Communication

So I spent last weekend with three male family members and it occurred to me that communication could have been better.  Throughout my career, I've witnessed many well-meaning parents answering for their children, ordering their meals, finishing their sentences.  It's so important that a child learns to speak for themselves.  That means that when a waitress looks at me and asks what my child would like to drink I kindly tell her to ask him.  And yes, I say the same thing to my husband when he wants to know what our child would like.  How would I know?  Ask him.

In educational settings it's important to offer many opportunities for students to speak up for themselves.  Teachers call it wait time and we are pretty patient, but often other students speak up.  All young people must be instructed in giving "wait time" to others so they may collect their thoughts, processing information at their own rate, and decide what they want to say.  Easy?  Nah.  Important?  Absolutely.

Next time you find yourself in the presence of a young person, please slow down and allow that child the opportunity to speak for themselves.  It may seem like eons to you, but remember that it's time well spent.

Feed the Birds

If you have small children, you are well aware of the craft opportunities available.  One that drives me nuts is the ever-popular "let's make a bird feeder" option.  Oftentimes, this simply requires spreading peanut butter on a pinecone and rolling it in bird seed.  Then you have to figure out how to get this messy project home, and when you do the backyard squirrel snatches it out of the tree in record time never to be seen again.  I have a better idea:

Make your backyard an ongoing bird-feeding experience.  Buy or make a simple birdfeeder and keep it filled with seed.  Here in the the south we buy the regular year-round seed, but on the East Coast our birds preferred black oil sunflower seeds. 

When my son was a pre-schooler we lived in a split-level house.  My husband and I had created a bird-friendly back yard, so one spring a mother robin built her nest in the cross beams of the deck.  We could go out on the deck and look down between the cracks and see inside the nest!  In the basement, we could look out the slider and see her swooping in and out feeding her babies.  Talk about an experience!  Our son learned how to gently walk across the deck so he could see the eggs, and ultimately the baby birds.  He also learned that we needed to give the momma bird privacy so she could tend to them.  Imagine his surprise when they hatched and he was able to see how different they looked!  We even had the opportunity to discuss why one had not hatched. 

Now that we live in the south we have a different array of birds, but our backyard still offers opportunities for our son to observe their natural habits year round.  This has provided a great frame of reference for scientific research.  Children are naturally curious and what better way to encourage this curiosity than through natural experiences!

So keep those bird feeders filled and the binoculars handy!

It's All In My Head

Was reminded today of one week several years ago when it seemed all my students had discovered hidden talents. 

One young lady had accomplished the near-impossible task of completing long-division with remainders without showing any work whatsoever!  When I inquired about her work, she simply replied, "I did it in my head."  Pretty amazing considering math was usually her most challenging subject. 

Another young lady read aloud her rather creative spelling story.  When I asked her to share one of her more remarkable sentences with us, she gave me the deer-in-the-headlights pose.  Upon further inspection, her spelling composition notebook was completly blank.  Her reply?  "I didn't write down my story - it's all in my head."  Sigh...

Tip to parents:  please, please, please review your child's homework each night to ensure that it's not all still stuck in their heads.  :-)

Zobmondo

Thus begins a new blogging adventure, and hoping all will benefit from the trials and errors of this experienced teacher. Education is a passion all too often lost in the day-to-day duldrums of classroom management and test prep. In this age of NCLB, educators must never forget that igniting the flame of curiosity is much more effective than simply filling the vessel with facts. So join me on this journey as we resurrect real teaching so that we can truly leave no child behind.