seems to have developed distinct areas with developmentally appropriate labeling of materials. This practice supports literacy development and a child's sense of order and safety in the classroom. "Everything has its place, even me". 

In the post she talks about how a course she took informed how she decided to change her block and family center. It is this kind of reflective practice that really differentiates high quality from low quality. What many folks don't get about teaching and preschool in particular is that teaching is not something that only happens in classrooms. Being an effective teacher requires you to process what is happening in your classroom, each day. You can't do that with kids needing you all day, so you do it at night, on the weekends, in the summer, and even ... on vacation. Then when you talk about this process you are able to change a fleeting, 3:00 a.m. insight into a credible action plan that creates better learning for children. Some teachers do this with a spouse, other with teachers, and some do it with blogs.

Whose blogs are you reading right now about the incredible process of "being" a teacher?

Image: http://www.preschoolplaybook.com/2009/08/updating-my-centers.html

The Beginining and the End: 12 Stories

I really haven't wanted to write this blog post because, when I finish writing it I will know, deep down in my clenching heart that it is real.

I am leaving the classroom.

There, I said it. I have accepted a position as a Head Start Child Development Specialist. I will be supporting and supervising approximately 18 classrooms. I am excited and at the same time my heart is sinking. I have been on this teeter-totter for the past two weeks since I accepted the position. I will have the opportunity to practice the leadership skills I have developed as a teacher leader and in my studies in educational leadership. I will also be giving up what I have always known: one class, 18 kids. I will still be in classrooms with kids and teachers a lot. I will learn if I am able to become the transformative leader I hope to be by developing some more streamlined systems to meet accountability requirements. I think my supervisor secretly hopes I can help us move into a paperless system, but we both know how hard that might be. I will keep blogging here, but my stories may change.

I am standing on the edge of a new life.

I think the scariest part is that I won't have "that one kid" this year. Every year, for twelve years, I have felt that there has been a capital R - Reason for me being exactly where I was in that classroom. There has always been "that one kid" that needed me and not anybody else. She could have been a pawn in a inter-family power struggle, or a boy with overly reactive parents. As a way of saying goodbye, here is a list of kids, one for each year in the classroom, who I know I helped.

Benjamin - We went to the Washington Zoo together. He was the only student without a parent on the trip. I treated him like my own son, before I had one. He came to school with a language delay and left on track.

Tarshena - Her mother was on heroin and went to jail before the winter break. I tried to keep her emotionally close by doing home visits at her grandmother's house. She was reading on grade level by third grade.

Craig - An extremely bright boy with lead poisoning. No one understood why he couldn't sit still. I figured out a way to teach him without that being a prerequisite.

Gregory - He was being raised in his great-grandfather's house. His great-grandfather, an eighty year old man, was shot by one of his grandson's with a drug problem. Gregory was in the house. The investigation took several weeks. Later we realized the killer had picked up Gregory a couple times from school. We were able to keep Gregory on track academically and get his family some counseling. I will never forget him.

Nisha - A girl whose mother had not had a decent relationship with a man until she was in my class. She left my class reading small words with a mom who learned how to trust.

KenDaja - Her mother once told me that she wished her daughter had "any other teacher in the school." I think she was afraid that there was something wrong with me because I was a male preschool teacher. I invited her mother into our class to volunteer every day. Her daughter came in with a slight language delay and left reading. Eventually she acknowledged that I had taught her daughter well, but she still couldn't stand me.

Amani - His parents were combative with each other and the world. I held him on my lap as he screamed "I hate this f--in school!." His mother cried on my shoulder as she thanked me for helping him. He left with literacy skills way above level with social skills to take him successfully through the remainder of his schooling.

Shakeece - He had extreme social and language delays when he came to school. He left on track after two years.

Jakeece - The next year I taught Shakeece's younger brother Jakeece who, when I met him as a two year-old, ran around his apartment hitting his big brother with a stick and peeling paint off the walls. He left reading. While in my class, their mother's twin brother was shot and killed for protecting a young woman who was being harassed by some thugs. Over the course of those four years, their mother got her GED, became a certified nurse assistant, and moved out of the housing projects to the suburbs.

Candice - Candice's mother had never learned to read, complicated by a brain injury in middle school. Brianna had some physical delays and wore leg braces as a toddler. She developed her physical abilities in our class and left reading. She stayed at the top of her classes as long as she was at our school. Over the two years Candice's was in my class her mother entered an adult literacy program. As a 6 year-old, Brianna was helping her mother read.

RaShawn - RaShawn had some attention problems and low self-esteem. He was disagreeable and physically aggressive. One day he seemed exceptionally agitated. I called his grandmother and she told me the story. That morning there was a 6:00 A.M. knock on the door. His father was shoved to the floor, hand cuffed, and arrested in front of him. RaShawn left on track, but his behavior threatened to nose dive after the arrest. He eventually became a successful student but it has been excruciating to watch each year as I imagine him asking his teacher, "Will you let me fail?"

