So, one of my regular Saturday morning habits is to check out the Miss Bindergarten Facebook page, and insert my opinion into whatever conversations are happening over there. This week, one of the posts was about recognizing The International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO*) in class. (Full disclosure: we did not acknowledge it in my class, because a) we did not have school on May 17, and b) I didn’t know about it until the actual day, and c) it is very very clear to me that this is the sort of occasion that should be discussed with my admins in advance.) While I absolutely agree that there is not a straightforward answer to the question of whether and how to best acknowledge this even in kindergarten, the intensity of the negative responses startled and alarmed me. Most of the responding teachers felt it was completely inappropriate to even acknowledge the day in their classrooms, that this was something only parents should discuss with their children. Many of the answers seemed based on teachers’ own beliefs or discomfort with the topic, not on thoughtful, reflective consideration of what our role as educators is in regards to civil rights and social justice. There were many comments about how the classroom is not a place for activism. Really?
*I really really hope that it is no accident that the acronym for this day is also the name of one of the most conservative western states. A big fat BRAVO to whoever came up with that. I love it.
We MUST talk to our children about civil rights, in all their forms. We must plant the seeds of awareness, tolerance, acceptance, and justice. This is our ethical responsibility. Teaching children that it is okay (not only “okay”, but WONDERFUL) for ANYONE to love ANYONE is not about imposing our own personal activism into our classrooms, it is about making our classrooms safe for children of all backgrounds. Our first and most primary responsibility is to ensure that our students feel safe within the walls of our classrooms. They have to feel that the way they (and their families) are is OKAY (and not only “okay” but WONDERFUL). And even if you are very very sure that none of your students have gay parents, are you very very sure they don’t have a gay uncle, a lesbian aunt, a neighbourhood playmate with 2 moms, an older brother who has a boyfriend? ARE YOU VERY SURE ABOUT THAT? Are you very very sure that none of them already have a sense of whether they will fall in love with someone of their own gender? Because, statistically speaking, you have at least one child in your class who is gay.
Children notice the things we do NOT talk about as much as the things we do talk about. This is why I talk about skin colour as openly and off-handedly as I talk about hair colour and eye colour in my class. If I never acknowledged that SKIN comes in as many (if not more) colours than hair or eyes, I would be sending a message that somehow, skin is different. Skin matters more. A five year old’s observation that “My skin is brown, and Andy’s is sort of yellowy-beige” has no more weight than the observation that ”My eyes are blue, and Joey’s are grey.” If we refuse to talk about anything other than “traditional” heterosexual relationships, that silence has weight. We are sending a message about what is “normal,” what is “acceptable,” what is “okay.” And in doing so, we may be telling a student that his parent, her sibling, his cousin, her babysitter, is not normal, not acceptable, not okay. Worst of all, we may be telling a student that WHO HE OR SHE IS is not okay.
If talking about equal rights for all, regardless of who you love, is “inappropriate activism,” then so is your silence.
One of the arguments raised was that it is not possible to talk about sexual orientation without talking about sex, and that, if we are talking about same-sex relationships, we are automatically talking about sexual orientation. Really? When we read “Cinderella” and we talk about Cinderella falling in love with Prince Charming, are we talking about sex? I certainly hope not. When I read the book about Junie B Jones being (almost) a flower girl at her aunt’s wedding, am I talking about what Junie B’s aunt DOES on her wedding night? Definitely not. This is not about sex. This is about love, and family, and dignity.
When my class learns about Dr. Martin Luther King, we talk about how, at that time, children with different coloured skin were not allowed to go to the same schools, eat in the same restaurants, or swim in the same pools, and that Dr. King fought to change those rules because they were unkind and unfair. If I was talking to them about gay rights now, I would talk about how, anyone, boy or girl, is allowed to fall in love with anyone, boy or girl, and that, in our country, any adult is allowed to marry any other adult who wants to marry them**. I would also talk about how there were people who fought hard to change the rules so that they could marry the person they loved, and that those people, like Dr. King, are heroes because they fought hard to make our country a more fair and loving place. See? I managed to say all of that WITHOUT A SINGLE MENTION OF SEX!!!
Most teachers (at least, I certainly hope that most teachers) make an effort in their classrooms to remove gender stereotypes. We jump all over phrases like “pink is a girl colour” and “only boys can be firemen.” We encourage children of both genders to play with all kinds of toys, to try all kinds of projects. We repeatedly, loudly, tell our students that gender does not determine what colour, toys, games, a child can love.
Why on earth would we (even passively) allow them to believe that gender determines what PERSON they can love?
**I want to acknowledge that the simple reality of living in a country where the question of same-sex marriage was put to legal rest nearly 10 years ago does help simplify this conversation for me. I recognize that this question is exponentially more difficult for my colleagues in places where gay rights are still controversial, but I would argue that, in those places, it is even more important to ensure that our students know it is perfectly okay (not only “okay,” but WONDERFUL) to love anyone they want.
Ok, so it is blizzarding to beat hell outside, and so OBVIOUSLY, I spent the morning with the fireplace, a vanilla latte, and my iPad. Both my google reader and my Pinterest feed were fully loaded, and I honestly don’t remember what led me to this:
I know.
