A child, or childish?

Children are most often disregarded for their capabilities, especially those who misbehave. Clemens and Gleim discuss using documentation to gain an understanding for children. 

“Believing that the child is competent, we have to figure out his or her behavior when it seems odd to us. We have to learn to see better. Regularly writing down what we see — and regularly taking photos and recording — are tools for improving understanding.”

How do we see better?

Through observing, having our full attention, eyes, ears, mouth, movement, focus, all on the child.  Children are fascinating humans, so fascinating that we adults need to decode children’s true abilities, and help them break through to reveal them. 

“Finding strength and competence in children who appear to much of the world as incomplete or incompetent has made me adopt an unwavering belief that all children are born competent, capable and rich.”

Such a powerful message, that Gleim believes that all children are BORN!! competent, capable, and rich.  

            What do we do to bring out these competencies?

            Is by 4 years old too late?

How do we find the strength and competence in children who are incompetent?   

“Do you respect her? Can you think of her as competent, strong, and full? This isn’t easy, but it is necessary.”

Yes, it is necessary.  We need to see each child as full, strong, competent, and with respect.  Through observing, through documenting, through researching each child, and then each child as a group, building each child, and then continue to research over and over to unravel what the child has been storing since birth. 

So if we teachers go through this researching and documenting, what do we do with it? 

Is it only for parents to see?

Do we share it with others?

How?    

 “While you collect data you send a clear and powerful message to Lauren that she is interesting, likeable, strong and capable, showing her that she is good.”

These observations and documents are especially useful for the child themselves.  They deserve to know of themselves.  When they see themselves being documented and then being able to learn of what they are capable of, the child is seen as important, they see themselves, and they notice what they themselves are capable of.     

Children are important.  They may not be seen as important.  The views of a child is seen as childish, foolish, babyish, silly, as playful, which often associates with mischievous, rascally, spirited, not serious.  But as you change your view of children hopefully “THE CHILD” maybe seen more seriously.    

Excerpt From: Clemens & Gleim. “Seeing Young Children With New Eyes.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/6f7k2.l

By:  Jadelynn Davis

How do we communicate?

What is the purpose of our work in the end of all things?
Why are we doing what we are doing?

These questions all lead to the idea of communication for me.  In the end it is getting the word out to the people of children.

To get the children's voices heard

To get the understanding of children out

To get people to know children

To get people not to underestimate them

To get the word out that children are capable

Two examples of communication from Making Learning Visible and Seeing Children With New Eyes are:

Daily Sheets

Long Distance Communication

Daily sheets on the one hand communicates with parents directly, the ideas and the explanation of teachers and their ways of teaching.  Through the stories that the teacher describes each day explains to parents what the children are doing and in that why it was important, that there was teaching within the playing.  

Long distance communication is a bit more complex since it takes cooperation from two parties to communicate.  But in doing this children are exposed, different parts of the world is exposed, children are seen, support from parents and the whole school is added in the mix, and learning is exercised.  There is so much to learn from long distance communication and so much can be done.  Pictures, phone calls, mailing, faxing, and nowadays there is video chats, which are all ways of communication, which ideas and teachings can be used.  The expansion of "the child" is expressed in the child, the parents and families, school, and it opens the doors for the community, even people across the world.  

What will you do to communicate? 

Why is communication important to you?

Why will you use communication?

What are other ways to communicate?

What do you use for communication? 

What do you say when you communicate?

Is getting the word out about "the child" ever the focus?

By:  Jadelynn Davis

   

How do we help children?

As teachers, how do we help children see themselves as able bodies, physically, mentally, socially, and emotionally?  How do we help children help and notice each other?  

As teachers we have become keen to observing and documenting the children.  And as we all should know that documenting helps us as teachers grow and it helps us help the children.  But how do we help the children help one another?  How do we help children see one another?  And hear one another?  How can we help children understand each other?

“Young children don’t yet understand that others have different ideas and perspectives and that talking with each other is the way to explore and possibly bridge those differences. If children come to our programs sometimes seeing other people as objects, we can help them become more adept at relating to others as people who are in some ways like them and in other ways different.”

Knowing the capabilities of children and understanding their milestones, gives us, the teachers, an explanation of what we should be doing.  So how do we do with this knowledge? 

We build the child!  

