An Ending and Many Beginnings

I just came to the end of my 11-week long internship. It was dreadfully hard to say goodbye to the children! I know how lucky I was to be part of their lives for a while. I learned so much! My mind and my heart are full. Now I buckle down to a few more weeks of intense course work, and then I graduate in December! Almost there!

Make lots of mistakes

This message is written on a white board in my school, in a hallway I traverse several times a day. It helps me relax and take a breath every single time I pass it. Make lots of mistakes. Who ever this fellow teacher is, I thank her or him.

Five-year-old children

I'm on a campaign to refer to "Kindergarteners" as what they are: five-year-old children. Not students, pupils, or class members, but five-year-old children. "First graders," likewise, are not that if I had my way, but rather six-year-old children. I think calling them so makes it easier to remember both that they are whole people, interested in and capable of a range of human activities--not just academic ones, and that they are very, very young.

Half way through it

I am now half-way through this internship. It is something like finals week, except for 12 weeks in a row. The workload is extraordinary. I am learning so much that I can hardly keep up with the new ideas and new perspectives. I wish I was recording more in this blog, but truly, I'm doing all I can for the present. In mid-November I'll be through with the internship, and then I can pause, think, and write. And sleep. Oh, yes, there will be sleeping. And then I'll begin the process of searching for a teaching position, with applications and job interviews. Oh, my. Any tips for me, experienced teachers?

great article on neurodiversity

What am I more excited about: this article, or the existence of this magazine? And how did I not hear of Ode Magazine before? Good reading. Have a look.

The Child Cannot Wait

“Many things we need can wait. The child cannot. Now is the time his bones are being formed, her blood is being constituted, his brain is being developed. To her we cannot say tomorrow. His name is today."

- Gabriela Mistral, Chilean poet, stateswoman, and teacher. She was the first Latin American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1945.

Many thanks to the Minds on Music Blog, by Kindermusik International, for this and many other inspirations.

Empathy

I loved this animated talk, and I wanted to share it. It's only 10 minutes long, and every minute is compelling. I love how the study of child development is an important part of the conversation here.
Jeremy Rifkin on "the empathic civilization" Video on TED.com

This also puts me in mind of the Roots of Empathy curriculum, a Canadian program that I came across a couple of years ago. Very exciting ideas.
http://www.rootsofempathy.org/index.html

I'm also reminded of the work of Kenneth Dodge, a psychologist and researcher at Duke University who is interested in (among other things) studying children with aggressive and violent behavior. He and his fellow researchers are finding out that these children (and adults) haven't built the skills of reading another person's facial expressions and body language, and therefore are less able to empathize with the other person's feelings. Since they are unable to decode the others' cues, they tend to assume the worst and then act out. One of the things they are doing is breaking down the complex process of reading the cues of others, and then teaching these children how to do it, one step at a time.

There is very good work going on out there.