Ready, Freddy?!

Welcome! Please visit the updated version of this post at http://missnightmutters.com/2011/11/scrapbook-is-not-a-verb-how-to-use-evernote-for-student-portfolios.html

So, in another twitter-related adventure, I stumbled across a website yesterday that talked about "Kindergarten Readiness." This has been one of my pet catch-phrases since grad school, so I dove right it. The list of teacher expectations was very thorough, and also, to me, without knowing a lot about the setting and environment in which the author worked, very high.  It did, however, make me think that it was high time for me to blog about this pet topic of mine: Kindergarten Readiness, And What It Means To Me. Dive on in, folks, the water's fine.

Let's just start with the fact that I think the whole concept of children needing to be "ready" for kindergarten is absurd. To say that a child is or is not ready for the first year of school suggests that it is somehow that child's responsibility to prepare for school. And the concept of "preparing for school" seems to lead, all too quickly, to things like worksheets for 3-year olds, and homework for 4-year olds, and expensive "kindergarten prep" courses, and all kinds of other silliness. To me, "ready for school" means, and should ONLY mean that the child in question is: well-fed, well-rested, adequately dressed. Any 5 year old (or, in the case of my province and our March 1st cutoff date, any 4.5 year old) for whom those things are true is Ready for School. If those things are NOT true, well, I think and hope we are all clear that it does not represent any failing on the part of the child.

All of that being said, last year, at my school, we identified a need to establish some kind of screening process for kindergarten students who are new to us. To be clear, we do not, and will not, screen children for spots in our preschool (3 year olds) or Junior Kindergarten (4 year olds)  because... well... THEY ARE 3 AND 4 YEAR OLDS, THANK YOU VERY MUCH. However, we do want to ensure that when enrolling children "from the outside" (as in, who did not attend our junior-K program; not as in: OUTSIDERS! BEWARE!), those children are at a comparable level of development to the children who did attend JK with us. (To be even clearer: our preschool and JK are developmentally appropriate, play- and choice-based programs, where the priorities are social skill development and language immersion.) And I already hate how all this sounds because GACK! Screening for kindergarten!  Comparing 4 year olds' social skills! And I feel like I am suggesting that children who did NOT attend our JK are somehow deficient or of lesser quality, and that is so not the case, and oh God this is terrible and uncomfortable for all of us, isn't it? So let's just move along: for a number of good reasons, we needed a screener to assess incoming K students. And while I am not 100% comfortable with that, we are a private school and there were reasons, and we do not have unlimited resources to support really high-needs kids, and if we were a public school this would be unconscionable, and please don't hate on me, I KNOW. I KNOW.

(*Collective deep breath*) Okay. So. After many long discussions and sleepless nights, Camryn (my boss) and I came up with the following:

In the context of a meet and greet with the parents, Camryn gives the child a piece of paper and a big box of crayons, and casually asks the munchkin to draw a picture of her/himself while Mom and/or Dad chat with Camryn. When kiddo reports that the picture is done, Camryn asks him/her to talk about their picture, and asks if they can write their name on it, ALL VERY CASUALLY AND CONVERSATIONALLY SO NO ONE FEELS STRESSED. After that, parents go on a school tour with our Director of Admissions, and Camryn brings the munchkin down to my classroom to hang out with other children for a half-hour or so, and do whatever we are doing. AND THAT IS ALL. Basically, if kiddo can make deliberate marks with a crayon, respond appropriately to questions about the drawing, and interact with my class without smacking anyone, they are in. (Assuming that parents are also reasonable, pleasant, and on board with our school's mission, values, and philosophy.)

