Access to pre-K for Spanish-speaking children April 27, 2009

Here’s an interesting article about the barriers to getting Latino children into preschool.

I work at a school with a significant Latino population, but in the beginning, when my program was added, I attracted mostly native-English speakers.  Slowly, parents at the school with younger children learned about my classroom, and each year I have more and more children whose first language is Spanish.  (Why oh why did I study French in high school?!)

I’m always proud to send them on to kindergarten, knowing that they will do very well, and that they are much better prepared than their peers.

Ana Solano, who immigrated from Mexico five years ago, was unaware of the importance of early childhood education until the home-based visits began for her 4-year-old daughter, Ana. She said she immediately noticed a remarkable difference between Ana and her older son, Juan Carlos, who had struggled in kindergarten. “I just thought he would pick everything up in school. With Ana, I see how much it helps and how much better off she will be,” she said.

I hope that with a new administration in office, early childhood will get increased funding and attention, and ALL kids who need it, will get access to high quality preschool programs.

pro athletes visiting schools February 18, 2009

As I came in to work this morning, looking at all the favorite book door decorations, and thinking about how I have failed to organize anything else for I Love to Read Month, my mind thought back to a school I worked at long ago.

One day, we had some pro athletes come to school to talk to our kindergartners about reading.  The memory still rankles.

My class had a young man come in to speak who apparently had no real idea of why he was there.  He used the occasion to complain about the leeches in his personal life who were always trying to get money from him, now that he was in the big leagues and making the big bucks.

I’m sure he went to college along the way to pro sports, but it hadn’t seemed to have made much impact.  He rambled on about his personal problems, without any awareness that the five year olds in front of him couldn’t understand anything he was saying.

My students had really hard lives, and really huge needs.  This was the class that played “Call 911, my boyfriend is coming over to kill me” in the house corner.  And here we were, stuck, wasting our time listening to the inane ramblings of an inarticulate, overpaid, undereducated man-boy.

So no, you will not catch me organizing a visit from athletes to talk to students about reading.  Instead, you will find me actually reading to the children.

Princess is learning and growing February 9, 2009

Princess is a totally delightful — if chatterboxy — child.  She just doesn’t know a lot of things.  Speaking in coherent sentences is one of those things, yes, but also colors, numbers, letters, etc..

So it was a wonderful surprise today when I taught the kids the letter Gg and the sound it makes, and then when we went through the letter cards and I got to capital G, Princess was the first one to call out the sound.

She was like that all day.  She actually started paying attention (instead of chattering to herself or her neighbor all through morning meeting) and listening and remembering.  When we sang our new counting to four song, Princess was right there with us.  When we counted the days we’ve been in school (92!), Princess hung in there valiantly.  When we listened to construction noises and had to guess what they were, Princess was the first to identify the hammer sound.

Miss Slinger and I talked about her after the kids went home, and were both so proud of her and the great day she had.

The Prince stands up to me August 20, 2008

Yesterday at our mentor/master teacher meeting, we met Wonder Woman’s replacement, and at her request, went through our end of the year notes on what worked, what didn’t, and what we want to do differently this year.  I was rather pointed in my concerns — lack of leadership, bad test scores, being at the final stage under No Child Left Behind — and the Prince gave me a bit of a smackdown.

It was great.

I’m not sure that any one else at the table knew what was going on, as it was between the lines, but it was clear that he was talking about me, and about Wonder Woman, as he expressed his concerns about gossip and negativity (zing!  that might totally be true) and he pointed out that our test scores are not getting worse, they’re just not increasing fast enough to meet NCLB’s moving targets.

So suddenly I was rethinking things, like perhaps Wonder Woman was too negative about the school, and perhaps I was too quick to agree with everything she said, and….maybe I was wrong.  And as for our scores, and our AYP status, he may be right that we are improving (just not quickly enough), and that the district has no plans to shut us down.

I was delighted to have him show some spine, and some anger, and to see that he is fighting.

