Sometimes, a certain other wonderful Pre-K teacher and I stare at each other with blank faces and ask ourselves how we went from institutes of high-order thinking and the curious, fast-paced, omniscient study of journalism to days of graphing "Which apple tasted better: red or green?" or reminding some friends that the crayon s/he is using is orange and not purple. Our days in Pre-K go by too quickly and are broken into 15-20 minute segments because the 3s' attention spans are the same height as they are. And everything comes down to experience--the most literal form of "make every moment a teaching moment." I'll aim to shine a light on segments of our schedule until you come and visit our classroom in a trailer. Wink.
Today, breakfast and lunch. We are always late, and the students know to ask as they hurry into line) "we late again?!" A rat race to make sure each student has food, a straw, an unspilled milk, a spoon and stays in their seat, I usually sit down half-way through in front of a plate of cafeteria food I am required to have in front of me so I can model how to "eat healthy." (I fail at that task and, if I ever feel bad about it, will shove one bite of mish-mash into my mouth and comment, "mmm, mashed peas - let's all see how much we can eat. Oh, you guys are beating me!") We high-five for opening own milks and are often the loudest because we love breaking into the two competing favorites, ABCs or Beyonce's "Single Ladies." We have recorded that milk cartons are squares on the bottom, we often get 11 grapes on our plates and the triangle points out where you open your milk. Spinach leaves resemble sting rays (I hadn't noticed) and yummy rhymes with tummy and lunch with munch. If you eat your toast in the shape of a letter, there is bound to be applause. Burps and milk bubbles require an "excuse me" and Miss Wooldridge is NOT impressed when you shove the entire straw wrapper into the cavity of your ear, turn to her and over-audibly say, "Teacha, looka."
The conversation I get to sit down to is some of the best possible; it ranges from Disney princesses to, for the 3rd time that day, discussing who is absent to the science of letters or numbers to random facts such as this one today: "My brother sat on a chair, and you had to throw a ball to make him fall in the water. It was the donkey cage, and my brother was the donkey. Ha, that donkey always gets wet." It took me a few seconds to realize he was thinking of the Dunking Booth, just like it took me a few minutes to realize, at a lunch in the beginning of the year, this same boy was singing, "My mama my mama broke-her-face" and it was Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" with an innocent twist.
Lunch ends with my sweet assistant and I sweeping away plates and milk to angry, full mouths and asking them to line up, to which someone usually slips/falls over, and there is a domino effect of my students as two other classes are trying to get by. Balance is tricky.
If it is ever frustrating to battle the cafeteria that serves around 2,000 Pre-K - 5th graders, I remind myself of the time I get with my students for simple conversations and a younger version of catch-up. Not all teachers get this relaxed time of purely student perspectives. I have quite wonderful breakfast and lunch dates every day.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
tres/three/trois/drei
I wish I had more memories from when I was three. I could perhaps give my students better perspective--translate what I know now into something I would have understood/enjoyed when I was in my students' miniature feet. But perhaps that wouldn't be as fun.
What this group of 3s has blown my mind with is the reminder of where we come from and how we start out and how we truly have to experience in order to learn. Three, in my classroom, is an age where letters, numbers and words still blend into one's surroundings as the trees do in a forest. Counting is just listing off words without a one-to-one correspondence with objects. Time and the things we have to make sure we spend ours wisely--a clock, calendar, work hours--do not exist.
Three is an age where there are literal tears over the realization that the first letter in your name might be in another friend's name; you have to share letters of the alphabet.
Every-day items hold great mysteries worth applauding: the star in an apple, a glue stick floats instead of sinks, putting water in the closet stays the same as opposed to putting water in a freezer. The predictions with these "experiments" are endless because, when you are three, there are no limits to what might happen. You might have a dinosaur as a pet. Planting a red bean might grow into Snow White. A princess or even "mommy" might be the great surprise if we cut into a pumpkin, but seeds were just as exciting.
These wonders fill their tiny brains, and those brains take in knowledge like a pool takes in heated swimmers the first day it opens in the already-humid city of New Orleans. It is fast, and it is awesome. Now letters and words stick out like Easter eggs, and we have charts to award stickers for those who find letters, patterns, shapes, rhymes because the hunt is that exciting. We yell "you did it!" to those who count anything or know which month/season/day of the week it is. We have to stop to wave to our shadows everyday or comment on how the clouds make them disappear. They learn like they are getting paid, and even that wouldn't matter because money talk twists up their round faces in confusion.
It is a whole other topic--which qualities I wish we retained from when we are that young to being a bit older--but the ability and, even more, the passion to learn are just fireworks to me. There is so much to see and discover, and I consider myself blessed to cut the apple, point out a letter, plant a seed.