Now, I realise that describing my school's screening procedures is not the same as sharing my own "expectations" for students who arrive at my classroom door on the first day of school, but there is definitely a link between the two. Ideally, a child who is "ready" for my classroom:

• feels excited about starting school, 
• identifies his or her own name
• uses writing utensils and scissors purposefully
• takes turns in a game with other children
• counts to 10 
• will sit and listen to a story

That's it. That's all. Those are the only things I am willing to commit to in writing, and I am even hesitant to do that, because I have had children who can't do those things at the beginning of the year, and still manage kindergarten beautifully. So I also have to say, even with this short list in place:

• If a child is scared about kindergarten, I will hold his hand until he feels safe.
• If her own name is a string of hieroglyphics, I will point out the letter(s) that make it unique.
• If scissors are new and unfamiliar, I will hold the paper while he makes his first cuts.
• If taking turns stretches her self-control to the limit, I will play, too, and model how it works.
• If counting stalls at 7, we will play counting games every day until 8, 9, 10, are familiar friends.
• If sitting still is too hard, I will provide her a wiggle cushion, a fidget toy, a special spot, and I will read my very best stories, in my very best voices, until a story is a better treat than a treat.
• And I WILL NOT grumble or complain that a child who struggles with ANY (or all) of these things "wasn't ready" for kindergarten.

Because, at the end of the day, doing all those things adds up to Doing My Job. Children can't walk in a straight line? My job to make up a game to help them. Can't get ready for recess on a snowy day in less than 20 minutes? My job to write a poem/chant/cheer to help everyone remember that mittens go last. Can't tell B from P? My job. Doesn't know what comes after 8? My job. Can't produce a rhyme for cat; the sound for G, a word that starts with M? My job, my job, my job. Yes, many children can do all of these things when they start kindergarten, but many can't. The ones who can't, learn from those who can. The ones who can, may not be able to weather minor disappointments without tears, or cope with being last in a line. It is also My Job to help THOSE children master THOSE skills.

It is my job to be ready, on the first day of school, to reach and teach, the children who walk in my door. And THAT, to me, is what Kindergarten Readiness means. 

It means that THE KINDERGARTEN, (and the teachers who teach there), are ready.

I heard them say, love is the way

Welcome! Please visit the updated version of this post here: http://missnightmutters.com/2011/03/i-heard-them-say-love-is-the-way.html.

A few weeks ago, we started a new project in my classroom: Kindergarten Around the World. I will spare you the minute details (hit me in the comments if you want to know more), but it is, basically, a virtual exchange between our class, and a partner class overseas. For my 20 Canadian munchkins, we found a partner group in East Borneo, Indonesia. Both classes have created an imaginary friend, who attends our partner school. (For the curious, our imaginary friend is a little girl named Ella. She is 6 years old, she has blond hair, brown eyes, and brown skin. Her gender and name were decided by vote. Her age and appearance were drawn at random.) We use Twitter to ask research questions of our partners, and the answers allow us to write stories documenting our imaginary friend's experience in another country. Each child has a journal for the project, where they record things they have learned. It being kindergarten, the recording mostly takes the form of drawings. The children dictate text to go with their drawings, and then copy that text onto their pages. We are working on a Prezi presentation to share our learning with parents and other classes. We have made a video to teach our "Indonesia friends" about snow and how to get dressed for recess when it is very cold.

When my team conceived of this project, I knew it was going to be cool. As mentioned in my previous post about Twitter in kindergarten, I love love LOVE that my students are building real connections with other children their own age. This project brought it to another level, by pushing them to imagine themselves in a completely different setting. (As we graph the often FIFTY degree difference in our daily temperatures, I often imagine MYSELF in a completely different setting, too!) I knew that this project was going to take us in unexpected directions, and there is no doubt that it has. In the 3 weeks since it started, we have learned:

• That  a map is  picture of a place, taken from up high, and helps us see where things are.
• That blue parts of a map are always water.
• That when we are at school, our Indonesia friends are sleeping, and vice versa, and that that is because the Earth is rotating, and Canada and Indonesia can't face the sun at the same time.
• That voting is a fair way of making decisions as a group, and that just because something is "fair" doesn't mean that everyone is happy about it.
• That orangutans eat more fruit than any other animal.
• That baby orangutans stay with their mothers for 6 years.
• That adult male orangutans live alone, but still visit their mothers.
• That orangutans can yell so loud you can hear them from 1.5 km away.

(We REALLY got into the orangutans. Our partner school is located close to an orangutan preserve, and once we'd had a virtual fieldtrip using a link they sent, it was all orangutans, all the time...)

