First class meeting reflection

I've tried a few times to write about the first class meeting I facilitated with the third grade class I'm student teaching with, but I can never finish the thought. I get so frustrated so often during my internship, and perhaps I'm internally not letting myself think everything through properly. Perhaps I'm unconsciously afraid of what I'd find if I did. Consciously, of course, I blame everything on the "public school" scape goat. And, of course, I'll really need to give myself honest reflection time, but perhaps just not during my internship. It feels like that would be unprofessional somehow. In three and a half months time, I'll be back to normal (hopefully).

In the meantime, I'd like to actually finish a thought about my first class meeting. During planning for a day in which my cooperating teacher would be gone, I decided it was time to have a discussion with the students. I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to say, however, and wound up improvising most of it while I went along. I knew only that I wanted to touch on respecting each other despite your feelings towards a person, ignoring what others say even when it makes you angry, and disagreeing with others respectfully. At the last minute request of the cooperating teacher in her notes to the sub, I started the dialogue with a story, even though it didn't exactly fit with what I fully wanted to talk about. But, really, without it, I would have hardly known where to begin.

While the third-graders were in P.E., I moved the desks to create a larger space on the floor (because they haven't been taught how to move their own desks quickly like I would have taught them) and taught the substitute how to run my Flip camera so that I could watch the meeting again and reflect. When the students returned, we sat in a circle and I read the short book. They were surprisingly somber during the story.

Afterward, I asked what the story made the students think about. I received answers from the title of the book and a synopsis of what the characters in the illustration did, so I told them that the story reminded me about how the class doesn't always work together as a team. Then we brainstormed problems that students in the class have and solutions to those problems. I wrote on hand-held white boards during the meeting, but transferred the notes to poster-sized paper and hung them in the room afterward. I'll include the ideas below.

When I could see that the ideas had been exhausted and the students were getting anxious, I transitioned to role-playing, hoping to build empathy for the problems we had just discussed. The students were excited for the chance to role-play, perhaps because it meant finally getting up (we had been sitting for around 30 minutes) and perhaps for the near-silly nature of the activity. I had two practice what to do "when someone is bothering you" (here illustrated by one student taping his hands on another and saying, "Bother bother bother..."). The "bothered" student acted out the ideas we had brainstormed, first telling the other to stop, then walking away, and finally coming to tell me. Another set of students acted out what to do when someone near them continued to talk without permission ("Blah, blah, blah..."): tell her politely to be quiet and give her a quiet signal.

Unfortunately that was all we had time for. Now that I know that this group of students responds more positively to role-playing than dialogue (probably because they haven't had the chance to be actively involved in a real discussion), I look forward to future class meetings with just a little less time talking and more time acting out. Hopefully I really can appeal to their empathy this way.

Student-generated brainstormed ideas:
Someone is being mean or trying to get me in trouble
1. Stay in control and be respectful.
2. Say, "Please stop ..."
3. Swallow any mean words
4. Ignore them
5. Use a calming technique
6. Walk away
7. Tell an adult

Someone near me won't stop talking
1. Say respectfully, "Please be quiet, I'm trying to learn."
2. Give them a silent quiet signal.

Calming Techniques
1. Take deep breaths
2. Get a drink of water
3. Go to the restroom to splash your face with cold water
4. Write your feelings
5. Write someone a letter
6. Read a book (with permission)
7. Draw a picture (with permission)

Outdoor Preschool in Norway video

I haven't written anything about Outdoor Preschools yet, but here's a 30 minute video of one in Norway.

Free School / Democratic Education--Introduction

A year ago I heard an episode of This American Life about children and politics. It included a segment about the Brooklyn Free School, a school in New York run democratically by the students as well as teachers. The segment focuses on the participation of the students in the rules, class meetings, and politics of the goings on in the school. This is because the Brooklyn Free School is based on a model by A.S. Neill whose English boarding school, Summerhill School, is one of the first with a democratic foundation. In both schools, students are encouraged to set their own rules democratically with their peers and teachers, everyone's voice counting for one vote. The This American Life segment about the Brooklyn Free School emphasized that rules can be made and unmade by students, but most of the time, nothing is done.

