Month: March 2017

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The ABC of Child Whispering P is for PLAY

Cute little girl is blowing a soap bubbles

We all know that children need to play but do we really understand why? Actually it is VITAL that children play and that we don’t over-schedule them so their play times are eroded.

Play

  • develops creativity and imagination
  • improves fine and gross motor skills
  • builds emotional intelligence – especially empathy and resilience skills
  • is important to healthy brain development
  •  helps children to learn about their world and appropriate ways to interact

Play can take many forms and does not always need to be structured.

It is often during solitary play times that children think deeply and examine feelings and solve problems.

Intra-Personal intelligence is strengthened when children have plenty of time to play.

The following link will give you many ideas for ensuring your children are not PLAY DEFICIENT and grow into healthy and well-adjusted young people.

http://raisingchildren.net.au/articles/why_play_is_important.html

 

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The ABC of Child Whispering P is for PAST

Punish Forgive Computer Showing Punishment or Forgiveness

I am often surprised at the way children hang onto old hurts and cannot let go of the past.

One child I worked with in our EQ4KIDZ program had hung onto a past resentment for 4 years! It was actually quite trivial – to me- not to him!)

His mother had forgotten she was taking him to a movie and had made other arrangements. This happened when he was 7 and it was fermenting inside him still at 11 years!

We teach children about the power of forgiveness in week 4 of our EQ4KIDZ course and for many children this is a complete revelation.

I usually come out bending over as if my back has a heavy load and the children ask me, “Vicky! What’s the matter?”

“I am angry with lots of people and I am not going to forgive them! They should pay for what they did. I will never stop being angry with them!”

“What did they do? When did it happen?” they ask.

“Oh- about 10 years ago but they didn’t say sorry so I will NEVER forgive them! I would rather walk around like this for the rest of my life, bearing this huge bag of hurts and resentments on my back!”

Usually one of the kids or a teacher will comment, “Just let it go Vicky. Forgive them and move on!”

“Really?” I ask. “Is it THAT easy?”

So then I say, “OK. I am letting it go,” and stand up straight with a big sigh of relief and often the children spontaneously clap!

We then darken the room and get a huge bowl of water and place it in the middle of the floor- children all sitting around it. We show the children our special “Forgiveness stones”. (We buy them from a local hardware store.)

We play quiet music in the background while we invite the children to come one by one and place a few stones in the bowl of “love” to show they are forgiving someone. Some children take 10 stones, some just 1 or 2. We also tell them they can place stones in the bowl to represent forgiving ourselves and moving on.

It is interesting and powerful to watch how sacramentally the children go through this special forgiveness “ceremony.”

Forgiveness can be modelled by parents who decide to let go of old hurts and resentments and talk to children about this.

Forgiveness is powerful and transformative- both for the forgiver and the forgiven one! Let the past be in the past.

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BENEFITS OF TEACHING MULTI-AGE GROUPS

Overhead View Of Four Children Playing On Bed Together

Tomorrow I will be teaching children from 7  to 11 years.

It will be like conducting a symphony of carefully chosen learning experiences. To successfully manage this I need to know the curriculum content and I need to know the needs of the children I will be teaching. it takes careful planning but the benefits are HUGE!

There is considerable evidence supporting multi-age grouping for teaching.

“When compared to children in single age classes, children in multi-age classes are superior in study habits, social interaction, self-motivation, cooperation, and attitudes toward school. Academically, children perform just as well or even better than those in single grade classes. (Gajadharsingh 1991). It will take time and effort, but our kids are worth it!”

www.multiage-education.com/multiagen-b/themulticlass.html

We have followed this approach for many years and see many benefits:

  • Teachers teach children at point of need rather than being confined by perceptions of age
  • Children can get access whatever help and teaching they need in flexible groupings
  • More able children tend to be fully extended.
  • Children with difficulties feel more relaxed about accessing much needed assistance and will ask questions more readily.
  • Essentially this approach is modelled on natural family groupings and honours the fact that we grow and mature at different times, sometimes with “spurts” and sometimes more slowly.
  • Teachers who teach in this way tend to develop the ability to be more flexible and use more learning games and “hands-on” equipment.
  • Of course teachers who are new to teaching in these environments need some coaching and modelling in this teaching method. It is like conducting an orchestra and once you know how, you just get better!
  • We believe the educational gains are great so if you have the chance to teach in a multi-age environment, take it! You have much to gain!

Parents who have the chance to enrol children in multi-age classrooms or tuition centres – know your children are experiencing an excellent education mode and likely to have very tangible social and academic gains.

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OVER TESTING LEADS TO UNDER TEACHING

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So now Year Ones are to have a new test to determine who has problems.

By this time of the year Grade One teachers have already identified these youngsters and doing all they can to help them catch-up and have success with basic literacy and numeracy skills.

The money to develop this new test could be used to put extra teacher assistants in the classrooms and purchase adequate teaching resources. (Teachers buy their own!)

Australian kids are over-tested and under-taught!

There are problems that results from this over-testing:

  • Parents naturally worry about the tests and are concerned the results will affect their children’s futures. According to parents, judgements about who can enter certain private schools are sometimes made using NAPLAN results.
  • MANY schools are holding time-consuming NAPLAN coaching sessions for entire classes and teachers who attend our professional development sessions are concerned about this.
  • Every time teachers coach kids to pass a test they are not teaching to the needs of their classes.
  • Students are really worried- we have so many year 3 children who are really frightened of NAPLAN
  • Parents are buying assessments books by the dozen and coaching kids at home. Kids are not getting to play and relax. This leads to stressed kids learning less in classrooms.

NAPLAN has always been a very expensive, ineffective and time wasting stick to try to scare teachers into somehow drilling facts into kids in Dickensian “Hard Times” scenarios.

I had a parent tell me her Pre-Primary son has been identified as at educational risk because he counted to 100 and missed 89 and became mixed up!  This is the result of teacher stress reaching out and affecting children.

We taught this particular child with some extra “hands-on” sessions. He had NO problems at all – in fact his maths intelligence was very strong.

We need to regain our sense of perspective and look at what actually DOES work. We say we do this but Finland is a leading light and they have very little testing.

Singapore is known to be a school system that is reliant on rigorous testing but I am regularly asked by my colleagues there why we have SO MUCH testing in Australia- and yet very little effect!

We need to honour and trust our teachers as professionals and give them the resources and help they need to help ALL youngsters reach their potential!

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