I commute by bicycle every day. Because my safety depends on my extreme vigilance of both motorists and pedestrians, I spend a somewhat considerable amount of time and energy every day carefully observing the behavior of other people on the road and sidewalks. A few weeks ago, as I was biking across a college campus, it struck me that nearly every single pedestrian I passed was looking at their smartphone as they walked....
A question has been nagging at my mind for a few months. I don’t know when it crept up on me–perhaps after a guided visit with kindergarteners that didn’t go as well as I had hoped–but I found myself questioning whom the art museum is designed for. With its stark, white walls, challenging label text, and lack of multisensory stimulation, it’s certainly an environment that would be alien to many young children....
I recently picked up a copy of Celia Genishi and Anne Haas Dyson’s Children, Language, and Literacy: Diverse Learners in Diverse Times from the library. This book caught my eye as I was browsing the stacks, the title suggesting that its pages might help me grapple with some of the questions I’ve encountered this past school year while working with young learners. As I read chapter two, “Standardized Language, Standardized Childhood,” I began to search for examples of what Genishi and Dyson described in my own experience....
What is my philosophy of education? I love the sentiment that R. Murray Schafer conveys in this statement: “Do not design a philosophy of education for others. Design one for yourself. A few others may wish to share it with you.” To me, this reinforces the learning that, as a teacher, I share with my students. I think one of the main reasons that I love to teach is that I also love to learn....
For the five-year-old, art is life and life is art. For the six-year-old, life is life and art is art. The first school-year is a watershed in the child’s history: a trauma. R. Murray Schafer, introduction to “The Rhinoceros in the Classroom” Schafer includes these words in a list of reminders to himself and other educators. He isn’t simply observing that five- and six-year-olds experience art differently; he is calling upon educators to preserve the five-year-old’s sensibility....