Individuals Among Many

That's another great benefit that I noticed when my students began making decisions about their own work. They suddenly began to become individuals among many.

I got to better understand each child's...

likes and dislikes
strengths and weaknesses.

I even found myself better able to give students individual attention.

Yes, which teacher doesn't long for smaller classes? "Then I can really give my students individual attention!"

Well just imagine, with the right teaching approach you can actually give each student individual attention. Uhhh! Individuals in a class of many! Just imagine.

Are You Crazy? - Negotiate With a Child?!

When I first heard about the concept of negotiating with a student as to what work they wanted to cover in the classroom it seemed like an almost insane idea! What?! Negotiate with a child? This seemed to be another liberal, impractical idea. Surely as the teacher I knew what was best for the students to learn and when it had to be done.

But then was my current approach really that great?

At that point I decided..."you know what, why not give it a chance?" And that's exactly what I did. I began to negotiate. I created a chart in the form of a table displaying a few subject areas that I wanted them to complete on a daily basis. Their decision? They got to choose when they wanted to do each subject and what aspect of the subject they felt like doing. Of course this was a negotiation process so at times I needed to discuss with the individuals as to what was better suited for them at the time.

The results were genuinely amazing! My nine and ten year olds suddenly took a greater interest and even pride in their work.

Friendly competitions developed as peers tried to keep abreast of each other. "I did three activities already." "I'm on my third."

Confidence grew. "I like having control of my own work. I like not having to wait on Miss."

Collaborations flourished. "I did that activity last week, let me explain to you how to do it."

Class control became easier. "Miss Powell, if you stepped out no one will ever know. Your students seem to always know what work to do and just get on with it!" It felt good to hear those words from a fellow teacher.

Well after a few years at University and then being reassigned to a class of five year olds surely the negotiation concept would have to be shelved. But you know what?...I just couldn't shelve it. It had worked before, surely it will work again. And lo-and-behold it seemed even easier to implement. Maybe because they knew no other approach in the classroom.

Negotiate with a child? Go ahead, you just might like it. After all... 'child is people too!'

Reading? Stop!!!

Almost three years ago I visited one of our havens of enlightenment called a government primary school. It was a boy's school and when I met with the school principal to show him my Hop Along Reading Programme he excitedly told me to share the information with his infant teachers.

The librarian/remedial reading teacher called the infant teachers together. They looked through the books, flashcards and other material. "Nice books." "Love the phonics and sight words together." "My kids would love the stories." "Creative writing in the workbooks - good idea."

My anticipation grew. Was this going to be the first group of teachers that would encourage their principal to try using my reading programme in their classrooms?

Anticipation - premature.

"Well...we love your programme but you know that the Ministry of Education has sent a phonics programme." The remedial reading teacher was one of the privileged few to get to meet with the promoters of the phonics programme and was instructed to return to various schools to implement it. I was too late. I was speaking to converts who rather than blending the two methods of look-and-say with phonics had been sold into the notion of total phonics. Indeed, they happily explained to me that absolutely NO reading must be done by the students until they master every single 40 plus sound.

"In fact," one male teacher proudly announced, "we have even gone back to teaching our second year infant students all their phonics!"

"So you're teaching phonics while they continue reading their books?" I asked...the idea seemed fair.

"Oh no!" he responded confidently, "We've taken away the books that they were reading."

I paused to drink this in. "Were they actually reading already?"

"Yes," confidence waning?

"And you've stopped them from reading to teach phonics?"

"Yes," confidence definitely waning. A few wrinkled brows.

"Uh huh...interesting..." I scanned the now perplexed group. "So you stopped them from reading to teach them reading?"

The government primary school...a haven of enlightenment indeed.

Comprehension?

Last night I came across this cartoon image and I thought that it showed in a very clever way one major issue that arises when children are taught purely phonetically with very little awareness of the whole-word approach.

Comprehension surely suffers - well at least initially!

The poor chap.

All Hail King Phonics!

Within recent years there has been a very definite drive in the education system of Trinidad and Tobago to teach reading at the early stages with phonics. Suddenly phrases such as whole word approach, look and say and sight words seem to be curse words.

I believe this trend has been a direct result of such a high illiteracy rate within not just Trinidad and Tobago but much of the Caribbean. And these countries used phonics within the classroom as almost an after thought. Oh yes, please don't believe the official figures of over 98% literacy! If that were the case then I guess one of the last primary schools that I taught in was actually located in No-Man's-Land!

Be that as it may, this trend is not one that I believe should continue. In my next blog I will explain my position further but just consider this...

I was speaking to a very concerned friend of mine who was spending a great deal of money to send her daughter to a reputable private school that taught reading strictly phonetically.

"I don't know what's going on with my daughter! She is seven years old has learnt to read but she's going backwards. She can't even spell the word 'talk'. The remedial reading teacher and I tried to get her to spell it using her phonics and she still couldn't spell it."

I simply asked my concerned friend, "well have you tried spelling 'talk' phonetically?"

Silence...All hail King Phonics!

Notes on a Board

Here's something that happened one day in my Science class.

We were doing a project about different animals and had just discussed mammals. Now keep in mind that in a traditional West Indian classroom I would have written a note about mammals on the blackboard and all students would have to obediently copy my note exactly as given.

