Group time woes...

Since I didn't get an opportunity to attend Bev Bos' conference this month (hopefully in the summer!) I used the funds to purchase resource books & videos instead. One of them being Bev's "Starting at Square One" video. I've watched it all the way through once now, and re-visited several clips multiple times, then decided to apply my newly rediscovered knowledge (beecause most of it I've heard several times before, on one occasion by Bev herself) to my major challenge at the moment--group time. I warn you, I've spent hours thinking through this & it's not a simple fix, therefore I'm closer to writing a chapter for a book than a blog post. Gee, that's an idea....

Here's what our group time sessions have looked like lately. Ms. Heather pulls out several music CDs. She throws together a few "structured academic activities" to offer and selects a few books she thinks the children might enjoy. Then the children pull up chairs (their choice--not mine) & sit down for group. They usually tell me which songs they want and we start in with one or two. By that time K & N have decided they no longer want to participate in group (an option I do allow) & have pulled their chairs to the back of the room. B & E have fallen off their chairs and are wrestling on the floor. L. is hiding under the table, presumably because I didn't hear her request or didn't respond in a manner she found acceptable. And little D. is sitting silently on my lap, probably wondering what the heck is going on. Ms. Heather herself is sitting there staring at the chaos trying to figure out what she did wrong in the heat of the moment, and getting nowhere.

Which leads to two possibilities the following day, both of which have happened. #1 when I announce it's group time the kids declare "I don't want to do group today" & since it a unanimous decision (myself included, I don't want to deal with the chaos!) we don't. Or #2 the kids declare they don't want to do group today and I become authorarian and declare that we are absolutely doing group, demand that everyone come, review "circle time manners", insist on participation, and become totally stressed out when the kids still don't respond. How are either of these scenarios productive? Obviously they are not. So it's time to revisit my thinking & determine what the root of the problem is.

To begin, I decided I need to determine what I want out of group time. Do I see group as a time to infuse the children with neccesary knowledge? To prove to everyone (parents, children, and myself) that I can control a group of six children without difficulty? To make the children sit still? If this is my focus I can keep going with the authoritarian approach, pull out the tape and make a line for them to sit their chairs on, assign seating so B & E aren't sitting together, insist that K & N leave their chairs where they are, drag L. out from under the table and force her into a chair, and shove D off my lap because that's not appropriate "group time" behavior. I did that last year. I hated it. The kids hated it. It worked, if those were my goals--but they are not.

I want group time to be a chance to build a sense of community. To involve the children in the learning process. To provide times for creative expression, sharing of ideas, a "joining of the minds" so to speak. A chance to dialouge with the kids, to play with the kids, to be silly and occasionally to be serious when the situation calls for it. I want the children to be actively engaged learners, not passive well-behaved little munchkins who can sit still and listen to me talk for 20 minutes. So why isn't this happening? Watching clips of Bev's group time gave me a few clues.

For starters, let's look at the songs I'm selecting. I've been using several CDs with songs that I know children tend to enjoy, and true to the typical pattern the kids do seem to like them. They request the songs they want, and I dig around trying to find the right CD and get it into the CD player. In the meantime, I've lost the kids. I've listend to these songs for 3 years straight. Most of them I know by heart. So it's time to implement Bev's #1 rule for music--no CDs. Let's see how that works (this may be tricky, since I've already trained the children to rely on the CD for direction, but I think we can figure it out). What are the automatic results of instituting this new rule? I am presuming I can pull a song off the top of my head & sing it without that momentary lapse where I am trying to get things "set up". Getting rid of the CDs also allows for further creativity. A CD has the same song, sung in the same way, every time--what fun is that? Take our pizza song for example. We roll out the dough, pour on the sauce, sprinkle on the cheese, slice the pepperoni, add some spices, then put it in the oven. The kids absolutely love this song and request it almost every day. But B doesn't like pepperoni on his pizza, he likes peppers instead. Sorry bud, you can pretend it in your head, but the song doesn't call for peppers. WHY ON EARTH NOT? Ditch the CD, substitute peppers for pepperoni, and B suddenly has ownership of the song. Come to think of it, why do we need to limit it to food? I wonder what would happen if we put race cars on our pizza? What if instead of putting it in the oven we put it in the FREEZER? Wow--all of a sudden a million possibilities have opened up that make the song engaging and interactive, rather than predictable and routine (BORING!!!).

But what about when I want to introduce a new song? Last week I wanted to introduce the song "Harvest Time". In this song the children pretend to harvest potatoes, corn, and pumpkins with hilarious results at the end of each song. To "get the kids ready" I had them color and cut out a picture of each item, so they had something to hold during the song (that makes it interactive, right?). Then I sat them down and told them to be quiet while I played the song. The only one singing along was me, since I'm the only one who knows the song. The others in the group were completely passive except for the parent helper, who showed them which picture to pick up. Guess what happened? B. didn't want a potato, he wanted a pear (are we starting to pick up on a pattern here and notice who my free thinker is?). D hadn't cut his pictures out "properly" and thus was completely lost as to which one to pick up. And L, not surprisingly, was hiding under the table because she'd only colored her potato and I was insiting she pick up her corn.

