Kindergarten: A Teacher, Her Students, and a Year of Learning
Page 25
5 Ibid., 5.
6 Karen Gallas, Imagination and Literacy: A Teacher’s Search for the Heart of Learning (New York: Teachers College Press, 2003); and Anne Dyson, Social Worlds of Children Learning to Write in an Urban Primary School (New York: Teachers College Press, 1993).
7 Sue Bredekamp and Carol Copple, eds., Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs (Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children, 1996), 6.
8 Susan Radley Brown, director, Accelerated Literacy Learning (Houston, TX: 2004–5).
9 Weber, “Comments on Language by a Silent Child,” 177.
10 Accelerated Literacy Learning, Activating Background Knowledge to Build Schema, Grades K–2, 2005–2006 (Houston, TX: 2004–5).
11 Lucy Calkins, director, Teachers College Reading and Writing Project (New York: 2003–4).
12 Karen Gallas, “Arts as Epistemology: Enabling Children to Know What They Know,” in Arts as Education (see chap. 4, note 14), 19, 26.
13 Radley Brown, Accelerated Literacy Learning.
14 Perrone, What Should We Make of Standards? 5.
15 Radley Brown, Accelerated Literacy Learning.
16 Karen Gallas, The Languages of Learning (New York: Teachers College Press, 1994).
7. Midwinter Doldrums and Quarrels
1 Charney, Teaching Children to Care, 404–5.
2 Ibid., 406.
3 Ibid., 407.
4 Ibid., 407.
5 Ibid., 363.
6 Dewey, Education and Experience, 46.
7 Ibid., 34.
8 John Dewey, Democracy and Education (New York: The Free Press, 1966), 359–60.
9 Carini, On Value in Education, 12.
10 New York City teacher Louisa Cruz-Acosta describes her quandary when the parent of a child in her class told that child not to play with a new friend because the friend was black. In thinking about how to respond, she found herself called on to “examine my beliefs in a real situation,” including her sense of obligation to the “classroom community,” and her trust that children can find solutions to difficult problems when supported in doing so. Louisa Cruz-Acosta, “Friendship and Social Justice in a Kindergarten Classroom,” in Holding Values (see chap. 1, note 5).
11 Ruth Charney, personal correspondence.
12 Carini, On Value in Education, 7–8.
13 Edwards et al., eds., The Hundred Languages of Children, 152.
14 Rinaldi, In Dialogue with Reggio Emilio, 102.
15 Perrone, What Should We Make of Standards? 9.
8. Welcome to the Aquarium: Knowing One Child
1 Gallas, Languages of Learning, 2.
2 Harriet Cuffaro, Experimenting with the World (New York: Teachers College Press, 1995), 14.
3 Don Dinkmeyer and Rudolf Dreikurs, Encouraging Children to Learn (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963), 207.
4 Some educators and psychologists have recently suggested that teachers use observational checklists in order to individualize management of behavior; see, for example, Eileen S. Flicker and Janet Andron Hoffman, Guiding Children’s Behavior: Developmental Discipline in the Classroom (New York: Teachers College Press, 2006), chap. 3. Special educators have also recommended the use of detailed observational checklists that will yield clues about the function of children’s behavior (“functional behavioral assessment”) and thereby produce “effective” interventions. For me, observation is an integral part of the attempt to know the entirety of who the child is—and I use observation to see children in a broad, integrated way. The risk of more narrow assessments is that they develop inventories of pathology. I make observations in a systematic way, carrying around a clipboard with a class list on which I continually make notes of children’s choices of activities and companions, work style, etc. I interpret notes separately, copying them over on pages for each child.
5 Dewey, Education and Experience, 62.
6 Patricia Carini, Starting Strong: A Different Look at Children, Schools and Standards (New York: Teachers College Press, 2001) and From Another Angle: Children’s Strengths and School Standards: The Prospect Center’s Descriptive Review of the Child (New York: Teachers College Press, 2001).
7 Rinaldi, In Dialogue, 63.
8 Ibid., 126.
9 Ibid., 63.
10 For a thorough discussion of how cultural norms play out in schools, see Lisa Delpit’s Other People’s Children, 2nd ed. (1995; New York: The New Press, 2006).
9. June: Meanings and Metaphors at the End of the Year
1 A.A. Milne, Now We Are Six (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1988), p. 101.
2 Robert Graves, Poems Selected by Himself (London: Penguin Books, 1961), 214.
3 Karen Gallas, Sometimes I Can Be Anything: Power, Gender and Identity in a Primary Classroom (New York: Teachers College Press, 1998), 146.