We build the child through play

We create activities of interaction 

We build our own vocabulary to express to children 

We plan intentionally!!

We listen to the children 

We are the children's role model 

We consider the children's thoughts and perspectives and ideas 

We allow children to guide their own learning 

We build relationships with everyone we come in to contact with 

We have an unbiased view

And in addition, we document!!

"The effect of documentation (documents, notes, slides, and recordings) is not limited to making visible that which is, but on the contrary, by making an experience visible, documentation enables the experience to exist and thus makes it shareable and open to the "possibles" (possible interpretations, multiple dialogues among children and adults)," (Project Zero, 150).

So how do we use the children to our advantage?  How do we use our documents to our advantage?  How do we help build relationships?

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

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

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

Documents?

As an early childhood educator all I know is play.  All I know is to focus on the children and to build the child as a whole.  So why do we need documents?  What are these documents?  Who are the documents for?  What do you document?  Clemens and Gleim ask "Is it something we do or is it something we make?"  

When I think of the word documents, what comes to my mind is...

Paper work 

Piles of forms

Rules

Writing

Information 

Records

Facts 

Official use

Objectives

Files 

None of these definitions of documents have anything to do with children.  So why is it important?  Why do we need rules and forms?  Why document?  

Well I'm glad to say that documents and documentation have an important use in the early childhood field.

-Clemens and Gleim indicates “We collect data, we think about what we’ve collected, we consider it with our friends and colleagues and we produce something to share with the children, their parents, the school community, and the wider community.”

-Documentation according to an early childhood educator, from my perspective, is a record developed by teachers of instances and experiences from straight from children, whether verbally, through play, through interactions, etc.

-Documentation is the true examples of children's capabilities.  And through documentations parents can become aware, the community can become aware, founders and the government can become aware of all the wonders that children have in stored.  And most importantly the children can visually see their abilities when documentations are shared on the children's level.  

-Documentation is not only for the use of capturing the child's abilities, but it's also used for the teachers.  To reflect on their teaching and handling of the classroom.  To discuss daily activities, what's working? what's not? what are the children interested in? Are the children understanding?  Or is the information not being grasped?  

Do will you document?  And if so how are you using these documents to its fullest capacity?

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

Who will be the change?

I often hear phrases such as...

-It doesn't take much to "WATCH" a kid

-Watching children is so easy

-You watch children for a living?

-All you gotta do is set the kid in front of the TV and thats all

-Being a teacher is terrible pay

-A monkey can watch a kid

-All you gotta do is discipline them then they will listen

-That's what you do is play all day with children?

These phrases just boggles my mind, as I try to understand where are these people getting their information from?  Do people honestly not know what it takes to be a teacher of children?  Yes, the preschool age group may be easier then elementary, high school, and college aged students, but seriously, you honestly think its that easy?


"Since 2002, when the No Child Left Behind law was passed, American teachers have been mandated to follow scripts found in teacher’s manuals that accompany textbooks, and to test children with standardized tests several times each year. Practically, this means teaching only the “official” text without veering from what is prescribed."

I would like to add, that if all you're doing is following a scripted lesson plan, then yes, this sounds easy peasy!!! I mean, who wouldn't want to be a teacher?  The planning is done for.  All you need to do is the grading, which is probably easy as well since it's all prescribed anyways.

But on the contrary...

"People in early childhood education (ECE) who teach in preschool programs are affected by the change in expectations of children about to enter Kindergarten, and people in ECE who teach kindergarten, first, or second grade are swept up in the mania for testing and pulled away from the real job, helping young children to grow and learn in ways that interest them and serve the community, to focus on “their creative capacities and their socio-emotional and physical development.”

Yes, that's a mouthful!!! but in short, this "NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND" is bull crap on the part of the children.  Yes the thought is there to not allow children to be left behind, but in doing so, this law is leaving the child as a WHOLE out = which means it's leaving...

the adventurous child out

the athletic child out

the imaginative child out 

the creative child out

the wild child out

the artsy child out
the loving child out

the squirmy child out

the celebratory child out

the loud child out

the quiet child out

the shy child out

the cheerful child out

All these aspect of a child is being left out from this one bill that only focuses on the academic.  As an early childhood educator you look at the the child as a whole.  In order for the CHILD as an individual TO GROW teaching according to the now is a MUST.


