Patti Whines; NAEYC Responds

A looooong time ago I posted about my frustration with the whole NAEYC accreditation process.  A NAEYC person kindly responded to my post in a comment, but at the time I was only checking mail for emergency stuff because I was spending all my waking time on my classroom portfolio.  (Did I mention that one of our spouses calculated that we were all making about $.19/hr. during that time?  I kid you not.)  Then I decided to take the month of February off from the blog after the portfolio was done to recover, freshen up my classroom, and to start going through the observation requirements, so I am feeling very bad about not thanking the nice NAEYC person (I think her name is Gina).

In fact, a nice NAEYC person CALLED MY WORK to find out if I needed more support!  Honestly, I did not expect that.  It just goes to show you how un-anonymous this whole internet thing is.  So, I have now finally moderated the comment that was left and here I’m going to put my comments on the comment.  Does that make sense?

First, again, THANK YOU NAEYC for being helpful and responsive.  I could not have hoped for more and I admit to being shocked in a good way.  It’s nice to know you’re there for the lowly teacher.

Second, my only complaint at this point is that I just don’t have the time to access the wonderful resources she listed.  I do have a TORCH account, but as I don’t have a computer at work (the office has one computer, our director has a laptop, but those are for sharing and it’s not very convenient) and even when I bring in my own laptop I can only get internet access from parts of the building, it’s inconvenient.  If those materials were sent with our application information, I apologize because I didn’t know they were there.  Again, I work in a part time program.  I am using my own personal time in many cases to do classroom planning.  If I want to do anything other than set up or clean my room it’s pretty much going to be on my own time.  All the accreditation stuff is extra (though our director found a little money to give us as a reward, which was nice but, as she calls it, just a gesture).  Anytime I have to do more digging on my own it’s taking time away from my kids, my studies, and my other obligations.  I know the other teachers were feeling somewhat resentful by the end of the classroom portfolio period, so it’s not just me.

Now the portfolio is done and we’re waiting to find out when our visitation window is.  I’m feeling pretty good about my classroom, but I certainly don’t want to be the reason we fail to achieve reaccreditation.  So I’m dreaming about it at night and occasionally going over the lists again during the day.  I’m feeling calmer and more rested now so I can put it all in perspective. 

So I feel sheepish for not being a good thanker but I still believe some tweaking needs to be done to the process.

The Dance of Accreditation

This year we are going through NAEYC re-accreditation.  At the beginning of this process I looked on it as a way to reflect on my teaching and my classroom.  I had hoped that I would be able to find things that I should improve upon or at least think about.  Now, however, I’m just tired.

The accreditation process is geared toward full-time programs.  I work in a part-time program.  I have some children who I only see for four and a half hours each week.  Other teachers I know who are also being re-accredited work in places where planning time is built into their days, often for as many as two hours each day (I know, some of you barely have time to pee all day while others get nap time to themselves).  These people are in programs where the kids are with them for 40 hours or more each week.  While it’s a bit of a time pinch, they are able to spend a little time each day working on their classroom portfolios.  The teachers in my school only get paid time for set-up and clean-up each day.  We typically do planning on our own time and are often there long beyond what we are paid for.  To add accreditation on top of that is challenging, to say the least.  I chose my work because I’m available to volunteer at my own children’s school most afternoons, which means I’m not always available to spend all afternoon working on my classroom portfolio.  While we are getting paid a little extra because of the time burden, the fact of the matter is that I only have so much time to give.  You can pay me a million bucks, but I’m not going to stop seeing my family for this.

With the process being geared toward full-time programs, some of the criteria will be ones we can’t or won’t meet.  For example, we don’t use TVs or computers in our classrooms.  We don’t feel it’s developmentally appropriate, and we know that most of the kids get too much screen time at home anyway.  The criterion in question involves the appropriate use of “technology,” which could mean just about anything.  I’m going to write a paragraph on why we use physical objects rather than screens, but it seems like I shouldn’t have to prove something that should, in our minds, be standard practice.  We also don’t brush teeth.  The kids come to us after breakfast and the parents pick them up shortly after snack.  If I had to brush the teeth of each child even once a day, I’d have trouble doing all the other things I should be doing.  Heck, diaper changes sometimes eat up 20 minutes of my morning.  That’s a lot of time when the kids aren’t there that long.

