C4T #1 Post

For my first C4T post I posted on Teacher Tom's Blog about Knowing. I have really enjoyed all of Teacher Tom's post this week. He tends to blog almost every day and I have read all of them. The blog on Knowing was a good one - but in my opinion not as good as the one on Who Is Going to Sit in those Cubicles? Not these Kids! In this blog he talks about the kids painting. It is so awesome - the kids are given guidelines to use, but they take a lot of liberty in completing the work!

So - I commented on Knowing. In Knowing Teacher Tom talks about solving a playground problem with some preschoolers. It was interesting how he allowed the children to solve their own problems with just some guidance from him. One of the interesting things that happened was that the main child in

his blog (Jaime's daughter) was only 2 years old and was using techniques that had been taught to her older sibling. She was using these techniques and didn't understand why they weren't working. Teacher Tom allowed the youngsters to solve their own problems by gently guiding them in the direction he wished them to go.

My comments were to the point of hoping that I would be able to be a "teaching guide" instead of a "normal" teacher. Even though I am planning on teaching teenagers, I think that some of his techniques with the preschoolers would work with teenagers. I commented

that I hoped I would be able to engage students into teaching themselves and allow me to guide them in their learning. I did close by leaving my Twitter, a link to the class blog and a link to my blog.

SECOND COMMENT

The post I commented on for this week was about preschooler hitting. Teacher Tom calls any invasion of personal space "hitting" for the purpose of this post. Teacher Tom gave several suggestions for handling the "hitter" in this blog. He says that he will post helpful points for the "hittee" tomorrow. So, a list of his suggestions are as follows:

1) Stay calm

2) Use your superior physical strength to stop the hitting.

3) Normally, however, no one is very hurt and normally there is a clear offender. Keep both parties proximate, even if that requires using some "physical force."

4) Describe what you know to be true

5) Draw the connection between cause and effect

6) Now is the most difficult part: stop talking and wait. Let the children fill up that dead air. It sometimes takes awhile, especially for boys, to find words. It's during this time that children will often spontaneously "apologize" by returning the taken item or attempting to hug their crying friend. This is a genuine 2-year-old apology.

7) Respond to whatever the offender says (even if they are trying to change the subject) by repeating what you know to be true and by drawing the connection between cause and effect.

8) For me, that's the end of it, but there are many who don't consider the process complete without a formal apology.

I really appreciated what he had to say and told him so in my comment. I also told him that I appreciated his thoughts on not seeking an artificial apology out of a 2 or 3 year old. I stated that I feel parents asking toddlers to apologize to early is one of the reasons teenagers will often offer a quick "I'm sorry" when they are not really sure what they are sorry for doing.

I closed my comment my inviting him to view my blog and by thanking him for his advice to parents and teachers alike.

I must say I have enjoyed Teacher Tom's blog! Even though I am not Elementary Education major, I think some of his insight can be applied to older students too. After all - some of the "hormonal" teenagers act like 3 year olds too!