TaShaunda - She was the pawn in the inter-family emotional battle. TaShaunda was extremely busy and hard to manage but, in the end, she was the first child I ever taught that I thought might actually need to be in a gifted program. She was reading well when she left our class and had developed social skills that have helped her become a successful student.

There they are, twelve kids, twelve years, twelve stories. Of course there were the ones that got away like LaRon whose language delay was insurmountable, Tevon who was expelled from my class and ended up on Thorazine, and Jonathon who has experimented with shop lifting as a second grader. I have lost fewer as I have gotten better over the years. Then there is the one who I almost lost but, thanks to a mentor, I didn't:

My second year DeVonte was driving me crazy with his anger and hitting. I asked for some help from my program who sent a retired expert teacher to support me. She came to my room, observed for a day, and then came back the next day with some information. We had a conversation and she helped me realize that I was as much a part of the misbehavior as my little troublemaker. She helped me become a better teacher by giving me some practical advice and helping me to see a broader perspective on my teaching. 

So that is what I hope becoming a Child Development Specialist means. Maybe it is time for me to be like that mentor who helped me. She changed the course of my practice and helped me to help all those difficult kids that came after DeVonte. I may not have that one kid but hopefully I can help that one teacher who does. Stay tuned.

Why Not What or How but When to use Which

 Recently I have been thinking a lot about how I ask my students questions in my classroom. I just received a comment on a post from last Fall from Tammera, who said, "I believe you should not ask "what" from a preschooler, but "how" to actively open their minds." In some ways I totally agree with Tammera, but making generalizations like this can sometimes get us into trouble-- especially when it comes to research about preschool and how it applies to teachers. I totally agree that we want to get kids thinking about "how" and "why" we do and say things. At the same time, in my experience with my Head Start students, if I ask them, "Why did you ____?" I get a blank stare. However, my own son, also a four year old, could give me an elaborate answer. Whether the answer is true or entirely made up is the subject of another blog post.

I have recently been asked to implement dialogical reading strategies in my classroom. The brief training and supplementary reading I did technically suggests the exact opposite of what Tammera suggests and what I would normally want to do when reading a story to preschoolers. In dialogical reading, the teacher asks, "What" questions about a story. The story is read to a small group of children multiple times with the complexity of the "What" questions building over time. So, in the first reading students are asked, "What is that?", "What is going to happen?" "What is going on here?" Over time, the complexity increases and students are asked, "What is going to happen?, Has that ever happened to you?", "What is the ______ thinking?", "What do you want to remember about this story?"

The form of the question is not limited by the structural use of the word "What." I think what Tammera is saying, and most people think when they ask "What" questions, is that when the teacher or parent already knows the answer to the question when they ask it they aren't developing their children's thinking skills. "What color is that?" does not require much thinking, just recall. Even though we don't want to stop with these questions, they provide the necessary foundational language for further discussion down the road.

I also recently read in a book about managing students with ADD/ADHD. The book suggested that many times kids with the symptoms of ADD/ADHD are not able to process "How" and "Why" questions because it requires them to mentally make a temporal leap from the present to the past, which they have difficulty doing. By asking the student "What" questions, the child is able to bring the process into the present and talk about their thoughts or actions as if they were in the present moment. "What were you doing?" replaces, "Why did you do that?"

These experiences have changed how I think about interacting with my students. Thanks for your comment, Tammera--you inspired some deep thinking.

Image from: http://www.twobytwomeandyou.com/images/kids-bq-question.gif

Criss Cross Applesauce

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If you teach preschool, you have most likely heard this before: "My Mom told me, if somebody hits you, hit them back."
As a teacher, my first response is, "We are at school and we have to follow school rules." This will work most of the time, but this has not helped the student who did the hitting learn not to hit. So we conference and usually work it out, at least for that day.

Then, I ask myself, "Who are these rules serving?" They arn't serving the parent. What if the student is repeatedly hit and the teacher doesn't address the issue with the the hitter? Is the rule then serving the child who hits instead of the one who gets hit? We hope our class rules are serving the students, but what if they are really serving the teacher?

This example won't fit into that framework, but let's try another example.

When I start teaching on the carpet I use the "Criss Cross" song to get the class focused on learning and in their personal space. "Criss Cross, Applesauce, Hands in your lap!" Then within the first 30 seconds after I start, a kid or two will flop out on the floor, but they are still attending. Then a student who is not listening flops down on the floor. What do I do? Well the norm in this situation is reinforced by the question, "How do we sit on our shapes?" The class answers, "Criss Cross Applesauce. Hands in your laps!" Order is reestablished by the repetition of the "classroom norm." The class readjusts, the learning continues (for a while). However, it is actually okay to lay out on the floor as long as you are learning in my class. What isn't okay is distracting others or not attending yourself. So who is the "Criss Cross" rule really serving? I think it is serving me. Does that make it wrong to have this as one of the stated norms of my classroom? I don't know. Maybe. Maybe the rule should be, "Criss Cross or not, Look like you're learning a lot!" So how and why, as educators, do we establish our classroom norms? When are they for us and when are they for the kids?