Another small problem is that the classroom portfolio thing is new to the process.  We have an official IAEYC person who comes to advise us, but she doesn’t have all the answers and sometimes contradicts herself.  I went to a session at the national conference where I got to see an accepted portfolio and talk to teachers and an NAEYC person about the whole thing.  Some of the stuff we’re being told at the local level isn’t consistent with the national level perspective.  So which do we follow? 

The criteria themselves are a little strange.  Some of them are almost word-for-word copies of others, while some of them contain multiple requirements in one criterion.  So, I have to write up a separate thing for all of them, even if they’re almost the same.  I tried referencing similar ones to each other, but it got hard for my co-teachers and I to figure out which ones had been done already.  Organizationally confusing, you might say.

We are spending a ton of money on printing pictures (we’re printing wallet-size ones on regular paper, by the way, and using black-and-white rather than color when the picture is clear enough), copy paper, plastic sleeves, binders, and a host of other things.  I only use a picture when it seems to demonstrate the criterion in question.  It still seems wasteful.  I wanted to do mine all electronically, but I was told that I’d have to be able to provide a private place for the accreditors to view my portfolio.  We only have two computers for the whole school and they’re in the office, so that was a no-go.  Putting it on a CD wasn’t good enough since they assessors may or may not have a computer that could read it.

What’s also stressing is that all this time I’m spending is time that isn’t spent on the children.  I don’t have time to do extra things to make my planning or my classroom top-notch.  So, I’m documenting something that I’m not proud of.  It’s also changed how I view the children.  While I still plan for their interests, I’m also planning to get a good photo that demonstrates some criterion.  It’s pathetic.  Now I think, “Oh, if I do this activity so-and-so will totally get into it, which means I’ll have proof of such-and-such criteria.”  It’s aiming for the product rather than the process, which is against everything I believe in for early childhood education.  Of course, it’s me I’m talking about rather than the kids, so maybe I’m just feeling put out.  Sorry for the sniping.

Now, you may think that I think accreditation is a waste of time.  But the ideal is still good.  It’s good to know that an accredited program is at a certain level.  It’s important to know that the program to which you’re sending your child isn’t going to hurt them and that they are getting benefits from being there.  What I object to is the massive amount of wasted human resources.  Perhaps it’s just because of our status as a part-time program housed in a church where we don’t have control over the physical facilities (though they are great facilities, I must admit).  Maybe there needs to be a separate procedures for programs like ours.  I know that several programs similar to ours have decided not to get re-accredited this time.  When I see how great they are compared to some full-time programs that ARE accredited, I’m sad.  Some of those full-time programs aren’t that great, but they had the resources to get through the process.

NAEYC, are you listening?

Christmas in the Twos Room

By now your school Christmas celebrations are over and all the kids have started their winter break.  Now that you have a chance to breathe, I’ll share with you what we did (or didn’t) do.  I’ll warn you, it’s a little non-traditional!

My nursery school is housed in a church, which considers us a ministry of the church.  They are very generous with our program and many of the things are able to do are because of their generosity.  Luckily, they are also a very inclusive faith community.  We do very little that’s strictly Christian and most classes have one or more students whose families wouldn’t describe themselves as Christian.

In our twos classes we were very low key this year.  I had a ficus tree that I strung with some simple lights and we plugged it in for the last week before break.  Each classroom is supposed to have a nativity set to play with (we don’t instruct about it, we just set it out), but ours somehow lost pieces between last year and this one so we left it packed up.  We used red and green paint, glue, and some glitter the last week and we talked about the upcoming break during snack.  We had a holiday party on the last day where parents brought in healthy snacks, hung out, and let us give them a gift we made with the children’s art work.

And that was it.  (Don’t have a heart attack.)

Now, I love the holiday season as much as the next person, but when it comes to little ones, less is more.  In all other areas of their lives they are bombarded with Christmas decorations, music, advertisements, and the gimmies.  If they don’t celebrate Christmas then they are left out completely.  Their little brains need a rest.  They don’t need more sugar and they don’t need more glitz.  They need their usual routines with just a *little* dazzle added.  Not the whole bag of dazzle, if you get my meaning.  Twos are truly experiencing all the special times of the year for the first time since they don’t usually remember the last time clearly.  It doesn’t help to overdo it.

