anonymous man with blank face against dark background
I am having a week steeped and stewed in STUPIDITY!
Here are 2 examples-
Who are these faceless people called THEY?
My wise -man book shop owner popped in this week and we had a long conversation about a book he had given me to read- a very thought provoking book called The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.
We were having a lively conversation about the nature of autism and one of my teachers commented that, “They have recently announced that even 2 year old tantrums might be a sign of autism,” and the inimitable Don exploded, “Who are these &^%$# people called THEY? They seem to be running the world!”
Actually he is right.
How often do we say, “They say………
We need to start thinking for ourselves.
If 2 year old tantrums are caused by autism we have an almost 100% autistic population so perhaps autism is the new norm. What stupidity!
Another stupid example:
I am currently conducting many assessments of new children and most are high achievers who somehow do not fit weird, preconceived ridiculous notions of what children should be able to do.
One grade one child demonstrated an aptitude for maths, great problem solving, understanding of place value and ability to already handle many grade 2 concepts. He is apparently getting an F in mathematics.
How hard does a child have to work to get a decent mark?
How depressing is this for children and parents?
I am ok with an honest reporting system.
I am not OK with trying to put a label on every child and shove a defined mark on a living breathing, improving little human being. Our children cannot be pinned down to letters and numbers.
Very soon we will have a nation full of machine-like children who can only write persuasive texts (as required by our NAPLAN testing), don’t think at all and get Cs for everything!
We would not even treat our pets this way- let alone our children!
Thanks Don- you gave voice to what had been brooding in me for some time. Now I feel better.
Watch out the next person who says something stupid to me! I am likely to throw a whole container of fake snow at you.
Maybe it’s just the season for stupidity ….or maybe I am just too old to agree with these faceless “Theys” any longer!!
Children are natural jigglers and wrigglers. They don’t stay still for a good reason. I am sure I am not the only teacher who has stared at her class and drawn a sharp comparison with a basket of wriggling worms!
They learn by moving, touching, pushing, pulling, moulding, grabbing ……. just watch a group of pre-schoolers at play!
This does not magically stop when they reach a certain age.
Sure their concentration span lengthens but even 10/11 year old need to move.
We are kidding ourselves if we think passive children sitting in desks doing worksheet after worksheet are really learning.
Learning can be interactive, challenging, messy, satisfying, frustrating, joyful ……… all within one lesson! Of course there is a place for worksheets. A well designed worksheet can help children to revise and deepen understanding. But- worksheets will never take the place of a good teacher who can adapt the learning environment very skilfully and often quite quickly to improve learning outcomes.
If we force children to sit quietly for longer than comfortable they will often put all their energy into trying to do just that. For a child that is a bit like us wanting to visit the bathroom BADLY after the seat-belt sign is switched on for landing!
Wise Child Whispering teachers and parents understand this and ensure youngsters have plenty of opportunity to JIGGLE, JUMP, RUN, MOVE – children learn by moving!
Here are some really effective ways to include movement activities in classrooms. We use these regularly as part of Victoria Carlton Programs
Start each day with some movement education- either some Brain Gym or maybe the fantastic Harry Potter Yoga! If you do this you are stimulating their brains and helping some of them deflect some excess energy. https://youtu.be/R-BS87NTV5I2.
Allow your VERY jiggly children a stress ball or similar so they can squeeze and concentrate.
Don’t ask children to concentrate for more than 15 minutes without a stretch, quick exercise, change of activity etc.
Ensure you have plenty of learning strategies drawn from the physical intelligence area of MI so that children can learn while moving!
Try human sums! Children can act like human counters for various operations.
When children sound out words let them jump up and down or bounce a ball at the same time!
Practise word recognition and sentence structure by standing in a line and holding up words and punctuation marks.
Jolly Phonics and Jolly Grammar are incredibly effective ways for children to learn literacy skills and I am convinced that a large part of their effectiveness is due to the huge movement and activity component of the program. Ask us about training opportunities for these courses.
Allow plenty of time for art and craft as it calms children and the amount of learning increases.
(See my FAST ART AND CRAFT ACTIVITIES for ideas https://www.pinterest.com/victoriacarlton/fast-artcraft-activities/
Change the learning environment and displays often so children feel stimulated and enjoy exploring the environment.
Don’t always teach from the front- occasionally teach from the back of the class, have them out of chairs close to you (even big kids!), go into another learning area or even outside. To wake up children’s brains we can’t be TOO predictable!
Choose NOT to notice every wiggle and jiggle. Constantly stopping our teaching for very small lapses of concentration is incredibly annoying to other children and they start to lose the thread of your lesson!
Consider teaching some strategies to let some of the excess physical energy out! (Sort of like opening the steam vents on a cooking pan!)
I teach my chronic wrigglers to curl their toes or fingers and then let them go. This gives a slight movement outlet. They can also tap quietly with feet.
Make daily MINDFULNESS time an integral part of your program. Children sit for a minute in silence, letting go of any worries and just emptying their minds. The quality of the learning after the mindfulness minute is easily observable!
Consider using our visualisations programs: Mind Journeys. We have over 50 of these ready for teachers and parents and provide examples on social media and the whole lot are available in our forthcoming MIND JOURNEYS BOOK. (You can pre-order this now) We have found that using this method to teach creative writing and thinking, has had HUGE benefits for children who normally cannot sit still for more than 5 minutes.
If you would like to know more about your own “jiggling worms,” their cocktails of intelligences and how to increase them, order our ALL KIDS ARE SMART book by emailing victoriacarlton@iinet.net.au or if you are in SE Asia order through www.september21.com.sg
Children are MEANT to jiggle and move so let’s go WITH it in our learning programs rather than putting all our energy into trying to change something that is not actually meant to change! ACTIVE learning and ACTIVE teaching strategies work!
I often joke about how many of our students seem to have holes in their elbows and their wonderful ideas drop out before they hit the page!
I think we forget how hard it is for children to coordinate ideas, handwriting, concentration, punctuation etc and get ideas down.
My favourite lesson every day is WRITING and I am amazed as I see the creative process begin anew with each lesson.
The blank page is transformed- one minute it is empty- the next there are ideas, “wonderings”, creative “splats” and sadly sometimes one word and a pencil that just won’t move!
When I ask children what they would like to write they describe how they have many ideas and just cannot choose. Sometimes they have a HUGE idea and they are frightened to begin because it will take so long to write or they feel they cannot spell the words.
There are so many variables and teachers need a very full tool-box and a huge dose of understanding to be able to effectively teach written expression. We sometimes use story starters- especially when children are tired and we are approaching the end of the year.
As children LOVE random choices, we often cut these up and they take one as a lucky dip. They act as “circuit breakers” so their brains can zoom in on just one idea!
If I give them too many topics to choose from they will get into the “kangaroo caught in the spotlight” syndrome and simply stop!
I have given you some of our story starters here and invite you to try them out. We are always devising more and at the moment we are working on a new Christmas set.
We share all our writing strategies in our writing workshop for teachers- ALL KIDS CAN WRITE. Please contact me if you would like to attend the forthcoming ones in Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane or Singapore.
