Kidwatching: November

November 8th
The kids have all gone outside to observe trees with their 5th grade buddies. It's so much fun to watch them interacting, working, and learning together, despite their age differences. They have a lot to learn from each other. On the way back, Leo asked me, "Did you bring the cat book? Can we read it??" I replied that I did, and we could read it at "Read to Self" time.

When the time came, we curled up in the book nook to read "There Are Cats in This Book." We read the whole thing, and Leo was completely immersed. He asked me what each and every speech bubble said, and started to reply to the cat's questions. After the story, he took the book and put in his book box. I was worried I would have to take it away from him, especially when he said jokingly, "hey, so I have this new cat book..." However, I explained that it was from the library, and that I would give him the name and the author so he and his mom could find it there. Once I said that, he took it out and gave it back to me. But if that had been my own book, I'd have given it to him in a heartbeat.

Reflection

On our first meeting before we started fieldwork, our professor Anne Denney gave us this advice, which she said was “the most important thing you need to know when you’re in the classroom.” She said we needed two things in order to set the stage for effective teaching. The first thing to build relationships. You need to show children you care about them, not tell them about it. The way you act towards them each day and the way you listen and ask questions will show them that you care about them. The second thing we need to do is establish mutual trust. This begins on the teacher’s end, and takes time. We need to initiate this trust, and build it by treating children as if what they are saying is important (because it is!) We need to trust them to make decisions about their learning, and give them the time to do this. 

Thinking back to this conversation, I realize that any success I've had with Leo would not have happened without the relationship we'd built. He is very slow to warm up to new people (the first day I worked with him, he told me to "go away and never come back." But today, he gave me a hug when I left. As a teacher, I am going to make my relationship with my students first priority. How can they learn from you when they don't know you or trust you? It seems like second nature to those of us who love kids, but I have seen teacher forget about their love of children because they're so stressed about teaching for standardized tests, or making sure their students are learning all the phonics rules and sitting still on the carpet during long, boring lessons. I am going to try extremely hard to avoid this by taking time each day to enjoy the children and the marvelous things they say and do.