But this can change, this law can change.

“It will take lots of love and courage and political wit to induce our politicians to change these policies which utterly fail to acknowledge the uniqueness of each child. Our ability to effect this change will come as a result of looking with open hearts at children, parents and teachers, listening to them, and exchanging learning. Then we must find a way to convey changes that are needed to those who make policy. Action based on what our heightened consciousness and close observation show us will result in changes that benefit children and schools.”

BE THE CHANGE!!!

Focus on the child

Not what the adults want

Not what the statistics need

Not what tomorrow wants

FOCUS ON THE CHILD NOW!!!

Be the change for your child today!!

“Through observing closely and being open to new possibilities, by taking time to reflect on what we’re doing, we increase our own competence. We must abandon the idea that we already know what is here. What we know is influenced, bounded and constrained by our past experiences, and today’s new experiences give us fresh data to process, and what we see this afternoon may challenge what we believed this morning. Thinking all the time takes work, but it sharpens and develops insight — something every good teacher needs.”

The children need us.  It's not so easy to raise children in a developmentally appropriate way.  It takes hard work, commitment, time, energy, and most of all CARE!! in order to be an effective teacher of children from zero to eight.

Early childhood is needed, so who will be the change?  What will you do?  When will you do it?



Excerpt From: Clemens & Gleim. “Seeing Young Children With New Eyes.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/6f7k2.l

how do you become THAT teacher?

Teachers come in all shapes and forms.  

There are teachers that know children

There are teachers who follow the books

There are teachers that teach in front of a black board

There are teachers that teach through motions

There are teachers afraid of mess

There are teachers that have taught for 20+ years

There are up and coming new teachers 

There are teachers who follow instructions
There are teachers who are instinctual 

There are teachers who teaches instinctually 

There are teachers that teach for money

There are teachers that love children 

But what distinguishes a teacher of worth? of quality? of nurture? of character? 

What distinguishes THAT teacher, from all the rest?  are they truly better?

--Some of the richest countries have the poorest systems.--> Go figure, as you can see in our own country we can have all the wealth but that doesn't necessarily mean that we have the best preschool systems.  And to add the richest countries don't always spend their money, particularly, on the children.


"The quality and effectiveness of programs do not depend entirely on wealth."

You can have a classroom filled with all the wonderful stimulating toys, blocks, colors, aesthetics, books, and so on, but it takes a person, a teacher who understands children, to make learning effective--to have children learn, and love learning.  

--“research shows that didactic classrooms do not support effectively the holistic development of young children, in particular their creative capacities, and their socio-emotional and physical development.”

The entire child is of importance.  To add, the child TODAY is of importance then the child tomorrow, the child next week, the child next month, the child next year, the child 5 years from now, and so on.  The child TODAY is what matters.  

Teaching according to a book, teaching according to tests, teaching according to a teachers preference --> Has no importance to THE CHILD, THE HOLISTIC CHILD, THE CHILD TODAY, the child that is supposed to be taught.  The most meaningful learning is the learning done today, the learning that is connected to the interest of the children, the learning that makes sense to the child.    

Why doesn't our society see children as a whole?  

Why does our society teach according to books?

Why does our society teach with chairs and desks facing the front and teachers teaching at the front on a chalk board?

Why doesn't the rest of the school system, in our society, teach like early childhood educators? 

“experience needs to be present for new information to connect and hold”



--“Teachers often make the mistake of teaching lessons on subjects some children haven’t experienced.”

In recent discussions with colleagues, about elementary tests, we talked about children being tested on animals like squirrels, beavers, skunks, and so on.  These animals are unfamiliar to children.  I would even add dinosaurs to this discussion.  As an example, these animals, are of no interest to children, yet it will in their later schooling years.  So should we still be teaching children about these particular animals?

To add, my husband just took his CDL permit test, but failed on questions about train track crossings, and snow.  This just goes to show that yes he has not experienced these circumstances, yet he needed the knowledge of it.  So if children need to know certain aspects of unknown experiences, what do we do as educators?

Do we present the material to them?  Or no?

--“We learn from the children, from our colleagues and friends and from our whole community as we explore collaboratively, thinking about what the children’s behavior might be telling us. We try many things, hoping that what we try will move us in the direction of helping the children with their intentions, and we will sometimes succeed. We will learn from our errors, and search, not for new certainties, but for new ways of exploring and understanding, leading to new ways of assisting capable, rich, thoughtful children’s explorations.”