"[That's part of the plan.] You know, so what if there's no resolution? The point is they're left with something to think about. What are you going to do about it? You know, that's more interesting to me than somebody deciding that this is the way it should be. And then it's all easier, and it all goes nicer." -- Katherine Chew on This American Life

More about democratic education later.

Read more:
Wikipedia--Democratic education
Institute for Democratic Education in America

"Community/Neighborhood School" Idea

Yesterday I watched Designing a Great Neighborhood, a documentary about creating a neighborhood in Boulder, Colorado.

I have a love/hate relationship with these kinds of things, sort of Utopia-ish. I'm fascinated with utopian/dystopian novels. I love reading them, but I can't ever sort out my feelings for their ties to the real world. On one hand, it's great to see so much effort going into the creation of this neighborhood--the windows are positioned to take in as much daylight as possible. The roofs, to not block the sun for other buildings. Everything's been planned with such precision. At the same time, you DO wind up with sort of cookie-cutter houses. Yes, they have been designed for efficacy, but the unification IS a bit unnerving.

Those personal feelings aside, I was still fascinated with the documentary and found myself immediately wanting to move there, planning certain details I would have done differently from a design aspect. "My" neighborhood would certainly need schools, of course, because that's where I would work.

At first I considered an elementary, middle, and high school, all in a row next to each other (which is how the schools in the small town I lived in for half of my childhood were positioned, now that I think about it). That way, all of the children could walk to school together with their siblings.

But the more I thought about it, would the high school be necessary? There wouldn't be enough students in the neighborhood to fully populate the high school, so others would have to be brought in--others that would be outsiders. Surely the children could gain enough independence to travel outside the neighborhood on their own to the high school. But then they'd be the outsiders. And they probably wouldn't even get a good education there, anyway.

But wait, if I'd trust that high-schoolers had enough independence to travel the city on their own, that means their former education would have had to create that independence in them. And what better way to create independence in a child than Montessori?

Yes, it's perfect because then the children could transition from a Montessori elementary to a Montessori secondary education. And because I'm not familiar with any secondary Montessori schools, in my mind it looks pretty much like a Free school (which I'll have to blog about later because I realize that I haven't yet).

Well, then, it'll be a three story building, functioning as a community building when school is not in session. The first floor would have the stage for performances, etc. and the early childhood center. The second story would be for elementary aged children, and the third story, for post-elementary. I hadn't determined whether an adult would need to be present on the third story or not. Ideally, the children would be so in charge of their own education that they could function completely independently and only need to visit an adult downstairs occasionally.

It's such a great model for a school, I wish all schools were fashioned after it. Right?

Why the Author is Getting Her Degree

I'm having a hard time right now thinking that going to public university to get my bachelors in education was the right idea.

I had a short conversation with the cooperating teacher I'm student teaching with yesterday. It went a little like this:

Her: I know you're looking to go into Montessori, but the reality for me, as a public school teacher, is that I have to get these guys ready for the state test in March. I HAVE to. It's my job.

Me: I know. I know that's reality, and while I'm student teaching here, that's my job, too.

Her: *sigh* I wish I could go back to how I taught when I was teaching fifth grade, which was thematically. When I taught thematically, I could encompass ALL of the subjects, and the students were naturally more engaged because they were earnestly interested.

Me: But you won't be able to teach that way now, anyway, because the district has adopted math and reading programs.

Her: ... You're right. *gets up*

*ten minutes later*

Her: You're right. I wouldn't be able to teach that way anymore. It sucks. *sigh*

She had obviously been thinking about it after our conversation ended.

Today, a friend linked me to this article about play based learning. Reading it, I knew that my heart firmly agreed. To requote from the article's source, Scientific American,

"...parents might be surprised to learn that “just playing” is in fact what nearly all developmental psychologists, neuroscientists and education experts recommend for children up to age seven as the best way to nurture kids’ development and ready them for academic success later in life. Decades of research have demonstrated that their innate curiosity leads them to develop their social, emotional and physical skills independently, through exploration—that is, through play."

So why am I doing this to myself? Why am I jumping through all of the hoops that are a bachelor's degree in education when I'm doing my own research online and it's telling me not to structure the lives of small children with "school"?