I will admit that other classrooms in the building worked a little harder at the holiday thing.  And that’s ok.  The threes remember the previous year so it’s not completely foreign.  They get that something’s different than regular times of the year.  The fours know enough to look forward to it.  But for twos it’s a crazy enough time.  Relatives may be visiting or they may be traveling.  Parents are stressed.  We tried our best to make our classroom a haven from the winter holiday crazies that seem to take everyone over at this time.

Whatever your personal winter holiday traditions, enjoy them with love and generosity toward others.  And stay tuned for the Carnival of Educators just a few days from now, right here!

Reading Magic by Mem Fox

Poor Mem Fox. On my edition of Reading Magic: Why Reading Aloud to Our Children Will Change Their Lives Foreverthere’s copy on the cover that implies that if you follow Fox’s advice your child WILL be reading by the time he or she goes to school.  I couldn’t bring myself to read yet another “get your baby to read” scheme so I put off reading this book despite advice from people I trust that it’s a good, rapid read.  I’m sure the implication that your child will read before school sells more books to the average, freaked-out parent, but teachers will be put off by such a statement.  Since I’m pretty sure Fox wouldn’t want to make such silly promises, I give you permission to ignore the front copy and read the book anyway.

Of course SOME children who do what Fox says WILL be reading before school.  But this book isn’t about teaching them to read, it’s about providing the foundation for reading.  Whether the reading happens at home or at school for the first time isn’t really the important thing.

So here’s the big fundamental: reading isn’t about decoding the sounds but about decoding the meaning.  This is an important distinction because we often make it difficult for children to comprehend what they’re reading by making them read aloud.  Yes, they’ll eventually learn to read all the sounds.  But if they can’t get any meaning out of their reading, then they aren’t really reading.

According to Fox, there are three “secrets” to becoming a fluent reader.  The first secret is the “magic of print.”  The second secret is the “magic of language.”  And the third secret is the “magic of general knowledge.”  Let’s look at them quickly.

The magic of print is really just about how fun print is.  You have to get familiar with the printed word.  Many people call this “print awareness.”  It’s about recognizing the print that’s all around us, such as in signage, as well as the print in books.  Fox points out that only 50% of English print language is phonetic, so there’s only so far phonics can take you.  Children need to learn the patterns of the printed language in order to decipher the meaning.

The magic of print is about playing with language.  Nursery rhymes are covered here as well as how to play with language as you’re talking with young children.  Fox encourages us to talk with our children a lot, describing what we’re doing and what we’re thinking.  Children won’t be able to read if they don’t have any language skills.  She also talks about how reading aloud can help our children learn to apply language skills.  Even if they can’t read a certain story it doesn’t mean they can’t understand and enjoy it when it’s read to them.  But things you read to children should be fun for you to read to them and fun for them to listen to. 

The magic of general knowledge addresses how a child who isn’t reading words strictly phonetically can figure out what the words are.  The child with a large vocabulary and knowledge of many topics will be able to figure out a new word in print if he or she has been exposed to it in speech.  It’s all about context.

So, should you read this book?  Critics have pointed out that Fox doesn’t exactly cite the “experts” she uses for her source material.  That’s true.  But I think everything else I’ve read does back up her opinions and I didn’t read anything that struck me as unreasonable.  I think if you’re a teacher you may not need to read this book unless you’re looking for something to recommend to parents.  If you’re a parent and you’re uneasy about how to get your child to become a reader, this is a great book for you.  It’s easy to read (heck, read it out loud to your kids!) and it’s upbeat enough to be motivating.

Just do me a favor and ignore any claims about getting your baby to read!

Thoughts on Food Allergy Article in April/May 2009 TYC

As you know, food allergies and how we, as professional educators, deal with them are important to me.  Recently, Teaching Young Children reran an article that was originally published in the March 2004 issue of Young Children, published by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC).  Titled “That Food Makes Me Sick” Managing Food Intolerances In Early Childhood Settings it was an overview of food allergy issues for teachers.  I am hoping the link to it works so you can read it for yourself.  Normally articles in those two magazines require NAEYC membership, but I think it’s now available to the public.

