A day in the life

Nov 26, 2012 17:20


My thumb is sore.

Why is my thumb sore, you ask? Well, I just spent most of a working day cutting out pictures of animals that had been printed on sticky-back paper to make customized stickers.

But wait, you may additionally ask, don’t you have two graduate degrees? What are you doing cutting things out for money?

Well, I’m an educator, aren’t I? And the most important part of teaching is preparation. And sometimes that involves cutting out all the things in advance. Because you could hand a 3 year old a pencil and ask them to draw a bear, but what you’re actually teaching them would be fine motor skills involved in holding a pencil. An important skill, but not necessarily the one you want them to learn today. OR you could give them the pre-printed bears and ask them to cut it out. An even more taxing fine motor skill with potentially even less desirable results.

If you want to teach 3 year olds about the important of creating visual paper records of what they see, of observing and recording even something as simple as ‘bear,’ sometimes the best way to do that is to pre-print and cut out lots of different stickers for them to choose from.

It’s related to natural science! It’s developmentally appropriate!

It takes a lot of cutting out.

My thumb is sore.

This post can also be found at Thagomizer.net. Feel free to join in the conversation wherever you feel most comfortable.

teaching

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