The semester is over in two weeks, and obviously I'm more than a little stressed about all of the work that's required to be finished.

But aside from that, the question still remains. Why am I getting my bachelor's in education, anyway?

I'm passionate about teaching children, but honestly I feel deep down that my real life's mission will be raising my own children one day.

Why, then?

Because, first of all, I need to show others (including future parents and employers as well as those involved at the Montessori training school) that I am capable of diligent, professional research, reflection, and self-growth. Sure, I can tell them that verbally, even show them research I've done, say, on this blog. But in today's society, the only thing that really gets the message across, unfortunately, is a degree.

Second, because it IS teaching me. It's teaching me the WRONG way to go about education. A good way to know that I'm teaching the way I want to be teaching is by knowing that I'm NOT doing something I don't want to be doing. Plus, all of the experience is certainly good for me.

So, as stressed as I am, as much as I may feel that what I'm being asked to do is asinine and counter intuitive, I really just need to hold out a little longer. Graduation is in six months.

No Need for "Practice"

Of all meditational cleaning, dish washing may be the most effective. Somehow the calm flow of the warm water helps my thoughts to surface and come cleaner. Today it helped two formerly unrelated thoughts connect and become stronger.

1. Children should not be given "practice" plastic cups and plates before they are trusted with glass ones. (This is a Montessori idea.)

2. Children should not be taught to master addition and subtraction without regrouping before they are allowed to move on to addition and subtraction with regrouping. (My university math methods teacher taught this idea.)

Upon meditation, this is the same principle applied to different areas of life, and it comes down to trusting that our children can handle bigger ideas and concepts. The things we trust our children with do not need to be broken down into smaller steps. If we tell our children that we are trusting them with something, they will live up to our expectations. Sure, a child may break a plate or regroup incorrectly at first, but helping them clean up their mess and letting them grow through experience is easier in the long run than babying them and expecting constant growth.

Teaching simple addition connects certain synapses in children's brains that tell them what math is like. When we teach regrouping as a separate lesson, it tells the student, "Remember how you thought math was easy? Well, it's not really. There's actually a whole other step that you have to do now." They see it as an entirely different (and more complex) process. Contrariwise, if regrouping is taught first, not only is the base ten system emphasized (because children, especially English-speaking children, need all of the help with base ten they can get. More on that later), but simple addition seems even easier.

Similarly, if we hand toddlers a plastic cup (usually in the form of a sippy cup, in most societies today), it connects synapses that tell the child the properties of a plastic cup--it's light-weight, liquid stays in if I tip it over, it doesn't break when I drop it, liquid only comes out at this specific point, etc. Then it doesn't make sense in a child's mind that her father's cup has different properties, and he's upset when she breaks it. However, if we give the same toddler a miniature glass cup to begin with (I've seem shot glasses used for this purpose), she learns an entirely different set of mental rules about the properties of glasses and any glass thereupon requires no other handling consideration. Yes, the first one will be broken. Yes, a few others may be broken in the next couple of years. But that only emphasizes the properties of dishes.

Rather than giving children "practice" cups and plates when they are small, cut out the middle man and give them smaller sized glasses.

Rather than teaching children "practice" addition, cut out the middle man and teach regrouping first.

Rather than babying children with a modified version of life, let them experience reality.

Book Review: Highly Effective Questioning

On the lookout for good Socratic education books, I stumbled upon Highly Effective Questioning: How and Why to Ask Questions in the K-16 Classroom by G. Ivan Hannel. It's a short textbook, less than 200 pages, and I flew through it.

Hannel absolutely confirmed my thoughts about last week's lesson to my peers, so I'm glad to say that I was on the right track!

I also noticed that it conflicted directly with a few things I'm being taught at the university, particularly where tests are concerned. In public schools, we teach students test-taking skills to better prepare them for assessments. If assessments weren't necessary, as implied in Highly Effective Questioning, we wouldn't teach test-taking strategies but learning strategies.

At any rate, what follows is my notes from reading. It was a wonderful read, and I found myself writing and quoting a lot! Thus, I think I'll put them under a cut.