Of course I think that any positive coverage of food allergies is important and I’m pleased that this article has appeared twice.  It can be very hard on a teacher to find out one of the students has a food allergy, particularly if it means that anticipated activities can’t be done the same way as they always have been.  Having a starting point is great.

I do have one peeve with the article, and I only share it because it’s important for educators to be aware of.  On page 45 there is a comment about having food allergic children wear plastic gloves for activities that include ingredients that might harm them.  While I applaud the thinking (keeping a kid safe and letting him/her participate) behind the recommendation, it bugs me for two reasons:

1. When you single a child out, it hurts.  And I’ve NEVER come across a recipe that couldn’t be altered or replaced to be safe.  You might have to shift gears a little and try a new recipe, but you can keep the learning intact without being so rigid.  What are you teaching?  How to make peanut butter sandwiches?  Or how to make sandwiches with spreads and knives and then cutting them into fractions?  Think about it.  Plus, what’s the point in participation if the child can’t enjoy the fruit of his or her labors?  That would irk most adults and it does for kids as well.  You’re just delaying the exclusion to the consumption part of the activity.

2. Have you ever watched a child wearing plastic gloves be able to DO anything effectively?  These kids are still mastering fine motor skills.  Adding an extra layer makes it that much harder.  Heck, I have trouble changing diapers with gloves on and I do it every day.  Why should I expect a young child to work with gloves on?  Plus, wearing gloves limits tactile sensations and may be difficult for children with sensory issues.

I do think there are times when wearing gloves is appropriate.  For example, if cleaning tables is a shared chore in your classroom or lunchroom and you think there may be an allergen on the tables, by all means provide gloves for your food allergic students.  Alternatively, you could find other things for them to clean, like desks.  Having an allergy is no excuse to get out of normal responsibilities.  Some other work with similar meaning should be substituted.

I’m pleased that early educators (that’s preschool through grade 3 in the States) are making an effort to protect the food allergic students in their care.  And I am grateful that the author of the article bothered to write it and NAEYC bothered to publish it.  Please don’t take this post as a criticism of their efforts; in fact, I’m grateful for them.

What One Teacher Wants at the End of the Year

To my way of thinking, the best teacher gifts fall into a few simple categories.  I’ll go on at length (maybe too much length) about each one below.

1. Child-made items not meant to be kept forever.
2. Consumables (to be spent or physically consumed).
3. Things for the classroom.

Child-Made Items Not Meant to be Kept Forever
I confess to being one of those saps who is perfectly happy with a child-created piece of art as an end-of-the-year thank you.  As long as no one expects that I will keep it forever, they CAN expect that I’m likely to keep it displayed all summer so I can smile even though I’m not with my students.  After that, well, it probably won’t stick around too long. 

I also like homemade food, just like I like homemade art.  Just keep the quantities small.  Even if you’re the only person to give me food, I honestly don’t want to share it with my family.  They don’t know who gave it to me or why that child is special to me.  It’s my private reward.  Yes, I DO love my family, but there are some things that are best appreciated alone.  Besides, if everyone decides to make me food I’ll probably have to throw some away and that’s just wrong.  I like cookies that kids decorated, foods native to someone’s home country, or foods that have special family meaning if you’re willing to share the story and the recipe with me.

Consumables
Consumables fall into two major categories of their own: gift cards/certificates and food/drink with some small exceptions.

In the gift card department, try to pick something you know the teacher will like.  Bookstores are usually a hit.  I got a $5 gift card this year that will be just perfect for some book I see in a sale bin for a spur-of-the-moment purchase I normally would skip.  I don’t need huge gift cards that make me feel guilty, though I’m sure some teachers would disagree with that.  Educational stores are great to get cards from since teachers spend so much of their own money educating your children.  But don’t neglect home improvement and garden places if your teacher owns a home.  Go in with a few parents to make it impressive.  For a really practical gift, go with a discounter that your teacher is likely to shop in.  Also consider if the store charges a fee on the card or if the card will expire.  As organized as many teachers are, gift cards might not get spent right away and you don’t want your money wasted if your card just happens to get lost in the back of a desk drawer for a few months.