I posted a blog a week ago about classroom discipline. So far, we have had 21 respondents. As of today, 57% have stated they use Time Out in their school or home, and 43% don't. Definitely not a statistically representative sample, but a great start. I am not trying to make this any easier though. I am convinced that there is more than one right answer to any question about a classroom practice especially when it comes to discipline. I haven't found my answer yet. Often, how right an answer is can be influenced by outside factors, like a student or teacher's home culture. What might be the most important question we should ask ourselves is, "Whom is a classroom rule or consequence serving?" Should the teacher's norms be the most important norms in the classroom or should the culture of students guide classroom norms? And what makes a consequence effective? Is it the managing or extinguishing of undesirable behaviors? All behavior is communication. If a student wants attention and expresses that in an inappropriate way, is redirection the best way to extinguish that attention getting behavior? Needless to say, please let us know how you feel and leave us a comment and participate in our poll.

Praise Doesn't Pay

Praise doesn't pay, according to some researchers. ABC news just published an article highlighting the work of Dr. Carol Dweck, a Stanford University researcher who has found that certain types of praise do not help kids. In fact, it can hurt them. I am sure that many pre-k teachers would agree. However, the article described Dweck's study done with hundreds of 5th graders. I think the results would be different if it was conducted with preschoolers. The effects of the same types of praise might cause positive effects on young children. I have found that positive praise can make or break a child's day in preschool.

"Contrary to popular belief, praising children's intelligence did not give them confidence and did not make them learn better," said Carol Dweck, a professor of developmental psychology at Stanford University and author of "Mindset: The New Psychology of Success."

Dweck found that students who were told they were smart did less well than students who were praised for working hard, after completing a test. These same students were less likely to want to take a test that was described as "harder" than the first test and did less well on the second test when they took it. It appears the smart students thought that only "dumb" kids had to work hard to be successful.

If you're like most parents, you offer praise to your children believing it is the key to their success -- those flattering words can boost a child's self-esteem and performance. But according to a new study, praise may do more harm than good.

I am not sure though that parents offer praise only because they believe it is the key to their childrens' success. This makes it seem that praise is only a manipulation of children by parents. But, I think that most parents actually offer praise because they are genuinely proud of their kids. I have struggled with the conflicting messages of praise that I give my own children. My 8 year old is in a gifted program. It was strange for her to see that many of her friends who were recommended for the program did not get accepted. We struggled with redefining the word "smart," what it meant, and how smart can be represented in different people. I have always subscribed to Howard Gardener's definitions of multiple intelligences and tried hard to pass that on to my children. This definition of intelligence is complicated even more when we realize the racial and gender biases associated with many gifted assessments and the disproportionate ethnic and racial representation in gifted programs.

This labeling is a part of our educational system, especially now that teachers are expected to use ability grouping in reading instruction, even at the preschool level. But, I think that there is a gap in the reporting of this study. There may be developmental appropriateness of certain types of praise. When kids are younger than six or so, I think that telling them they are smart may not cause the same inverse relationship to a child's performance. At four and five years old, kids are very dependent on adults for their self image. It is important for parents and teachers to make sure that their students' self image is positive. As kids start to differentiate themselves from their parents at about seven and eight, this dependence decreases. What their friends think becomes more important.

There is an important type of praise left out of the study. The difference between praise and pride.

In my classroom I try to use authentic praise as much as possible. Saying things like, "I like the way Benjamin is sitting" can be a huge help with compliance but it does not necessarily increase a student's positive self image. What I have found that increases students self esteem is when I say, "I'm proud of you." I have found pride to be an extremely powerful feeling for kids, especially for my students who may never have felt pride in themselves. Pride arises out of a feeling of efficacy. A sense of pride is an aspect of praise I would like to see researched. I doubt the same inverse relationships would be found.

Circle Time Question: Pre-k and Hispanic Children

Last week, the National Task Force on Early Childhood Education for Hispanics released an important report called “Para nuestros niños: Expanding and Improving Early Education for Hispanics."  The report highlights the fact that much of the achievement gap between Hispanic children and their peers exists before they enter kindergarten. Citing research on how high-quality pre-k and other early childhood programs improve Hispanic children’s school readiness, the task force issued recommendations aimed at:

• Increasing Hispanic children’s access to high-quality early education;
• Increasing the number of Spanish-speaking educators; and
• Designing and evaluating strategies to strengthen Hispanic children’s language and literacy skills.

What do you think about these objectives and how we can achieve them? How does your pre-k program help Hispanic children and families overcome barriers like access and language?