guiding young children?
so it turns out that the book guiding young children isn't all crackhead ideas about hamster funerals and letting preschoolers play with hammers and nails but not screwdrivers. one of their conflict resolution ideas worked for me today.
it was about 7:45 AM and two kids were on the ground fighting over a basketball. a fifth grade boy and a third grade girl. somehow, i walked over and in my head, picked up the script from guiding young children.
teacher: is this ok with both of you?
((notice i dont say stop or try to exercise my own authority.))
boy: yeah, i had the ball first!
girl: no!
teacher: she says its not ok. lets talk about this.
((notice again, im not telling them what theyre doing is wrong, the idea that its not ok comes from the third grade girl))
teacher: what can we do about the basketball?
::both students stand by blankly::
boy: jump ball!
girl: yeah!
teacher: great, i'll do the jump ball myself!
((notice the solution wasnt handed down from me, they came up with it themselves.))
and there you have the essence of this problem solving philosophy that im being forced to read about and write ten pages/week.
it was about 7:45 AM and two kids were on the ground fighting over a basketball. a fifth grade boy and a third grade girl. somehow, i walked over and in my head, picked up the script from guiding young children.
teacher: is this ok with both of you?
((notice i dont say stop or try to exercise my own authority.))
boy: yeah, i had the ball first!
girl: no!
teacher: she says its not ok. lets talk about this.
((notice again, im not telling them what theyre doing is wrong, the idea that its not ok comes from the third grade girl))
teacher: what can we do about the basketball?
::both students stand by blankly::
boy: jump ball!
girl: yeah!
teacher: great, i'll do the jump ball myself!
((notice the solution wasnt handed down from me, they came up with it themselves.))
and there you have the essence of this problem solving philosophy that im being forced to read about and write ten pages/week.