I find myself making mistakes as THAT "new teacher."  But i've found that being THAT "new teacher doesn't make me un-knowledgable about children, it doesn't make me a teacher that goes according to the books, it doesn't make a teacher that is not useful, as if children are not learning.

I can say that going through the mistakes, I have definitely grown, and I have a more wider view of teaching in more instances.  So can I be THAT teacher?  rather then be THAT "new teacher?"    

By:  Jadelynn Davis

Excerpt From: Clemens & Gleim. “Seeing Young Children With New Eyes.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/6f7k2.l

Laura

-First of all, I think that any daddy good-byes go smoothly compared to mommy good-byes.  From my experiences with infants, and by personally having to go through drop-offs and good-byes, I can say that majority of the parents who do drop off are mothers.  The bond between a mother and an infant is unbreakable, which causes good-byes to be that much harder between mothers and infants.  On the other hand daddy goodbyes are less dramatic and often times, as I have observed, daddies seem to have an easier time to hand their infants to the caregiver and leave.  

In this instance though, I believe that Laura's good-bye with daddy went smoothly because daddy included Laura in the good-by transition.  Laura was given time to enter into the classroom and engage in the conversation and transition between daddy and her caregiver.  When Laura was given this transition she was able to gage what is going to happen.  And as was mentioned in the passage, it seems as if Laura has gone through the routine, so she was able to predict the good-bye.  

-All the little actions the father acted communicated to his Laura that he was going to leave, and that he is going to give her to her caregiver, whom he trusted to care for her.  He helped Laura transition from daddy to her caregiver, from being, presumably, at home to the classroom.           

When daddy and the caregiver comes into contact, Laura is still in the hands of her dad, and she can see and hear the information being shared, probably about what happened at home.  The passage says that daddy helps Laura take off her jacket and hat, which signifies that Laura is getting herself ready to go in the classroom, and since daddy didn't take anything off it signifies that he is not staying.  More conversations continue and just the fact that Laura is present, in the conversation, it tells Laura and shows Laura the trust that daddy has with the caregiver.  By just saying bye and kissing Laura it tells Laura that he is going to leave.  And by handing her to the caregiver, and not just sitting her on the ground, tells Laura that the caregiver will care for her and be there for her wants and needs.  

-Teacher Ivetta was "surprised" with the good-bye because  "it has only been a few days since Laura has started experiencing the departure of her mom positively, (p.37)."  Since this was dads first time dropping Laura off, it was a positive first drop off.  Laura didn't cry at or fight either daddy or Ivetta.   

Ivetta probably thought that the kiss was significant because Laura initiated the kiss.  Since Laura initiated the kiss, you can tell that she understands the symbol of the kiss.  "I gave the kiss because  I know that my dad is going to go."   

-I don't think that Laura is fully adjusted to the classroom only because it takes more then just a successful drop off for an infant to fully adjust, each routine should be a success, the infant should be able to anticipate what will happen next.  The infant may cry as a fight to not go according to the routine, but if the infant cries because he is not comfortable with the classroom and the caregiver then I would say that he is not adjusted.  

I would say that Laura is adjusted to her caregiver enough that she trusts her with giving her her wants and needs.     

-Laura has recognized parts of herself.  Has she recognized herself?  I would say, no.  I don't think that she has recognized herself as a whole body.  The main part of her body that she has recognized is her hands.  She sees the reflection of what her hands can do, that it extends from her body, that her hands are moving.  She can see that her hand can grab an object, and bring the object to her body.  Laura talks to herself, probably, to assure or reassure herself that, "hey this is mines, this is on my body, this on my body is moving."      

 

**My daughter Lyna at about 6 months.  

 

-Teacher Ivetta and mother, together, might talk about Laura's body in regard to this episode.  They may touch on issues of recognizing parts of her body.  They may talk about body part vocabulary to share with Laura.  Also in this episode Laura seems to enjoy expressing herself through babbling and exclaiming herself.  Teacher and mother could talk about labeling her expressions and guide her through her surprises by talking about what is happening.  Through conversations with Laura teacher and mother can help her build vocabulary to use during her day to day routines.

By:  Jadelynn Davis