Far and away, my favorite consumable is chocolate.  For chocolate, go small and good.  This year someone gave me some local handcrafted chocolate.  Just 5 pieces, but it’s something I never would have purchased for myself.  I have eaten 2 pieces so far and they were extraordinary.  I also had one international family bring me some chocolate from their home country.  What a thoughtful way to share with me.  As each bite melts in my mouth I think about how lucky I was to share the year with them.

Some teachers like to go out.  I think it’s hard to know where they like to go unless you’ve actually discussed it.  If they have kids, they might not be able to use the gift card until they can afford a sitter for the evening.  You might consider a gift card to a local restaurant that’s unique if your teacher is adventurous in that way.

Another gift I loved was a packet of flower seeds that came from a family’s favorite small seed producer.  I didn’t have to take care of it right away, it didn’t clutter my classroom, and I enjoyed the flowers that grew in my garden all summer.  Just pick an easy-care variety, please.  There’s a reason people don’t give me live plants anymore!

Things for the Classroom
If you want to buy something for the classroom, take a look around it.  Is there a LEGO bin but only one set of wheels out of a zillion pieces?  Go in with a few other families for a pack of some toy that’s missing pieces or something new the teacher mentioned.  Did someone lose two books out of an eight book set this year?  Replace those books and make sure you put something on the inside cover about how it’s a gift for the teacher and who gave it.  Ask your kids.  If they ever voiced frustration over there not being enough of something, that might be the thing to get.

The school office might also be taking up a collection for a larger item that everyone can use.  Over the winter holidays this year our parents collected money and got each set of classrooms a digital camera.  Nothing fancy, but now I can share with families what’s going on AND I don’t have any clutter to store.  Our director takes care of the technology over the summer by storing it in a secure location.

What NOT to Get
What teachers hate: clutter.  No cutesy stuff, please.  You may be crafty, but so are half the other parents.  If it’s something that has to be held onto forever it’s eventually going to be something that I dread moving or storing.  Or I might spend needless time worrying about it getting broken or soiled.  You don’t want me to think of your child that way, really.  Photos are fine because I keep a little file of them, but a big scrapbook is just unnecessary unless it’s the whole class in one smallish book and no one else is going to give me one.  One year the families in my son’s pre-K class made a book where the kids dictated or drew their favorite things about pre-K.  The book was made to be sturdy so it could be kept in the classroom on the bookshelf.  Every time I help out in that room I see some child looking at the book and it’s been two years since my son was in the class.  It has relevance and meaning to everyone in the room and will for years to come.

Imagine if you had 20+ children and each child wanted to give you something.  Now imagine that you’ve been having that many kids give you things for a decade or more.  A new teacher might like the “stuff” but the rest of us typically don’t.  Not that we’re ungrateful, we’re just overwhelmed.

So, teachers and parents, what do you think?  Got a good idea, funny story, or a favorite gift?  Share!

Sending Sick Kids Home

I really thought this time of year was over. You know, the time of year when germy kids come to school and you just have to grin and bear it because you know they aren't really sick enough to send home but you're tired of wiping their noses and being sneezed on. Now it's just spring allergy time, which I totally don't mind.

But today I had to kick a kid out of class today for illness. I've never done that before against a child's will. Usually they're miserable and they want to go home. *sigh* Here's the scoop.

A child who had been out two days ago (the last day we had class together) with a fever came late today. When she arrived the parent helper was setting up snack inside while the class played outside. First her adult took her to the office and then she went to the classroom. When I realized she had entered the building but hadn't come out to play after a long time, I went to the classroom to make sure the parent helper was getting along OK with the student in the room.

When I got to the room the student was helping to set up snack (thank goodness today we had a packaged snack, and you won't hear me say that often!). Her adult informed me that the student couldn't go outside today because she didn't feel well enough to. I must've felt snappish, because I immediately told the adult that if she didn't feel well enough to go outside, then she shouldn't be at school. Her adult said to me, "That's what I said to her but she wanted to come." Ummm, who's the grown-up here, anyway? Apparently, the student now has a sore throat. This family is a bit germophobic because she can't get a flu shot, and now they're bringing their germy daughter to school to SHARE her germs???