So, I decided to be on his side.  And I’m not bummed about going back to work anymore.

Adequate yearly progress August 6, 2008

My school has not made it off the list.  We’ve been on it for years and now we have arrived at the last stop, restructuring.

Why haven’t we made it off the list?  Is it our failure?  Did our mentoring program fail us?  Or is one year too short a time to make changes?  Would replacing the staff help or hurt?  Is it impossible to make it off the list, given our demographics (large numbers of children who fall into one or more of these categories:  poverty, special ed, African American, Hispanic, English Language Learners)?

What will the Prince, our kind and well-meaning principal, do with this information?  What will he tell us at the beginning of the year?  Will he tell us, as he has each preceeding year, not to worry about it?  Or will he get serious, set standards, hold teachers accountable, and start fighting?

And how am I going to let go, emotionally?  My summer is draining away rapidly, I still have things to cross off my summer to-do list, and I feel like I’m about to go over a waterfall.

Why I teach preschool (instead of kindergarten) August 4, 2008

Splatypus’s comment about my last post got me thinking about the days when I taught kindergarten in one high-poverty school after another.

Kindergarten can be high-stress for a teacher.  And not just because her students are living in poverty and have all the problems that go with poverty.  Kindergarten can be high-stress because districts are now putting a lot of pressure on the teachers to close the achievement gap and produce results. 

Your kids should be doing these things at the start of the year, and if they’re not, you better catch them up.  Then in January you better show these test results, and by the end of the year, they better know how to do every single one of things things on this long list here.

When I taught kindergarten, my children showed up years behind, and I had to try to get them through all the educational and social experiences that they missed in the first five years of their lives, plus get them through kindergarten to be ready for first grade.  In many instances, it wasn’t possible.  I would be trying to teach the kids to read and they would go to the bathroom and not come back.  I’d go see what they were doing, and find them at the sink, lost in rapture, playing with water and bubbles.  When they were toddlers, they never got to play with water and bubbles, and here they were, making up for lost time.

I tried really hard to teach preschool and kindergarten simultaneously, but that was hard.  I tried to be their teacher, their mother, their father, their social worker, their therapist, and their disciplinarian, but that was hard, too. 

I went home every day feeling like a failure.

Now I teach prekindergarten, and while I work with a similar demographic, it’s a different experience entirely.  My kids come to me missing all sorts of things they should have gotten in the first four years of their lives, sure, but for some reason, getting them one year earlier makes a world of difference.

I can get them through preschool, and I can get them ready for kindergarten.  In fact, I can send them off to kindergarten even a little bit ahead of the game.

I go home every night feeling like a success.

So that’s why I’m a preschool teacher.

(image from superdairyboy.com via Google images)

a beautiful blog July 16, 2008

I just want to give a shout out to Jolayne over at Urban Preschool.  Her blog is mysterious and beautiful.  Preschool meets design with wonderful results.  Check it out here.

I know a school board member July 14, 2008

She lives in my neighborhood.  I saw her earlier this evening and after we chatted about vacations she asked, “how are things at work?”

So I told her. 

The whole truth – about our test scores, and good people jumping ship, and the principal not providing the leadership we need, and about the culture of the staff being to ignore reality and resist change.

I feel oddly giddy.  We’ll see what happens.

Who needs preschool? July 14, 2008

Does your child need to go to preschool before kindergarten?  Does every child need to go?  What do kids need to learn before kindergarten, anyway?

I think preschool is great, but it isn’t necessary for everyone.  If you are raising your child at home, and you’re reading to her, talking to her, playing with her, taking her interesting places, counting with her, doing art with her, and getting her together with other children regularly, then your child is probably fine skipping preschool and going straight to kindergarten when she’s five.