10. Postscript: Being a Teacher
1 See Ruth Charney’s statement to her class, “I see everything.” Charney, Teaching Children to Care, 27.
2 Frances P. Hawkins, The Logic of Action: Young Children at Work (Boulder, CO: Colorado Associated University Press, 1986), 8.
3 Loris Malaguzzi, “History, Ideas, and Basic Philosophy,” in The Hundred Language of Children (see chap. 4, note 11), 66–67.
4 Deborah Meier, The Power of Their Ideas (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995), 142.
5 Charney, Teaching Children to Care, 406.
6 See Jonathan Kozol, The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America (New York: Crown, 2005), Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), and Letters to a Young Teacher (New York: Crown, 2007).
7 As a result of pressure to produce “good” data, schools bump “soft” subjects—the arts, physical education, social studies. A New York Times article quotes the Center on Educational Policy to the effect that “almost half of the nation’s school districts have significantly decreased the daily classroom time spent on subjects like science, art, and history as a result of the federal No Child Left Behind Act’s focus on annual tests in reading and math.” Sam Dillon, “Focus on 2 R’s Cuts Time for the Rest, Report Says,” New York Times, July 25, 2007. Teaching for the test is imperative because of everything that hangs on the scores (promotion, admission to better programs, school success).
8 Isaacs, Intellectual Growth in Young Children, 2.
9 The National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, a nonprofit group, “has calculated that nearly a third of all new teachers leave the profession after just three years, and that after five years almost half are gone.” The cost of replacing these teachers, according to the organization’s estimate: “some $7 billion annually.” Sam Dillon, “Schools Scramble for Teachers Because of Spreading Turnover,” New York Times, August 27, 2007.
10 We were encouraged and supported by the Center for Collaborative Education, a network of New York alternative schools, and the Coalition of Essential Schools, a national organization of progressive schools. For these groups, collaboration was a central value.
11 See in particular Patricia Carini, “Prospect’s Documentary Processes”; Leslie Alexander, “Time, Trust, and Reflective Thinking in a Teacher Collaborative”; and Rhoda Kanevsky, Lynne Strieb, and Betsy Wice, “A Philadelphia Story,” in Holding Values (see introduction, note 5).
12 Quoted in Malaguzzi, “History, Ideas, and Basic Philosophy,” 85.
13 Rinaldi, In Dialogue with Reggio Emilia, 133.
14 Marilyn Cochran-Smith connects the problem of teacher retention with the issue of how teacher development is viewed: “Teachers are much more likely to stay in schools and to be successful when teacher development is understood as a learning problem and not a training problem where the point is simply to be sure teachers can follow scripted materials and pacing schedules.” Marilyn Cochran-Smith, Stayers, Leavers, Lovers, and Dreamers: Why People Teach and Why They Stay (New York: Bank Street College of Education, Occasional Paper Series 16, 2006), 16.
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15 School-community links are described in detail by Vito Perrone in the chapter “The Community and the School,” in A Letter to Teachers: Reflections on Schooling and the Art of Teaching (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1991), 38–44.
16 Loris Malaguzzi notes that this enlarged relationship between schools and families requires teachers to “leave behind an isolated, silent mode of working that leaves no traces” and develop “skills to talk, listen, and learn from parents.” Quoted in “History, Ideas, and Basic Philosophy,” 63.
17 Repetition is required in the learning of many skills—certainly, for example, when children learn to write numerals and letters. I teach these in fairly standard ways: I write the numeral 5 in the air, the children copy and chant, “down, down, across,” and they write the numeral on wipe-off boards and practice papers. Correctness counts in certain activities, and teachers learn to distinguish these topics. But much of what we want children to learn are things they must understand and be able to apply, and these are not best learned in standardized ways.
18 Malaguzzi, “History, Ideas, and Basic Philosophy,” 75.
19 Carini, Starting Strong, 176.
20 Gallas, Sometimes I Can Be Anything, 146.
21 Rinaldi, In Dialogue with Reggio Emilia, 197.
22 The exemplary document Children and Their Primary Schools, A Report of the Central Advisory Council for Education (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1967), 188, summed up the “aims of primary education” in this way: “The best preparation for being a happy and useful man or woman is to live fully as a child. . . . Children need to be themselves, to live with other children and with grown-ups, to learn from their environment, to enjoy the present, to get ready for the future, to create and to love, to learn to face adversity, to behave responsibly, in a word, to be human beings.”
CHILDREN’S BOOKS CITED
Arnold, Tedd. No Jumping on the Bed. New York: Dial, 1987.
Brown, Margaret Wise. The Runaway Bunny. New York: Harper, 1942.
