The choice of chat topic is the teacher-child balance act... this is something that I have been thinking a great deal about - and I have been looking back through my blog to see what posts I could share to get people thinking... to provoke thought one way or another...
So this post is not so much an exploration of that balance... but a series of links to posts that relate to the balance of teacher-child... so why not take the time to read as many or as few as you like... and then join Laurel and myself next Saturday to explore what it is all about...
Scaffolding - this post is exploring why we have rules and routines... and how the children need to be involved in the process.
What about me? - an exploration of whther it is OK for adults to get angry too... what is the balance with emotions
Do Templates Kill creativity? - How much adult preparation is appropriate? How do we get the balance right?
Collaboration Between adults and children - the artwork collaboration of an artist and her child got me thinking... about how much should an adult create with a child... does it harm a child's creativity?
To help or not to help? - a post exploring the benefits of stepping back as a teacher and letting the children work it out for themselves... finding the helping balance
If you can't beat them join them - letting the children inspire the play... but in an appropriate way
Does boredom give birth to creativity? - an exploration of time and creativity and boredom... and balancing how much space we give children.
Thinking about the comptent child again - I keep coming back to this theme of what is a competent child... because it is very much about the balance of teacher-child. How much do they already know, what can I expect of them, and what is appropriate - too much teaching, too little? It requires contant listening to find the balance...
A bit more thinking about the competent child - this continues the thinking... especially after being in dialogue with others... this post was fresh after meeting Debi Keyte-Hartland.
Childhood - of course it then came down to childhood... maybe it wasn't the word competent I need to work out, but the word child... and what has that come to mean... do I need to understand my relationship with that word (and the relationship of others with that word) to be able to fine tune my teacher-child balance?
The competent child- inspiration from Alsion Gopnik - mixing ideas of child and competent with a huge helping of Gopnik.
Progettazione - thinking about projects... - this post was inspired by Diane Kashin... and has a focus on the role of the teacher... very much an important part of the child-teacher balance...
Malaguzzi's Three Children - and exploration not only of the three children... but also what the three teacjers would be ... the balnce teacher-child
Making Decisions - the process of supporting the children to be more active in the planning and decision making of preschool... and really I need to write a new post about this... to reflect on how it has all turned out 6 months later... as it has been a great learning journey together
Child perspective and Child's Perspective - looking at the difference between having a child perspective and looking at things from a child's perspective... and how this makes a difference on the child-teacher balance
Learning to Listen - really, it would not be right if I did not include at least one post about listening... as I think this is an ESSENTIAL part of the child-teacher balance.
OK... so that should get you going...
We have many new students and find that this new group is so inquisitive and yearning to know more. We are ramping up our provacations to meet their needs.
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