• That, shockingly, not only can kindergarten teachers be men (as we have learned from some other Twitter friends), but music teachers can be men, too.
• That in warm climates, many schools have outdoor swimming pools RIGHT AT SCHOOL, and that this is possibly the very coolest thing about Indonesia.
• That "temperature" tells us whether it is hot or cold, and that "weather" tells us what the sky looks like. 
• That "Fanta" is another word for "orange pop."

Every single time we log in, we learn.

And, then, today, we learned about tsunamis. 

Some of my students had heard about the events in Japan on the news, and that Indonesia was among the countries facing a tsunami watch. They were curious and concerned:

What is a tsunami, Mme? It's a big big wave, bigger than you can imagine, big enough to wash away cars and buildings. 

Is it dangerous? Yes, it can be very dangerous.

Could we have one  here? Probably not, because we live a very long ways from the ocean. 

Our Indonesia friends can see the ocean from their classroom, could they have one? Yes, it is possible that they could have one, but the people in charge in their country are watching carefully, and they will evacuate if it looks like a tsunami is coming. 

What is "evacuate?" If something dangerous like a fire or a tsunami or a really bad storm is coming, the police and the army will help people move to safer place until it is okay for them to go back home. 

Where would they go to be safe? They would go somewhere further away from the ocean, probably somewhere higher and drier, until it was safe. 

Can we tell them to come here? They are our friends, we can take care of them, they will be safe with us, and they could go to our school. There's only 6 kids in their class, we have room for six more. Can we please tell them to come here...?

I knew this project would be amazing. I knew it would make me proud. I knew my students and I would learn things I never expected, and that there is magic in learning TOGETHER. 

I didn't know it would be the thing that made a faraway tragedy into something real. I didn't know that it would leave me humbled by my students' simple statements of generosity. I didn't know how REAL those 6 little people, on the other side of the world, were going to become to my 20 little people. 

They are our friends. We can take care of them. They will be safe with us. We have room.

I didn't know that this project would lead me to think that the world might be a far better place if foreign aid and international disaster relief policies were written by five-year-olds. 

They are our friends. We can take care of them. They will be safe with us. We have room.

it's not the world that I am changing

Wow, the response to my last post about tweeting with the munchkins has been nothing short of overwhelming, in the best possible way. After 500+ page views in 3 days, I am a little nervous that NOTHING I write is going to measure up to that.

The attention drawn by that post has made me think A LOT about my online presence. While I do not use my real name here, my real name is "out there." In the last few weeks, all 4 kindergarten classes at my school have created Twitter accounts, and my school community is increasingly aware of my involvement with a Twitter-based PLN of kindergarten teachers. After some soul-searching, I shared my last post (and some other posts ABOUT my post), with my boss. That post may lead to other collaboration opportunities, and collaboration with other ACTUAL PEOPLE does not lend itself well to remaining anonymous... And, of course, at the same time as I was wrestling with all of this, along came the case of Natalie Munroe, who was suspended from her teaching position due to things she wrote in her blog...

So, I have made some changes. I have carefully re-read and re-worded and re-thought anything that mentioned my colleagues, my students, or their parents. While every single word I have ever written here has always come out of love: for the children, and for the profession of teaching, that same love has compelled me to reconsider how to use this space.

It breaks my heart a little - telling honest, messy, complicated, joyful stories about CHILDREN was what compelled me to start a teaching blog in the first place. Writing out my struggles is a tremendous coping tool for me, and I received positive, precious feedback from others who read those stories. While I want to believe that anything I wrote about "my" kiddos always conveyed my heart-breaking love for them, I also love them too much to make them vulnerable here. I have kept the drafts of all of their stories, and perhaps one day will find a means to share them again, in a way that protects both the children and me (ideas, anyone?!).

The post about Twitter has opened up a world of possibility for me, and I am humbled by the recognition I have received for it. It is all a little tainted, though, by knowing that it has come at a cost.
For now: I am hopeful that my voice here will remain my own and that you will continue to read my stories... And, if you are a teacher who blogs: how are you dealing with all this? What is your approach to the questions  of anonymity and confidentiality? What are your thoughts about Natalie Munroe? Remember: anonymous or not, comments are like crack to bloggers!

Happy Sunday to all, and happy long weekend to many.