As Socrates puts his method into view; questioning, thinking, expressing, and arguing comes to mind in my opinion as in experiences. I encourage experiences that children encounter in the classroom by means of thinking and allowing children to explore the unknown. What will really happen if a child continuously pours sand outside of the sandbox? Will he think about scooping and putting it all back into the sandbox? Will he pour out all the sand until there is no more in the sandbox? Or will he stop and think that he needs to keep the sand in the sandbox as he is told by his teacher. We don't exactly know why do we. I think about this everyday when a child is pouring sand out of the sandbox.
Socrates also states that the more thought we put into our discussion, more questions and answers will be fulfilled. More thought can be developed into imagination, ones imagination comes from personal experiences. If children are given opportunities to imagine and explore maybe then our thought processes will click. For example, the child who pours sand out of the sandbox could be building a pyramid as he sees this big mound of sand to develop. If a child is safe, should he be able to imagine and explore? Yes, but then there are rules. Socrates says express and argue, give your point of view.
Me and my girls
It appears to me that many of the rules at preschools that have nothing to do with safety are probably about making our own jobs as teachers easier. Watching if the child pours out all the sand and builds something worthy of being at Giza IS what we are supposed to be looking at as professional observers. It would certainly be inconvenient, though, at the end of a long day to have to put the desert back into the Sahara...but, do we really give a picture of a child when we report: Today Jenna enjoyed a gluing activity? How would Jenna's parents feel if at the end of the day we took them to the playground and proudly showed them work rivaling Khufu's? I think they might be happy to help us shovel the sand back into the sandbox, well, SOME parents at least ;).
ReplyDeleteThis post made me think of pet peeves or triggers teachers may have towards certain behaviors. As an educator, one might know the benefit of allowing a student to continue to dump the sand out the sandbox for the valid reasons you posted above. However, as an adult, the one ultimately responsible for cleaning up the mess you may also experience negative feelings as you watch the child once again dump sand out of the sandbox.
ReplyDeleteIn the classroom I try to reflect on the purpose of the rule the child is breaking. Is it for safety, sanitation, classroom management, or strictly to make my life simple? In the case of a child dumping sand out of the sandbox, the rule to keep sand in the sandbox is probably in place to conserve the resources (sand and staff members time, as it increases cleanup time) I feel that rules may be bent if the potential to learn is greater than the consequence of bending the rule. In the sand box example, number of children present and time available to play and cleanup would effect whether or not I allowed the child to continue to dump the sand out.
-What can you do to let the student know that this time it is ok to bend the rule but next time the rules sticks?
-Or do you feel that it is never ok to bend the rules?
when children explore outside the box they create their own vision/imagination. If we continue to help children think critically and creativity we are providing for them other opportunities.
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