I HATE when people have this girl’s way of thinking towards the program.
And a lot of outsiders think this is our mentality.
IT’S NOT! Or at least it shouldn’t be …
Frustration Level 13!
For decades people have fought for their rights: women, African Americans, Immigrants, LGBTQ, and disability to name a few. The struggle for rights or equality is never ending and should never halt.
Currently, I see huge debates about the word disability-whether it is okay to use it or if it is taboo; whether or not a person can be proud of their disability, even how to treat a person and regard their disability.
People wage wars over the issue and form coalitions. Identity is obviously extremely important to everyone. How do we take into account others thoughts?
Ask the person how they feel about the topic, how they wish to be addressed, how they wish to be treated. By doing this it take out the uncertainty of the situation and bring both parties to the same point.
From a personal perspective, I only use the word disability when an individual prefers that term, otherwise I tend to use diagnosed as a way to side step the stigma I see associated with disability. As disability means by definition a lack of ability, from initial contact it is generally negative.
So ask people how they identify and regard them in such a manner.
When teaching children or really any age-range of people, the use of touch or lack thereof is an effective way to show approval, understanding, or means by which to regaining one’s attention. Touching an individual under certain circumstances is appropriate and in other instances is not. Touching someone is almost never referred to as “touching,” unless that is by a child. The purpose of this short paragraph is to explain that there is a new four year old is my pre-k class who yells at nap time, “I JUST WANT YOU TO TOUCH ME!” if a teacher does not rub his back so he can sleep.
“Hey Kyle, so are you going to open up a child care center?”
“What?”
“Are you going to open up a child care center?”
“Uh, I don’t know that’s a lot of work. I just want to get a degree right now and then figure everything else out.”
This happened today, but somehow every Early Childhood Education major, 99% of whom are women in my area, ask me this question. Every time there is a situation in class where we have to play the parts of students, teacher, parents, or director, somehow I am always picked to be the highest qualified of the four. Every time there is a project I somehow get picked to do all the logistics and number crunching.
What I am really trying to say is that I feel kind of like I am being discriminated against for being a male in this field, that because I am a guy the only reason I could be doing this is to be a director. What if I am fine just being a teacher?
1) The look of astonishment on a child’s face when they do something they never thought was possible.
2) The conversations about anything and everything, in real and made-up languages.
3) The hugs.
During a workshop on Desired Results Developmental Profiles, mentor Director lady brought up a quote about teaching, “The quiet teacher wasn’t a good teacher for the loud and rowdy students because she couldn’t understand them, but give her a quiet child and she was the best teacher that child could hope for.”
I’ve been thinking quite a bit about that quote lately and have been trying to understand what type of teacher I am. I think I have figured it out. I am that quiet teacher, but I am also a teacher who has a deep passion for understanding each and every child which is probably why every child with a diagnosis of a special need or not, finds me at my center. I understand these children and I allow them to be themselves but still try to push them a little farther than they think they are capable, and try everything within my power to help them get tested and hopefully services. I want to expand be able to be a good teacher for the loud and rowdy as well but that isn’t a large part of my personality so I expect that to be a hard journey. Some days, like yesterday and today, I just know that I’m meant to be at the center right now, that this is, for lack of a better word, fate.
I came in early today and got to see half the children in my main class (right now it is inter-session and classes are merged and I work the afternoon instead of morning). So I walked in and sat down at circle time as different lead teacher is trying to read a story. All of my children recognize me, keep staring at me, and want to give me hugs, totally not overstating this either. One child, H, decided to sit in my lap and talk to me the whole time.
Later when H was leaving, he waved bye to me and said, “Bye Kyle!” His mom turned around with him to leave and started walking away and then she turned back around and said to me, “He just said ‘that’s my Kyle!’” We both laughed and H and his mom left.
The Curriculum Specialist at my school/center invented a new anecdotal/observation assessment intended to find the reason why a child plays a certain way or uses a certain thing or talks about anything, and a way in which that can be used to address potential issues in their life and teach a lesson plan on that subject. It was introduced two or three weeks back and everyone is required to do them for at least two children a week.
The CS went through all of the papers, wrote comments and then had short conferences regarding the assessments with each person. Today I had my mini-conference and thought I was in trouble for something. As it turns out, she was extremely happy with my thoughts and conclusions. She thought I was basically the only person of about thirty who actually understood what her goals were in the development of the assessment. She also told me I should consider being a child psychologist and I told her it is probably the end goal for me.
Oh yeah, she basically praised me every five to ten seconds and I responded awkwardly with half-smiles, nods, and the occasional thanks. I am bad at accepting compliments./first world problems