Luckily, my director was in the hall and between the two of us we eased said child and her adult out of the building. But it was a struggle. After they left my director said they had come to the office with the same story and she told them to go home but they didn't. I'm glad she and I were on the same page because that could have been a nasty scene.

So, what would you do? Do you think we did the right thing? We have a family at school who will be returning from a trip to Mexico in a few days and the director's asked them to stay at home for 7 days after they return. Is that reasonable to you? We generally leave it up to parents to decide if their kids are feeling well enough for school, but I also can't babysit one child inside and still take the rest of the class outside.

FOUNDATIONS to the Indiana Academic Standards for Young Children from Birth to Age 5

I thought of going to the FOUNDATIONS session at the IAEYC 2009 conference the same way I think about eating my vegetables: maybe not my favorite thing to do, but necessary. I had heard awful things about FOUNDATIONS, namely that the state was trying to push academic standards down to pre-K and even toddlers. Most folks in early childhood know this is evil, but our politicians (bless 'em, for they're trying to do the right thing) seem to think that teaching academic topics at younger ages will make our kids know more stuff.

I must say I am so glad I went to the session. Most people I know presented with such a thick document will jump right to the meat of the thing, skipping completely over the introduction. That would be a mistake. Unfortunately, the design of the document can lead a person into thinking it's a checklist of all the things a kid should know. Worse, if you just look at the table of contents, you might be shocked to find "Algebra and Functions" under the foundations for birth through three years. But now that I've had an orientation to the document I can honestly say I feel good about what Indiana has tried to do to guide early childhood educators. I'm not thrilled about the format of the document, which I'll discuss in a bit.

The important thing to remember is that this document helps adults create experiences and environments that support foundational learning. The kind of learning they're talking about is what a child needs to know BEFORE learning all the academic subjects listed in the table of contents. So, no babies are learning algebra. But adults are supporting babies by providing exposure to experiences that will allow those babies to be ready to learn algebra when it's developmentally appropriate. There is the recognition that you must walk before you can run, or in this case, children must have opportunities to explore sorting and organizing before learning more advanced math concepts. (By the way, those advanced math concepts are covered in the Indiana Academic Standards which start, I believe, in Kindergarten, NOT the FOUNDATIONS.)

I really like the attachment titled, "Exploring Content in Interest Areas" because it gives concrete examples of what can be done in a grid format. Each foundation has similar information when everyday activities are discussed, but this is a nice birds-eye view that can help parents see that what we do in our classrooms really is learning and not just killing time.

As I said, I have a beef or three with the way the document is put together. First, each foundation is lettered and numbered, which would seem to indicate that they are checklists of skills to be mastered. That just isn't the case, which is stated in the introduction, but it's really tempting to be able to check those suckers off so you can tell parents exactly what their child is ready to learn next. Even though it might make referring to the foundations more cumbersome, I would remove the numbers and simply list them with bullets so there's no idea that they're in sequential order or that every skill must be mastered a certain way.

Second, each foundational area has three parts: "Young children are learning when they" (that's the part that's numbered), "A child can be support by an adult who," and "How it looks in everyday activities." I think it might be more useful to put that first section last in addition to removing the numbers. Additional language might be helpful, something like "Young children are learning when they...among other things." Clearly, the list isn't all-inclusive. It can't possibly be. But somehow it looks like that's what it's supposed to be.

I have one more beef, but it's really small. Why is FOUNDATIONS all capitalized? I don't think it's an acronym. I know that they're foundations and not standards, but putting it in all caps doesn't really help me to draw that distinction.

I am sure there are other ways to improve this important resource. Unfortunately, the state has made staffing cuts that affect the timeline for future revisions. According to the presenter, our group got the last batch of printed documents that she knows of and only because they happened to be in her house. The state isn't printing any more in anticipation of the next revision (that's government, for you). But you can download the whole thing for your reading pleasure at the Indiana DoE website. You know you want to. Our presenter suggested you have your students' parents, the ones who are always offering to do things but never find just the right thing, print it out for you so you don't spend your own money on paper and ink.

By the way, if you teach in Indiana and you use Creative Curriculum, you'll be happy to know that it's already aligned with the FOUNDATIONS. Your work here is done!

I know lots of other states have done the standard thing and a few have done the guideline thing as Indiana has. What do you think?

