Who is the learner?

“Just as scientist must unlearn much of what they believe if they wish to master a new paradigm, so, too, ordinary readers have to be able to expunge misleading conceptions and construct new knowledge, if they are able to appreciate a hitherto unfamiliar concept.”

I feel that being in school this long has a huge impact on me to grasp onto concepts and learning about early childhood education.  Now what will happen when I have completed my schooling?  Will my disciplined mind to learn, crack?  How will I stay focused on continuing to learn all that I can? 

To care for children, and to let alone research children daily has also an impact on us as educators to continue to learn and grasp onto the updated researches about early development.  So how do we stay up to date?  How do we keep our minds open for new information? 

My site just changed the way we sanitize and disinfect.  This change alone, though it is so minor, changes the way I clean the classroom, the way that I find time to create sanitizing solutions, how am I going to fit this change into my schedule with the children?  What a minor change, but it can definitely have a huge impact.  So how will  you use new information to benefit your classroom and your teaching with the children? 

How will you make your learning visible?  I never thought of this question pertaining to me.  But as I learned in this reading, not only is the children the learners, but I am too.  So how do I make my own learning visible?  How would you make your learning visible? 

By:  Jadelynn Davis 

Are you questioning me?

Are we asking questions to be answered?

As I reflect upon my own teaching, I find myself asking questions that I allow one child to answer, and then move onto the next.  Often times, usually during a group discussion, I ask one thoughtful question that I am prepared for the entire class to answer.  In these two scenarios I think to myself, am I really preparing for the children's participation?

As I continue my reflection, I notice that the one child who answers my questions are often times the same children.  After reading this text, I think about, am I allowing children the time to think?  Am I preparing them with the right tools and information for their minds to expand?  Have I prepared enough prerequisites for the children to understand the question I am asking them?

All of these answers in the text are rich and full of meaning.  I notice that even the shortest answers are the greatest.  "You think better"  "They're in your head"  "It's easy you concentrate more."
Children know so much and as teachers, YES!! it is our duty to bring out these ideas.

So, how do we plan this?  How do we plan questions?  How do we prepare information?  I thought that questions just come out instinctively as we listen to what children are saying?  What if no one answers, where do we go from there?  How do we know if questions are too hard, to hard to comprehend?   How do we plan for questions to be thrown back at us?

"A child may ask us questions in areas where our knowledge is scant, and we become confused by our own uncertainty, in relation to both the topic and how to handle our confusion in front of the child."  

As the text sums up, yes we are asking questions, to investigate the child, to bring about ideas, to learn as the children learn, to document the child's knowledge, and so on.  But what's greater is when the children come back and ask us the question.  When we have those blank stare moments of, "What should I say," or "How do i explain this concept?"  As the text describes, children are not only asking us to find a answer as well, but they are watching us, they are watching how we gather information and how we delegate the answer.  They are listening to the examples we present, whether it be from a book or drawn upon our own experiences.  

Children are brilliant.  They have the answers to the questions we pose.  And these questions are what brings out the hidden knowledge children are harboring within their vast minds.  

By:  Jadelynn Davis

     

Project Zero & Reggio Children (2001). Making learning visible. Reggio Emilia, Italy:

Reggio Children.

Who are you to judge?

“They saw what happened, but judged the child instead of seeking his intention and creative idea.”

People are so quick to judge, and it's sad to say that often times I fall into that trap.

-I'm quick to judge a child according to their appearance

-I'm quick to judge a child according to their parents 

-I'm quick to judge a child according to their abilities

-I'm quick to judge a child by the way they draw

-I'm quick to judge a child by what they say or perhaps what they cannot say

-I'm quick to judge a child by what toy they choose

-I'm quick to judge a child according to the friends they play with

I'm quick to judge, but when I remember to just sit back,  erase these judgments, and look through a new slate -- observe the child and his abilities, I am almost always baffled at how surprisingly wrong I am of the judgments I have preluded.  

REMINDERS needed for us teachers

--“We teachers need to remind ourselves daily to remember that there is meaning in a child’s behavior. Discovering that meaning helps us support children.”

Our duty is to the children.  We are the children's advocate.  It's not our job to fill these empty minds.  Instead it's our job to break their ideas, creativity, strengths, and all tat good stuff out of their minds.  

--“Teacher and child stand shoulder to shoulder with much of the same, uniquely human, perspective — wanting to know, to accomplish, to grow, to follow their imaginations and curiosities. The teacher, caring, adds her own desire to help the child achieve his own intention.”

When I look at children through a new lens, I get a sense that CHILDREN are just the same as I am.  In fact I feel that the roles have reversed, instead of children doing the learning, in actuality I am.  I have to research the child.  I need to do the write ups and observations.  I need to see whether or not children are interested in bugs or not.  Looking at children through a new lens reverses the role and I now take the role of the learner, learning each child, and adding what I feel is appropriate for the child to grow. 

--“Nel Noddings[95] writes that caring is not something you are, but is something you engage in, something possible in every interaction.”

“While I saw their kindness to the children, I didn’t see respect for them. Love was present, but love alone wasn’t enough!”

I just read Nel Noddings book "Caring," and attended a seminar by a Woman who spoke of Nel Noddings "Caring."  When I first thought of caring, I thought that its just a phrase that I say to display my affection, for example, "I care about you."  But caring is more then just a phrase or an adjective.  It's a verb, it's an action.  It takes actually having to care for someone.  So with this said, to care for our children within the classroom takes more then just passing handouts to them.  I actually need to take the step to know them, to know who they are, to know what they want.  I actually have to do for them, I have to provide for them, see them as an individual, help them, accompany them, walk at the same level as them, and so on. 

--“As we try to change our Image of the Child from one who is weak and needs us to protect him to one who is strong, competent, and has his own ideas, needing us to find the materials and times for him to explore and create, we are called on to make changes in our own teaching dispositions.”

This is a phrase I find myself struggling, especially when I go through a situation with a child who "cries."  Children who cries are my triggers, and I often fall into the trap of seeing the child as weak and who need me to come to their rescue.  At times I need to step back, not jump into the situation.  I need to remember that in actuality this child is strong, so what do I do to bring out his words instead of a cry.  What can I help this child with?  How can I bring out his strengths?

--“We have an obligation to encourage the terrific thirst to make sense of the world little children experience from the day they are born.”

If there is something i'd like everyone to remember, is to remember this.  Children love to learn.  As teachers we need to bring this love out.  We need to help these children, not stuff them with rules and paperwork.  We need to remember that they are still children, as much as we learn of them, they are trying to make sense of the entire world around them.


So what would you remember?  How do you remember these things?  How do you go day by day with these new lens?  At times do you take it off?  Do you fall back to your old ways?  What do you do to keep these new lens on?

By:  Jadelynn Davis

Excerpt From: Sydney Gurewitz Clemens & Leslie Gleim. “Seeing Young Children With New Eyes.” Leslie Gleim, 2014-01-28. iBooks. 

Check out this book on the iBooks Store: https://itun.es/us/6f7k2.l