100 Day Project – Day 66 – 8:52 p.m.

If anyone cares to try to open this document and figure out if it works; you’re welcome to it!  I have an Echo Smartpen as part of a grant at my community college.  With just a half-hour under my belt, I can think of a lot of possible ways to use it in the classroom.  Except I’m really old-fashioned in that I really dislike – I might use the word hate – that today’s technology comes with th idea that you’ll just mess around with it, go for YouTube videos, and hunt and peck forever until you’ve got it down.  I can do all of those things and I’m not shy about just pushing buttons and stuff to figure it out, BUT, I love a good instruction book.  Why on earth should I have to figure out how to figure it out when a few pages would show me how?  Have we taken the concept of constructing your own knowledge just a wee bit far?   That’s what I’m thinking about today!

Well, I must admit life has been very full — usually is – and I’m considering not continuing this Project — could I call it the 65 day project?  I’ve skipped quite a few days; and see by my trusty old paper calendar that I should be on day 84 today – and here I am at Day 65.  What to do?  Quit or persist?

I’ll give it some thought today: like life, we don’t always have a choice whether to quit.  We must persist in some fashion, perhaps in a different way than we thought, but persist we must.  Since I doubt many people are even paying attention to this project, and it’s been for myself, I need to decide whether to go on in some way, or quit.  I”ll think about it for the day.  The Day 65 versus Day 84 is a bit symbolic of my life.  I’m a middle of the boat kind of person.  I learned it very young.  It was important not to be noticed as a child, and it was a really good idea to try to anchor the part of the boat that was rocking.  So I stayed unnoticed in the middle of that boat.  As an adult, I’ve certainly ventured out, even rocked the boat, but I do end up back there in the middle.  What this creates is a life of getting things done – many of those things good things – but getting them done in a plodding kind of way, and getting them done in a way unnoticed by others.    So, today,  I’m thinking about persistence.

Last class meeting, the students participated in a Literacy Month event at our college.  The local Head Start bused 30 preschool children to our college’s library where we had the joy of reading one-on-one with the children, joining them in snack, and sending them home with a book to call their own.

Today the class was talking about the joy we all had, and how several of the other adults involved in the organizing and in the area commented on how “well behaved” and “cute” the children were.  It provided us with great conversation about what were these adults, and other adults in our culture, thinking about how children behaved and just what was cute anyways.  I challenged students to consider exactly what cute meant to them, and was it okay to continually use that word to label children’s beings and behaviors.  Great discussion.  In the midst of  it, a student said that I needed to give them a little lee way as I was a very deep person.  So today I’m thinking about what that might mean.

One of the workshops I went to at the NEFDC Conference recently was a workshop on creating syllabi of interest.  While there are several sections I must put in, I have a good deal of leeway about the rest.  Although I learned that at some institutions, the entire syllabi content is legislated by the administration.  But, I have leeway and what the presenter had to say was quite fascinating.  We deem it an important document, yet what we give them often has very little to do with the interesting and what we deem exciting material going to be covered during the semester.

I was really excited about it and I’m not about to give it all away here – but my students should stay tuned for an interesting change in my syllabus!  Here’s where I’d love to say something about my own administration, but I won’t.  Gramma said if you can’t say it in a nice way, don’t say it at all.  So I won’t!

Today I’m thinking about the what is going to be a fun task of creating new and interesting syllabi for next year.

Exhaustion.  This week was non-stop – all five days I was up before 6 am, and although I made it to bed most nights by 10, the days were so full, I practically ran through them.  Yesterday I finished the week by going to the NEFDC Conference in Worcester.  I did debate going, but I’m so glad I did.  I learned some great ideas for the classroom, and I think I’m going to try to write some of them up this next week.  This coming week, being Thanksgiving week, I expect to go a little slower; or at least be a little less full.  So today, I’m just thinking about having another weekend day of moving slower and trying to rest.  Exhaustion.

The first day of class they were shy.  The first day of class they said, almost in unison, oh no, not me: I’m not going to sing, dance, and play an elephant in front of my peers!  What do you want us to do?  No way!  Is there any way to pass this class and not do the participation part?

Today, I had the moment to say to them : Guess what?  You just weren’t shy.  You just danced in front of each other.  You just sang a song about being a mole in a hole and sang it loud!  You even asked to play the game again because you wanted a turn to be the elephant!

Today was the transformation – so visible and palpable by me and the students.  These are community college students – some brand new to the experience – taking a class in bringing creative experiences to the young child.  It means singing, dancing, playing and mucking about.

What a great day!  Personally it was exactly what I needed today to balance off a tough week.  Today I’m thinking about transformation and feeling proud that indeed I know how to teach teachers of young children.

“Learning results from what the student does and thinks and only from what the student does and thinks.  The teacher can advance learning only by influencing what the student does to learn.”   Herbert A. Simon  (One of the founders of the field of Cognitive Science and Nobel Laureate)

I think I’ve mentioned at least, if not twice, the open classroom visits that recently happened on my campus.  Just a few days ago, one of the professors that visited my 101 level introduction to early childhood education class thanked me for my hospitality and noted that he was interested in the fact that I “only” had 10 minutes of direct instruction.

Although I’ve never timed myself, I wouldn’t doubt that number at all.  I work hard to create an hour of learning that is doing.  The quote I found fascinates me because I’m sure that the more I provide time for students to do, the more they learn; and the more I talk or lecture at them, the less they learn.  I create opportunities for thinking about what they already know about a subject, what they still want to know, asking others what they know and comparing that knowledge, and thinking about ways to learn what they still want to know.

Thank you Dr. Simon for reassuring me that doing is a good thing in learning, a very good thing.

The President of my college and work place says it eloquently on my behalf today:

A few thoughts and moments occurred today that I’m thinking must be related somehow.  In one of my Education courses, the students were exploring the printing with various objects (process vs product) in creative experiences.  The topic came up of whether food should be used in the early childhood classroom as an art supply, such as printing with cut in half potatoes.  My own personal and professional belief is that food is food.  I know that many artists use food; but my argument is that those artists are adults.  Children see us use food, their parents see us use food and it’s my belief that I am sending a message that food is unimportant.  Access to food is a class issue, an access to equity social justice issue for me.

The other moment was a story I heard on NPR about Child Services in any states removing Native Children from their homes.  I was driving and at one point I heard that 33 children were removed from a village of only 1400 people.  The journalist told the story of trumped up charges against a mother whose four children were then removed from her home.  In fact, the charges were so trumped up, they never even charged her with anything.  I was speechless while listening to this story.  I rarely find it hard to drive while I listen to the radio, but this story really shocked me.  Access and equity to fair laws, to raise our children the way we wish, and to be told the truth.   Social justice issue through and through.

This doesn’t speak well to how I could tie them together; but I know in my heart they are tied together.  With the Occupy/99% movement attempting to take haold; I worry that noone in America is paying attention to the real true facts that not only do only 1% have the wealth; but I’m beginning to think that only 1% have access to equity and fair treatment.  That is what I’m thinking about tonight.