What this group of 3s has blown my mind with is the reminder of where we come from and how we start out and how we truly have to experience in order to learn. Three, in my classroom, is an age where letters, numbers and words still blend into one's surroundings as the trees do in a forest. Counting is just listing off words without a one-to-one correspondence with objects. Time and the things we have to make sure we spend ours wisely--a clock, calendar, work hours--do not exist.
Three is an age where there are literal tears over the realization that the first letter in your name might be in another friend's name; you have to share letters of the alphabet.
Every-day items hold great mysteries worth applauding: the star in an apple, a glue stick floats instead of sinks, putting water in the closet stays the same as opposed to putting water in a freezer. The predictions with these "experiments" are endless because, when you are three, there are no limits to what might happen. You might have a dinosaur as a pet. Planting a red bean might grow into Snow White. A princess or even "mommy" might be the great surprise if we cut into a pumpkin, but seeds were just as exciting.
These wonders fill their tiny brains, and those brains take in knowledge like a pool takes in heated swimmers the first day it opens in the already-humid city of New Orleans. It is fast, and it is awesome. Now letters and words stick out like Easter eggs, and we have charts to award stickers for those who find letters, patterns, shapes, rhymes because the hunt is that exciting. We yell "you did it!" to those who count anything or know which month/season/day of the week it is. We have to stop to wave to our shadows everyday or comment on how the clouds make them disappear. They learn like they are getting paid, and even that wouldn't matter because money talk twists up their round faces in confusion.
It is a whole other topic--which qualities I wish we retained from when we are that young to being a bit older--but the ability and, even more, the passion to learn are just fireworks to me. There is so much to see and discover, and I consider myself blessed to cut the apple, point out a letter, plant a seed.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
My name is in the picture and other reasons why this is selfish...
This blog is selfish.
[There is a huge sigh of relief to transfer sentences and words I adore and think about at all hours to a form of print. It is like Joseph Gordon Levitt's "and I'm back in the game" in 10 Things I Hate About You but less cool.]
For this first time since question mark, I have not been asked/assigned to write something for a period of 10 months now. That is torture. Unreal. Devastating. And I am not really doing an awesome job of completing things outside of basic survival modes or, put simply, my job as a Pre-K teacher with Teach for America in the Greater New Orleans region. So writing has been tossed aside with a German major and a New York Times and a new cook book. I miss writing and editing and the thought process and journalism classes. It's a passion I take for granted: "oh, I can write while doing other things. I can always write." And while I have picked up this passion for inspiring kids to make their brains and dreams grow big, I miss red pens and grammatically-correct conversations and recording thoughts and stories for the sake of spreading joy or need or for the mere idea that other people have those thoughts, too. So I'll selfishly write here and make myself miss writing less (?) and hopefully keep updates for those I miss so much. After all, the stories one can collect not only just from the first year of living in New Orleans but also from my classroom of 16 pre-kindergarteners can be stories with great potential.
To be put frankly, I have 10 months of 3-year-old stories floating in my brain and want to write a book to remind people where we come from and how we start out when every person around you is labeled as "friend" and counting to ten is exciting enough to silent cheer and ask to do it again. (I think we could learn a lot from our 3-year old selves. Or at least appreciate how far we have come.)
Here is where some of those stories will be, and I guess I'll feel content to regard time to write as a luxury--it will make me appreciate it more. Here's to this selfish blog. But call me to talk about grammar. Yes, do that.
[There is a huge sigh of relief to transfer sentences and words I adore and think about at all hours to a form of print. It is like Joseph Gordon Levitt's "and I'm back in the game" in 10 Things I Hate About You but less cool.]
For this first time since question mark, I have not been asked/assigned to write something for a period of 10 months now. That is torture. Unreal. Devastating. And I am not really doing an awesome job of completing things outside of basic survival modes or, put simply, my job as a Pre-K teacher with Teach for America in the Greater New Orleans region. So writing has been tossed aside with a German major and a New York Times and a new cook book. I miss writing and editing and the thought process and journalism classes. It's a passion I take for granted: "oh, I can write while doing other things. I can always write." And while I have picked up this passion for inspiring kids to make their brains and dreams grow big, I miss red pens and grammatically-correct conversations and recording thoughts and stories for the sake of spreading joy or need or for the mere idea that other people have those thoughts, too. So I'll selfishly write here and make myself miss writing less (?) and hopefully keep updates for those I miss so much. After all, the stories one can collect not only just from the first year of living in New Orleans but also from my classroom of 16 pre-kindergarteners can be stories with great potential.
To be put frankly, I have 10 months of 3-year-old stories floating in my brain and want to write a book to remind people where we come from and how we start out when every person around you is labeled as "friend" and counting to ten is exciting enough to silent cheer and ask to do it again. (I think we could learn a lot from our 3-year old selves. Or at least appreciate how far we have come.)
Here is where some of those stories will be, and I guess I'll feel content to regard time to write as a luxury--it will make me appreciate it more. Here's to this selfish blog. But call me to talk about grammar. Yes, do that.
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