Let's think about this for a minute. What was the last song I learned? I'm going to have to say it was "The Climb". Guess how I learned it? I heard it on the radio once. The lyrics clicked with me. I hummed along to it. The next time I heard it I had the chourus figured out. A couple times after that I actually sought it out to listen too at which point I discovered it was a Miley Cyrus song--believe me, I would never intentionally have chosen to listen to a song by Miley Cyrus--think what I was missing out on because of my pre-concieved notions! That song "speaks" to me, because I've got plenty of mountains I want to move, and they're not going anywhere. I have ownership of that song because I can picture myself climbing those darn mountains. I can now probably sing the entire song without any help whatsoever, in fact I find myself doing so at random moments throughout the day. Did someone sit me down and say, "Heather, today I am going to teach you a new song. This song is about mountains, so I want you to draw a picture of mountains. Now, let's listen to the chourus of that song....can you sing it with me? Very good, we'll review this song tomorrow at our next group time." If they had I probably would have looked at them like they were crazy. So why am I doing this to my kids?

OK, one problem down, a million more to go. Can you see why I spend hours thinking about what to do in class the next day? It's certainly easier to be authoritarian.

Let's take L's situation, where she consistently hides under the table if she doesn't get "her way", oh goodness, what a terrible and demanding child she is!!! Of course this isn't true. I love how L. can engage with "the boys" even though she is younger than they are. I love how verbal she is, and how she comes up with her own ideas and stands up for them if someone challenges her thinking. I love how eager she is to explore, and how creative she can be! I want her to think of new ways to do thinks and figure out how to make them work. L needs an environment where she is supported emotionally so these traits can grow and develop, making her a more confident, self directed learner. The other day L. brought me a book to read during story time. The book had nothing to do with my 'plan' for the day, but since I'm child-centered I promised her we would get to it after we did x, y, and z. By the time we got to x L. was under the table. She never did come out, and we never did get to the book. The problem isn't L, if it was it would be a simple fix--stick her in the corner until she agrees to come back to group and behave appropriately. The problem is L's emotional needs aren't being met. L doesn't have ownership of x, y, and z--therefore she has no reason to participate in group. Why on earth didn't I drop EVERYTHING and declare, "Wow, that sounds like a great book. I wonder what happens in it? Let's find out!!!" I can absolutely guarentee L. would have listend to the entire book. Instead, I handed the book off to a parent volunteer a couple days later while I dug around for a missing CD, just as a 'filler' while I got ready for our "real" activities. Guess what? L. really REALLY wanted to count the ghosts at the beginning of the book. That's the part of the book that appealed to her. Guess what one of my major "academic" goals for L is? The ability to develop one-to-one correspondance and count to ten. Instead of grabbing ahold of this opportunity to reach that goal, L. ended up under the table. Nothing short of tragic. Thankfully, kids are forgiving, and tomorrow is another day. Next time L brings me a book I know what to do.

Onto B & E. E has been out sick for a couple weeks, so he's readjusting to the class group. B has missed him terribly, and is excited to have him back. The boys spend much of the group time wrestling. Guess what? A few weeks ago B completely ignored E. E was significantly introverted, and prefered to watch activities rather than participate. I spent hours trying to figure out how to get B & E to engage with each other. And now that they are it's ticking me off!!! The problem is obviously with B & E. Don't they know that they are only allowed to engage with each other when it's not group time? For heavens sake...they know I let them wrestle during our work time--why do they have to do it during group? Can't they JUST SIT STILL for 15 minutes??? Back to Bev's clip. CHILDREN ARE NOT MADE TO SIT STILL. B & E aren't hyperactive, ADHD children. They're not behavioral problems who need to be seperated so they don't distract each other. They are normal, healthy rough and tumble boys. The problem isn't B & E, the problem is my expectations for B & E. Both are perfectly capable of engaging in group time when they are interested in what is going on. So let's get them interested. First off, the chairs have to go. I know the kids are the ones choosing them, but this is one of those times I'm going to take that choice away. These boys need to be up and moving, and that's not happening. So get rid of the chairs, give them songs that are going to get them up and moving, or down and rolling around on the floor, or jumping and crawling and laughing and giggling and hugging each other, and maybe even wrestling. That's going to build a sense of community a LOT more than 6 silent, well behaved children....

My inclination is to go on, and on, and on....but I need to stop. I have so many new ideas, but if I implement them all at once I'm going to be overwhelmed. I've got here three new concepts for group time.

1) Get rid of CDs, introduce songs in a more natural way
2) Get rid of chairs--find songs and stories that are going to keep the kids up and moving
3) Give the kids ownership of group time, follow their lead

I'm going to try implementing those concepts next week. And I'm going to revisit them, and see how they work. Then I'm going to adjust them, and implement them, and revisit them again. THEN I'm going to figure out what to do with N, K, and D. And by then hopefully I'll have a couple new kids as well, who are going to completely change the dynamics of the class group so I get to revisit everything all over again!!!
]
Did I mention when you use child centered teaching the process should never be boring??? Because things are constantly changing, it's a new adventure every day!!!