My thoughts

What a whirlwind experience!  So much time was spent planning these visits and coordinating with flights, hotels, and rental cars.  I've read a dozen books and immersed myself into curriculum models for the past five months and what have I learned?

Private education is awesome, innovative and very expensive.  Each of these curricula have advantages and disadvantages.  Educators are passionate about the curriculum that they teach.  Children are fortunate to have such wonderful environments created by early childhood professionals.  Parents love their children and want to have a close relationship with their child's teachers.  Children are sponges to stimulating environments and I feel badly for children who don't have those environments.

I feel bad that our society doesn't respect young children or their teachers because the damage is done by the time they reach public school.  Their curiosity and self worth have already been effected.  I feel bad that my children went to public schools more interested in their test scores than stimulating their minds.  The children fortunate enough to be enrolled in ANY of the schools I visited will have a huge advantage as they grow up.  EVERY school I visited provided outstanding examples of early childhood education.  I felt so fortunate to have been allowed entry into all the schools and was amazed at the high quality I saw.   I have many, many stories to share with my students and people who attend the workshops that are planned for the fall.  I hope you have enjoyed sharing a glimpse of my sabbatical journey! 

RIE (Respectful Infant Educarer)

For this curriculum visit, I went to Bright Horizons on Kennicott in Arlington Heights.  I send my students here for their last practicum.  Rosemary Riddle was the head teacher in the classroom when I first took over the practicum.  She is the RIE guru to me! She has visited the centers in California created by Magda Gerber and shows my students videos on the theory so I was anxious to learn as much as I could from her and to experience what my students do as they do their practicum.

I was not disappointed!  The children were treated in such a respectful manner.  Many people tend to treat infants as objects that can't understand what is happening to them.  This center proves that is NOT true!  Whenever a child was picked up any staff member, the child was told that they were going to be picked up and exactly what was going to happen - going to their crib to take a nap, sit down at the table for snack, change their diaper, fed a bottle - whatever it was they were warned before it happened.  Several times, children were told that their bottle was heating up or that once a teacher was done feeding a child they would be next.  The children understood and although they were hungry or tired, the crying or whimpering stopped.  They knew the teachers cared about them and that they would tend to their needs. 

This is the rocker where children are fed and the mirror for children to observe!

Eight children were in this room, four of them were under 10 months and the other four were all young toddlers.  The two teachers in the classroom had their hands full!  Each time they sat down to feed a child, the child's name was said out loud along with how many ounces they were feeding the child.  I thought this was GREAT!  Although children were demanding and people were talking, this was always done!  Double checking themselves!  They also were constantly writing in the log when a child was changed, fed, slept, etc.  The room was constantly in motion, but very organized and the children were well taken care of. 

Part of the RIE theory is not to rush children and I definitely saw evidence of that!  Unless a child can sit up by themselves, they are not put in a seated position.  The younger children were moving all over the room - one by dragging this back legs while pulling with his arms.  The other little girl was on all fours and beginning to rock herself back and forth.  Toys were put right outside her reach and she would rock and splat herself closer to the item to retrieve it.  I loved the way the children were working on their OWN development not some checklist that everyone was working to achieve. 

This was by far the most popular place in the classroom!  This one piece of equipment challenged ALL of the ages in the room!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've always admired Infant teachers, but my two days in this room reaffirmed THAT and also how important this age is to early childhood.  These teachers help determine a child's self image by displaying such a respectful attitude toward them.  They also model to parents how capable their children are - they understand so much about what is happening around them and to them!  

When I was changing my 18 month old granddaughter's diaper one day she was struggling to get free so I thought I'd use the RIE theory on her.  I asked her to be still so I could quickly change her diaper so we could get into the stroller and go to the park.  Needless to say, I was amazed when she stopped struggling with me and smiled at me.  I was being respectful of her feelings.  This theory really does work.

Reggio Inspired Boulder Journey School

Boulder Journey School is located in the most beautiful location in Boulder, Colorado!!  You can see the mountains from the playground!  The playground wraps around the entire building and provides the children with a variety of areas and materials to interact with.  

