Nothing Without Joy

Niente senza gioia.
This is the credo (which means, I believe, in Italian) of the preschools in Reggio Emilia, Italy. The teachers in Reggio Emilia take this very seriously: every school, every classroom, every teacher, every family, every child. Having seen this myself, it makes me very sad to realize how few teachers in this country think about their work in this way. Where has all the joy gone? How might we get it back?

I teach a course called Leadership in Early Childhood Programs. One of the assignments is to interview two teachers: one long-term and one new, and ask them what drew them to this work and what makes them stay, or makes them think they will stay. Without exception, every semester, virtually every teachers says, "The children." I think we are so bogged down in paperwork, regulations, and doubt, that we sometimes forget the reason we started doing this in the first place. Take a moment to reconnect with the joy in your work. A smile, a tiny hand in yours, a child's laughter; these are the reasons we are here. Their joy can spread to us, and ours to them.

Credo.

Debra G Murphy
www.classroomtoclassroom.com

Want to learn more about joyful environments? Read Designs for Living and Learning, by D. Curtis and M. Carter. Redleaf Press. 2003.

An Invitation to Greener Practice

In the United States, thoughtful people have been thinking and talking about conservation and ecology for over 100 years. By 1909, President Theodore Roosevelt had already set aside over 42 million acres of national forests and created 53 national wildlife refuges. John Muir, one of the first modern preservationists, founded the Sierra Club in 1892, and it is still one of the most important conservation organizations in the United States today. In 1962, Rachel Carson published the book, Silent Spring, in which she describes the impact of agricultural chemicals on the environment, and in 1971, Barry Commoner’s The Closing Circle was another wake-up call on the impact of industry on the world’s ecosystems, and was the required text for a course in ecology that I took at UMass in 1972. Here we are, more than 35 years after that course, and we have come to a place where we can longer just think and talk. We have to act. Every one of us in the field today has dedicated our lives to caring for the well-being of young children. Today, we must expand our definition of what this means. If we care about young children, we MUST care about the planet. We have come here to consider strategies and to develop a personal action plan for becoming “green” early childhood practitioners. Five years ago, it would have been difficult to find any information or guidelines for intentional conservationist practices in early childhood classrooms. Now, each day, there are more and more models to follow and ideas to consider from within our field. Child Care Information Exchange has joined the effort by including nature education and recycling topics in their daily e-newsletter. The World Forum Foundation has held national conferences on nature education practices. There are also several books available on the topic, including the provocatively titled: Last Child in the Woods, Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, by Richard Louv. In this book, the author offers a compelling case for bringing children back to the natural world, and the consequences if we do not. He cites several sources of evidence that show that nature has a positive impact on both learning and creativity, as well as the positive impact of nature to restore calm in children with so-called behavior and attention issues, even going so far as to suggest that the surge in these problems might even be related to the disconnect between children and nature. Today, I am asking you to consider the possibility that your actions CAN make a difference for the future. What are YOU going to do to make sure that one of your children is not the “Last child in the woods?”

Would you like to learn more about nature education for young children? Go to http://www.classroomtoclassroom.com/ and click on Book. This will take you to my new book, Science for the Whole Classroom, 2008, Infinity Publishing.

A Reflection on "Reflection"

I recently visited a classroom where the children were asked to do a common fall activity. In all the years I have been observing students I have never seen this activity work, and yet every fall, I see it practiced again and again in classroom after classroom. I cannot help but wonder: why? "Reflection" is a current buzzword in early childhood education, and I hope it's buzzword status doesn't keep teachers from actually doing it. When we have respect for children, we respect their time. Is the activity worthy of their time?

Here are the 3 weakest reasons for doing an activity:

1. We have always done it.

2. It's cute and the parents will like it.

3. I found it in a book and it goes with our theme.

How will you know? Here are 3 signs that an activity might not be worth doing:

1. It's too quick-The children are finished in less than a minute and there is little or no engagement.

2. Children cannot do it- you have to repeatedly help them or do it for them.

3. It doesn't work.


Take a few minutes every day to reflect on the activities you have done and ask your self: Are the children getting anything out of this? Am I bored?

Debra G Murphy
www.classroomtoclassroom.com

Interested in more about this topic?
Read The Intentional Teacher, Ann S. Epstein, NAEYC, 2007.