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100 Day Project – Day 20 – Pride

September 27th, 2011 · No Comments · 100 Days Project, Children, College students, Teaching & Learning

100 Day Project – Day 20 – 7:41 p.m.

Today, my grasp of the craft of teaching was there for me in one of my classes.  In a course – a 100 level class – with a focus on learning to bring creative experiences to the young child – I changed my plans completely 20 minutes before the class started.  I had the idea hours before when I drove to work and the sun appeared to be coming out.  According to the forecast when I went to bed, it was going to be 60% chance of rain.  But the hours weren’t available to prepare.  Before this class, I teach three others.

It’s been raining quite a bit and the ground is pretty mushy.  Each semester, in this class, we spend one class time (1 hour and 50 minutes) outdoors.  We explore nature with paper bags in hand to collect items, we play with the parachute and learn how to use it with young children, we act out a story, and do some class business.

The rain has been regularly occuring each class meeting; and it’s been impossible to go out (I would bring children out, but adult students, even when forewarned, still show up in elegant combinations because they have to go straight to work after class).  So, I figured if they weren’t going to be dressed appropriately with warning, we’d just go out and play anyways at the last minute.  They dealt!

To switch gears this easily, for me, is to really know the content of the material and to know how to present it out-of-doors in a different environment.  In this case, we enjoyed an area of the campus lawn fairly close to one of the driveways exiting a parking area; and so students had to begin to really experience that working with children means being comfortable with your body.  To be a bee, a bridge, a frog, an oar and a flower while others that you know might drive by!  But, once the fun began; they forgot to worry.  They dealt!

And, while gathering items from nature, two students managed to catch a tree frog, hold it captive in the brown lunch bag long enough to share it and take its picture so they could research exactly what it was.  I was thrilled to watch all of the students converse about how it could begin a study on frogs and list creative ideas.  I actually crossed my legs on my carpet square and listened.  This was a joyful moment for me – although not so for the frog for a few minutes!

To take pride and joy in teaching is vital to quality – I got to have that today.  Today I am thinking about Pride.

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