I choose this school because although I like Reggio Emilia curriculum as it exists in Italy, I've always felt that it wouldn't "transfer" to the United States.   When Cheryl Joseph, an adjunct faculty member at Harper, told me that I had to go to Boulder Journey School because I had to see how this school had adapted this curriculum to their area - I added it to my list of visits!  My brother lives there so I stayed with his family there.  It was an awesome place!  Although they charged a fee for me to visit for two days, it was worth it!  I toured the center one morning and spent the next morning observing classrooms.  In the afternoons, I had the opportunity to meet with classroom, art  and theater teachers.  I had some of the most stimulating conversations about early childhood education and the Reggio way!! 

The first thing I noticed when I entered the school was the outstanding documentation on the walls of the halls!  I just took picture after picture because everything was so exciting. 

The second thing I noticed was the aesthetics EVERYWHERE!!!  As an early childhood teacher, I remember our Resource Room looked like a tornado had hit it, but not at Boulder Journey!  Each area of the "materials" room looked like a display case of a department store.  Just so beautiful to look at!

The third thing I noticed was how the school reflected the Boulder culture.  The town is home to two major universities and the staff of the school consists of  teachers with master degrees!  The school partners with the university to offers internships that along with coursework, result in a teaching certificate.  Reflecting the Reggio curriculum, the teachers are all intellectually curious and are constantly assessing and designing their curriculum based on what they are seeing in the classroom.  This isn't canned curriculum.  Boulder is very environmentally aware and this is reflected in the school also.  The use of a variety of recycled materials was evident throughout the school.  The children all bring their own lunches in environmentally friendly materials, each child has their own water bottle or drinking glass because they do not use plastic or paper products.

 The picture on the left was from a toddler room.  It is covered with tape to create a grid.  Although I didn't observe children playing with it, I know they would LOVE it! 

It felt like this school was true to the Reggio curriculum in the way that it reflected the culture of Boulder and I enjoyed the insightful conversations I had with several of the staff members.  This is not a stagnant school that has found the secret of early childhood education.  On the contrary, it is a vital anddynamic school that continues to evolve and adapt to changes in the culture.  My concern about the Waldorf school was that I felt it hadn't kept up with changes in the worlds although it was a very relaxing environment.  Boulder has adapted and included technology in a way that is reflective of the good way to use it.   I embrace technology and the wonderful opportunity for learning that it provides, so I'm a little bias on this point.  This was a great way to end my out-of-town visits.  As I look back on all of the visits, each one of them reflected the culture where they were located.  Is that true of the centers located in our area?  Interesting thought.... 
    

Multi-generational program

I had the pleasure of visiting Shepherd's Flock Child Care Center located in the Lutheran Home in Arlington Heights on Friday!   I had heard wonderful things about this program and I wasn't disappointed.  I scheduled my visit so that I could witness an interaction between the children and the seniors.   The program has five classrooms and has an infant room, toddler room, twos and two preschool classes.  About five 4-year olds were invited to visit "Grandmas and Grandpas" (as they refer to the seniors) in the assisted living portion of the home.  The seniors are divided into low functioning and high functioning.  The seniors we visited in this part of the home were high functioning.  The children were each paired with a Grandma or Grandpa.   The preschool teacher brought along 3 Ipads and told everyone that new games had been loaded and they were excited to play them.  The seniors moaned and became concerned about not knowing anything about these Ipads!  The senior teacher reassured them that the children would show them.  Because one senior was very nervous, the teacher suggested that they continue playing a dice game and include two of the children and another senior who was legally blind.  Everyone seemed happy with that solution.  I was immediately struck by my motto that flexibility is the most important quality a teacher can have!  This is even true when working with seniors!

The children taught the seniors how to play the games which included memory and matching games.  We spent close to a hour in the area and everyone had a wonderful time.  As we left one of the Grandpas got teary and the whole mood felt somber.  The children truly had brought a ray of sunshine into their lives.

I walked away troubled that we have segregated our ages so much in our society.  Everyone lives alone.  My fondest memories are of spending time with my great grandpa.  He was suffering from dementia, but I just thought he was wonderful because he always had time to spend with me and talk with me. Children don't have many opportunities to interact with multiple generations because everyone lives far apart.