Burningham, John. Hey! Get Off Our Train. New York: Crown, 1989.
Dahl, Roald. The BFG. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1982.
Feiffer, Jules. Bark, George. New York: HarperCollins, 1999.
———. The Daddy Mountain. New York: Hyperion, 2004.
Galdone, Paul. The Three Billy Goats Gruff. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1973.
Grimm, Brothers, and Paul Zelinsky. Rumpelstiltskin. New York: Dutton, 1986.
Hyman, Trina Schart. Little Red Riding Hood. New York: Holiday House, 1982.
Jonas, Ann. The Quilt. New York: Greenwillow, 1984.
Joyce, William. George Shrinks. New York: Harper & Row, 1985.
Lionni, Leo. A Color of His Own. New York: Knopf/Random House, 1975.
———. Alexander and the Wind-up Mouse. New York: Knopf/ Pantheon, 1969, 1974.
———. Fish Is Fish. New York: Random House, 1970.
———. Little Blue and Little Yellow. New York: HarperCollins, 1959, 1995.
———. The Biggest House. New York: Knopf, 1968.
London, Jonathan. Baby Whale’s Journey. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1999.
MacDonald, Suse. Alphabatics. New York: Bradbury Press, 1986.
Milne, A.A.. Now We Are Six. New York: Dutton, 1927, 1955.
Scott, Elaine, Twins! New York: Atheneum, 1998.
Shannon, David. No, David! New York: Blue Sky Press, 1998.
Steig, William. Sylvester and the Magic Pebble. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1969.
———. Amos and Boris. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1971.
———. Brave Irene. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1986.
———. The Amazing Bone. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1976.
Young, Ed. Lon Po Po. New York: Philomel, 1989.
White, E.B. Stuart Little. New York: Harper & Row, 1945.
Wood, Audrey. Heckedy Peg. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987.
INDEX
abuse, verbal
academically oriented preschools
effects of
neglect of children’s social skills
See also standardized testing
Accelerated Literacy Learning (ALL)
accountability-based education. See also standardized testing
administrators
Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse (Lionni)
alphabet activities. See also literacy (teaching reading and writing)
alternative schools
the author’s involvement with
and collaborative teaching/ collaborative processes
The Amazing Bone (Steig)
ambivalence
children’s books containing and feelings at end of the school year
Amos and Boris (Steig)
art projects
allowing for exploration/creative expression
art as children’s work
art instruction in early-childhood curriculum
autumn projects
children’s engagement with tasks
and children’s uniqueness/ individuality
class art trips (learning to talk about art)
class sketchbooks
and the classroom culture
classroom routines and care of art materials
collage
concentration and purpose in and critical-thinking skills
and imaginative play
introducing/demonstrating tools and materials
materials that appeal to the senses/ imagination
and mathematical ideas
mixing media
and relationships concerning power and authority
and representational art
and self-consciousness/inhibitions
sharing art work
teachers’ misinterpretations/ misjudgments of
typical school art instruction
and unknowability of the end product/of the process
See also undersea life study
Ashton-Warner, Sylvia
Asperger’s Syndrome
assessment. See also documentation
authority and power in classrooms
and art projects
challenges to
and school administrators
and shared work
and teachers’ management of a class
baby study
baby photos, use of
baby visits (younger siblings)
class library books
growth and development focus
and study of families/talking about families
Baby Whale’s Journey (London)
Bank Street College of Education
Bark, George (Feiffer)
Bearden, Romare
beginning of the school year
choosing books for first week
choosing songs and chants to teach
emptying oneself to become blank slate
establishing routines
getting the room ready/organizing the room
organizing the library
receiving the class list (names)
separating from parents
teachers’ rituals of opening up the room
thinking about goals for the year
thinking about time
transition period of first two months of school
See also routines and rituals
The BFG (Dahl)
The Biggest House in the World (Lionni)
books read to the class
Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse
Baby Whale’s Journey (London)
The Biggest House in the World
books containing ambiguity and ambivalence
Brave Irene
Dahl’s The BFG
end of the school year
Feiffer’s Bark, George
first week of school year
Heckedy Peg
Hey, Get Off Our Train
Lionni’s books
Little Blue and Litt
le Yellow
Lon Po Po
No, David!
No Jumping on the Bed
Steig’s books
The Three Billy Goats Gruff
The Boy Who Would Be a Helicopter (Paley)
boys. See gender differences
Brave Irene (Steig)
Brooks, Gwendolyn
Burningham, John
calendars
Carini, Patricia
categorizing (as intellectual function)
caterpillar study
Cazden, Courtney
Center for Collaborative Education