Mandatory Tweets

OK, I've had enough people tell me that I MUST use Twitter (actually, they're more likely to use words like "gotta" and "hafta" than "must") that I'm trying it. I'm going to slap that widget on the side of my blog here. If you do this whole Twitter thing, leave me a comment and tell me what, exactly, I'm supposed to tweet about. I honestly have no idea. Do you want to hear about how I plan my classes? What I had for dinner? How long I slept last night (the answer is usually not enough to that one).

So, does anyone REALLY care about this whole Twitter thing?

The Character Dilemma

In our school we have a "no characters" policy. What this means is that for areas over which the school has control we do not have licensed characters. For us, it means there are no character toys, books, decorations, or other items. No Dora, Pooh, Elmo, Franklin, Fancy Nancy, or anyone else. This policy does not extend to children and families; children can wear character clothing and parents can bring in snacks sporting licensed characters.

There are many reasons for the "no characters" policy. One of the most important, from our view, is that a character limits the parameters of play. It's not as imaginative to act out a tv show or video as it is to create the setting and rules cooperatively. It also prevents children from practicing the social give and take that's required from purely imaginative play. Those are critical socials skills that lead to success in the elementary grades and beyond.

Here I'm going to quote something from Buy, Buy Baby: How Consumer Culture Manipulates Parents and Harms Young Minds by Susan Gregory Thomas (a book I wish I'd had before I had kids). Backed up by research cited elsewhere in the book, she says, "the main thing that infants and toddlers learn from such characters, whether on television, juice boxes, or bed sheets, is the ability to recognize them -- which should not be confused with actually learning anything 'educational.' "(p. 143) What she's saying (and that's backed up by research) is that kids don't learn anything from these characters other than to recognize them and later want them because they're familiar. That's right, they don't learn new behaviorial skills or even much in the way of academics. What they do learn children are unable to apply outside of the story on tv without significant adult interaction. So, when these characters are available in the classroom it amounts to free advertising and a tacit approval of commercialism over education. I don't know about you, but if I'm going to advertise something I want to get paid!

Children who spend time watching shows and playing with character-limited toys are not only not learning the important social lessons that they need to learn, but they are not spending as much time on more developmentally appropriate and "educational" activities. Characters are part of our culture that isn't really helping our kids get ready for school. In the case of things like Hannah Montana and High School Musical in preschool, they send the message to young children that they are allowed to behave like teenagers. I don't have anything against those pieces of entertainment and I personally think they have some good qualities, but I don't want a 4-year-old child to get the impression that the sort of behavior displayed by those characters is appropriate for him or her now.

Now don't take me for a character hater. I've watched my share of Little Einsteins, Dora, and Sesame Street. I've been known to say, "seatbelts buckled, everyone?" in my best Ms. Frizzle impersonation. I've got a fairy/princess lover for a daughter and a LEGO Star Wars obsessed son. But I don't do characters at school. And I'm cool with that.

Aren't They All Teachable Moments?

I wanted to share with you something Lisa Murphy, one of my favorite early childhood speakers, put on her blog in November. Go read it and then come back. I'll wait for you. What did you think?

What I think is that it's a nice reminder that every moment in a kid's life is a teachable moment, it's just that we don't always need to be the ones doing the teaching. What is means is that when a kid finishes something at the easel we DON'T always have to comment on the colors or the choice of brush size. We can simply smile and enjoy it. It DOES mean we can keep our mouths shut when a child is absorbed in what he or she is doing, clear in the knowledge that they are doing their own teaching in their own moment. All we can do is ruin it and take out the wonder of it when we try to turn it into an official teachable moment.

As teachers of young children it is our job to create an environment that lends itself to teachable moments. We set up the classroom to learn about colors, smells, textures, and many other things simply so that we get the opportunity to use language about whatever topic we're thinking about. Even if we follow the childrens' lead and change what we're doing on the fly to follow their interests, we still feel compelled to prattle on and on while they (the children) are working.

Make a promise to yourself that for each child, at least once each day, you will simply observe. You may get the chance to bring up the experience with that child later and you may not. Enjoy their curiosity and their self absorbed activity. Yes, you will get to talk about color mixing and the alphabet. But not for every minute of every day. There's a time for everything. Let's remember that.