Thank goodness for programs like this that seek to bridge a gap in our society by giving the generations opportunities to interact with each other.  But, I digress from the school....on other visits they go to the low functioning seniors and play games like Lincoln logs.  This allows the seniors to reminisce about toys they played with.  Also there were several senior volunteers doing music and activities with the children throughout the center. 

My favorite memory was when I heard a little boy playing a game with a Grandpa say to him "You're a genius"!  Grandpa brightened up and perhaps didn't realize the boy was repeating what he had said to him several times while playing the game.   It was a mutual feeling of thinking the other was a genius.  We need more of that! Thank you to the staff for allowing me to visit! 

Waldorf Curriculum

Last week I had the opportunity to visit the Waldorf curriculum model!!  I choose to visit Four Winds Waldorf School in Warrenville, Illinois.   As I entered the building I was warmly greeted by the Director of the school!  She was at the door greeting every student, their parents and siblings as they entered the school.  I knew I was in a special place immediately because she knew EVERY name!   I was told to meet the three/four year old class on the playground.  Again, I was warmly greeted by the teacher on the playground and observed as she greeted and shook every child and their parents hand!  This was their way of taking attendance.   

This is one of two protected benches where the teachers sat to greet the students. 

After the children greeted the teacher, they ran onto the playground and played with friends.  The children spent about a half hour playing with each other.  Many played in the sand, some stood by a tree (playing with sticks) and others climbed trees.  There were no disciplinary issues while I observed.  One young many picked up a large, long board with a pointy end on it.  He spent the entire time “writing” in the same with the pointed end of the board.  He played near some girls, but never disturbed them.  It struck me how this behavior would have been immediately stopped in a regular classroom.  Here it was assumed that the child would be responsible and he was! 

 The school is located on 5 acres with one large grassy area surrounded by small hills and the other side is all wooded forest.  Children spend ½ hour as they arrive and ½ hour as they leave provided the weather is good.  As I observed, many of the older grades spent time outside also.  One commented that they were just going for a walk on a beautiful day.  Again, not an occurrence in a regular school!  Within the woods, there were several “creations” such as this located in the forest!  It was obvious that the children were allowed to work in the woods to learn about the properties of materials.

All the materials within the classrooms were natural – there was much wood, stone, yarn, fabric, ribbon, silk throughout the school.  It was arranged aesthetically and was very attractive to the children!  This is a picture of the classroom which is decorated to create a homelike environment.  There are lamps, sofas, soft chairs, plants in each classroom.  A kitchen is in every room so that the teachers’ work is open for the children to view.  The other interesting thing is that no disposables are used because of their focus on the environment.  Each child has a cloth place-mat and napkin, a glass drinking cup, a ceramic dish and a metal utensil.  Children even had fabric aprons to use. 

The children spent a great deal of their time in free play, both inside and outside.  The children spent time preparing food for their snack and doing art projects.    Part of the Waldorf philosophy is that play creates the foundation for future learning.  During my visit, I did not observe any academics being taught to the children.  My first reaction to that was that enough was not being done with the children for them to learn.  But after reflecting....I realized the children were learning about how to get along with each other!!  This is one of children's areas of development - SOCIAL!  These children were all well adjusted.  They said good-bye to their parents and ran off to play.  They had great attention spans during indoor and outdoor play times.  Hmmm....another area of children's development - EMOTIONAL!!  They were running up and down hills, slithering under tables, climbing trees, digging holes and many other activities which were allowing them to develop - PHYSICALLY!!!  Here, I am the proponent of play, the one who touts that we must teach to ALL areas of development, not just cognitive and I was uncomfortable watching children PLAY!  Cognitively, these children were very articulate and had natural curiosity about everything they saw - types of birds, planets, plants, songs, animals and on and on.  This curriculum brought me back to the natural aspects of teaching and learning.

I felt so relaxed and so at peace during my visit.  The children played freely, adults conversed with children and among themselves.  It felt like a home.  Children worked, adults worked and IT worked at this school.