Here are some skills that will help your child be successful in K:

• speak in sentences
• recognize name
• write name (at least a few letters)
• count to 30 without mistakes
• count 10 objects accurately
• identify basic colors and shapes
• recognize at least 10 letters of the alphabet
• know at least 4 letter sounds
• draw a recognizable picture of something
• listen to a story attentively
• follow two-step directions
• know how to solve problems (he took my crayon, I forgot my lunch box, I can’t find my cubby, etc)
• be able to play cooperatively with other children

A child can get those things at home, or she can get them at preschool.  It depends on the parents and what they are able to give.  So if you’re a stay-at-home mom and you don’t want to send your child to preschool, then don’t.

If you’re a work-outside-the-home mom and your child goes to daycare, no worries.  As long as you’ve chosen a high-quality daycare center, your child will do very well.  My sons went to a wonderful Montessori daycare center, and they arrived at kindergarten way ahead academically.  Your child will pick up what she needs in the preschool room, and will be ready for K emotionally, socially, and academically.

As for universal preschool, I do think we need it.  Not to make all children go, but to provide it to the children who need it most, who otherwise will arrive at kindergarten already far, far behind.  Preschool is critical for those children. 

Some of them are my students, and it feels like an honor to be their teacher.

Organizing school supplies July 11, 2008

I once worked at a school where every teacher had a plastic shoebox for each student to keep their school supplies in, and it was clear I was expected to do that, too. 

So I went out and paid for twenty-four plastic shoeboxes, and then tried to find room for them.  When the kids arrived, they each brought their own box of crayons, box of pencils, box of markers, pair of scissors, glue stick, and glue bottle, and I helped them put their things in their shoeboxes.

I had misgivings the whole time, which were borne out by experience.  Whenever we wanted to do an art project, all the kids had to go to the shelf to get their boxes, and would crowd and push and fight to do so.  Then we had to make space on the tables (and floors) for all those boxes, and then the kids would fight over items left on the table:  “that’s my crayon!”  “No, that’s MINE!”  Pretty soon their glue sticks were dried out and their glue bottles were empty, and the crayons were lost and broken.  No one had money to replace these things, and as this was the year that I lost a child every few weeks and got a total of twenty-four new ones (they arrived every few weeks, and the last one showed up in May), none of the new ones brought supplies, either.

I couldn’t — and still can’t — figure out how this system worked for the other teachers.  I junked it, and went to the system I use to this day.

Each August I send out a supplies letter asking the parents to send their child on the first day with a backpack (which they can get free at our open house), two spiral notebooks for journals, and $5.00.  I use the money I collect to help pay for our supplies, which I then buy in bulk:  crayons, markers, glue, glue sticks.  (I bought the scissors long ago and still have them all.)

As we have 5 tables, we have 5 baskets for crayons, 5 for markers, and 5 for pencils, all of which go in designated (labeled) spots in the writing center.  When we do a whole-class activity, one basket each of pencils, crayons, and markers (as needed) gets placed in the center of each table by a teacher or student-helper at set-up time.

I have bins on the art shelf for the scissors, glue, and glue sticks, which go in a central location for the children to pick up when they need them for a whole-class activity.  At centers time, the children who need markers, pencils, scissors, etc. know where to find them, and where to put them away.

(As any early childhood teacher knows, putting out the scissors and glue on the table along with the markers means the children will start gluing first without doing any coloring.  I only put out what they need, and disctracting supplies are set aside to be picked up only when they are needed.)

I know teachers who set up nice divided bins at the center of each table at the beginning of the year, with all the supplies needed, and then keep them on the table all year long.  They tend not to refill broken or used-up supplies, and get frustrated with the kids for not taking better care of them.  By early spring the children are fighting over the few remaining markers that work.

I teach my four year olds how to put caps on markers and glue sticks, and how to close glue bottles, but I realize they’ll only have limited success.  As things get used up, I replenish them.  The children need working materials, and it isn’t fair if they are expected to write books and letters and stories and draw pictures and make collages (and so on) without them.

Set-up and clean-up are easy, and as everything is clearly labeled, the children know how to fetch and put away whatever they need, and lack of supplies (or crowding around one shelf) never becomes an issue.