However, since I am a firm believer in NOT giving notes on a blackboard, I instructed all students to create their own summary of what we had explored. I placed some keys words on the board that they could use in their summaries and left them to it. The students created notes and drew and stuck pictures As I was walking around observing the students at work I noted one of my student's notes. Part of it read...'mammals are all females.' Well I was quite surprised by such a statement, especially since this student was one of my bright sparks.

"Why do you think that all mammals are female?" I inquired, a little confused.

''Well Miss, you said that they feed their babies milk."

He needn't say more. If I had just placed a note about mammals on the blackboard for them to unquestioningly copy I would probably have written as part of my note that 'mammals suckle their young' and would NEVER have realised that one of my students might interpret that statement to mean that they are all female!

I am aware that there are many advocates for note copying at the primary school level of our West Indian classrooms and I have met many who will debate with great fervour against students creating their own notes. Feel free to let me know your views on this topic but until then I leave you with one thought...

Yesterday, I found myself having to explain to my seven year old son about plagiarism. Later on that day my son asked me an intriguing question..."Mummy, if plagiarism is against the law why does my teacher make us copy her notes from the blackboard?"

Ummm...intriguing indeed!

The Budding Author

Here's a little food for thought - well at least it was for me.

One afternoon, one of my second year infant students had written a story. Over the months he had been 'attempting' to put his thoughts down in writing. Much of what he wrote however was gibberish to me. I would often find myself having to ask him to read his stories to me since I could barely make sense of them without the aid of one of his drawings.

That afternoon however I was able to actually begin to make sense of his story. Granted it was full of spelling, grammar and punctuation errors but applying the word knowledge that he possessed, the fluency of his stories was finally coming together. As I read his short story to myself I smiled. Now we were finally getting somewhere!

I excitedly turned towards him and said encouragingly, "Sean, you're becoming a writer!"

He looked at me with the most matter-of-fact expression on his face and pointedly said, "I've always been a writer." And with that he sat down to move on to one of his other class activities.

Now take that Lorraine!

The Gift (Part 2)

It was mid-morning and most of the students were heading out to their various religious instruction classes or at least supposed to. I was upstairs looking around at the students trying in some small way to ensure that students moved along speedily when I saw a crowd of students a few feet away.

There were little arms shaking wildly as their standard one owners shouted out instructions to their fellow students who were heading to their classrooms. "Don't pass here gal!" "Go round dat way!" "Miss say to pass round!" The students that received those clear instructions looked most confused and many of them chose to ignore the orders. Some students tried to plead their case, "But de class is right there. Let me pass boy!" Others began to argue with the young security guards, "I passing dis way. You can't tell me what to do!" Most of the students however just peeped curiously over the heads of those in front of them, trying in vain to catch a glimpse of what they were being prevented from seeing.

I briskly walked across towards the brewing confusion. I was beginning to get quite annoyed that so many students were still in the corridors and that with all the escalating noise not one teacher even glanced out to see what was happening. As I parted the group of onlookers I also wanted to know what these self-appointed hall monitors were so eager to keep others from seeing. It was fairly easy to part the crowd - after all an average eight year old is not that large. As I passed through them I ordered each child to go the long route, "you all should have been in your classes a long time ago." By this time it was not a very difficult task to say this firmly.

The little feet obediently scurried along and remaining, facing me was a line of about five seven and eight year olds. Their no-nonsense stares clearly meant business. They were leaning against a desk that had been placed to block the entire corridor. It was surprising to see a desk so strategically placed in the corridor. Certainly this was nothing a typical standard one child would do without permission. "What is going on here?" I asked.

The children were more than willing to forward the answer. "Look Miss. Over there Miss!" There it was... we had had a visitor and a gift was left. Although the visitor remained faceless it was clear that it was man's best friend but the gift certainly wasn't. The load was soft, brown, large and did not leave a pleasant odour (I can safely assume this since I did not wish to go any closer). Someone had seen the gift and decided to protect the precious load. 'Put up a desk...keep away the crowd...the gift must remain in tact at all costs'...well that's the impression this sight left with me!

"Who put you here to guard something like this?" I asked, still trying to come to terms with this surreal situation but I didn't need an answer. By their classroom door the familiar head of one of my fellow teachers popped out and she took a seat in a chair by the entrance. She seemed to be guarding the gift from her end while making sure that her little guards were protecting the load from their end. "Hello Mrs. Powell,' she said casually as though guarding a load from a dog was the most natural thing in the world to do.

"Ms. --, don't you think that we should call a cleaner?" I tried to say this as respectfully as possible considering that she was almost as old as my mother and I really liked her as a person.

No response.

"Well... maybe we should send your students to class and I'll get someone to clean it up."

She had no objection to this suggestion. I guess it was because the corridors were finally cleared of students so the gift was now safe. The students hurried to join their classmates for R.I. since the call of duty was now over while I headed down to the senior teacher who was standing in for the school principal that day. When I explained to her the situation she shook her head quite unsurprised and within ten minutes the offending gift was removed.

I often think of this story over the years and I have come to understand more and more why something like this could have happened. In a later blog I will discuss the issues that this event raises so keep tuning in.