Playdough with 2 easy ingredients, one minute, NO COOKING? Not even boiling water?
I pinned it (because: of course I did.), and tweeted it out to my #kinderchat posse.
Of course, everyone was immediately skeptical. And the comments section of the original post report mixed results. So, what the hell: snowy Sunday, 2 ingredients – I tried it.
Ingredients: 1 cup regular white flour. Several big swirly squirts of Dawn, (original blue) dishwashing liquid soap. I wonder if a cheaper, more watery brand would make a softer dough…
Process: Put flour in bowl. Add big squirt of soap. Mix with hands until all the liquid is combined. Repeat until it is one lump of dough and not an assortment of crumbs. (I used progressively smaller squirts as it got closer and closer to being dough.)
Once it was one big lump, I pulled it out of the bowl and kneaded on the counter until it was all the same colour and texture. (The colour was sort of light-toothpastey blue. I didn’t add any other food colour, but I’m sure you could.)
Findings:
(The picture makes it look more crumbly and dry than it really was. I never pretended to be a photographer.)
Unexpected advantages:
Possible pitfalls:
Verdict: I would totally make it with kids. I think they would like the process and the product. Flour and liquid soap are pretty easy to come by. It would also be a good one to keep in mind if you do not have kids, but have friends with kids who ever visit you. You could be the coolest auntie/uncle/grownup IN THE WORLD!
So, there you go. Now, it’s your turn – make yourself some soapdough and let me know how it goes!
It’s all #kinderchat‘s fault.
I didn’t teach about Dr. King until the first year of #kinderchat, which was also the first year I started tweeting with my class. I don’t know why, exactly. I knew who Dr. King was. The text of “I have a dream” gave me tears and goosebumps, and had since the first time I read it. When Obama was elected, I blogged (on my now-defunct personal blog) about the road that led from one African-American little girl braving death threats to go to kindergarten at a “white” school, to 2 African American little girls getting to know their new home – the White House. (A house built on the backs of slaves. Let’s talk about goosebumps for a minute, right?)
And then #kinderchat happened. And my class started tweeting with kids all over the world. And a #kinderchat friend (probably @mattbgomez, but maybe @havalah) shared the link to Martin’s Big Words…. And I thought: “Huh. If they’re teaching five-year-olds this stuff, I can, too.” Martin’s Big Words helped give me THE WORDS I needed to teach them. And so, I taught my class of highly privileged, relatively sheltered, largely caucasian, Canadian kindergarten students about Dr. King. They talked about their learning with twitter friends all over the world. They were so PROUD to know about something so important, it brought tears to my eyes.
I have taught about him ever since.
This year, a parent asked me (kindly, respectfully, appropriately) about my reasons for teaching such a clearly American topic to my Canadian kids. I stumbled at first… “It’s not really a HISTORY lesson… It’s more about the underlying themes…”
And then, I got my footing: “It’s powerful for kids to learn about a hero who didn’t fight with fists or guns. Whose “power” was words.”
The parent got it: “A superhero with WORD power!” (My class this year is ALL ABOUT superheroes.)
Exactly.
When you think about it, everything a kindergarten student is learning is about WORDS: reading, writing, getting along with other people. All require WORDS. I’m not sure they always believe us when we talk about how IMPORTANT words are: to read them, write them, sound them out, USE them when they are angry. When you’re five, fists seem a whole lot easier than all these mysterious WORDS. But… Dr. King’s story is about how WORDS can change the world.
The year that Billy was in my class, a phrase emerged from our class discussion about Dr. King: “The strongest part of Martin’s body was his words.” (I love that the kids are on a first-name basis with Dr. King. This charms me every year.) Billy was the kind of child who rarely used words. He used his fists, his feet, his fingers, knees, elbows, shoulders, for everything from expressing emotions to (sadly ineffective) attempts at connecting with others. Billy had the kind of mind that seems bottomless, where, once you slipped an idea past the still surface of his face, you never knew where, or when, or whether, that idea would make contact with anything solid.
The strongest part of Martin’s body was his words.
Somehow, Billy grabbed on to that phrase. He chewed on it like bubblegum, all day. When the kids wrote in their journals about Dr. King, that was the caption he chose for his picture. He initiated conversation about it at lunch with his friends. He muttered it to himself while he played with cars. Later, while I sat with him on a time-out (likely for a situation in which he had FAILED to use words), he repeated it. The strongest part of Martin’s body was his words.
The next day, Billy’s mom reported that he had insisted on watching the Martin’s Big Words video with her that evening. He had made the whole family talk about Civil Rights at dinner. He wanted to go to the library and get more books about Martin. Remember, this is a five year old. A five year old with a face that usually barely registered a flicker of interest or emotion.
I wish I could say that Billy stopped hitting after that, that Dr. King cured him. That would make a great story, wouldn’t it? But that is not the truth of things. There were many more rough patches that year. Hitting. Pushing. Rock-throwing. Pinches so sharp and sneaky that other children cried without any clue what had just happened to them.
But the phrase remained.
Months later, walking with Billy to get the milk for lunchtime. “Mme? The strongest part of Martin’s body was his words.” No greater context. This was the way with Billy.
“Yes, Billy. That is what made Martin a hero. He helped make things better without fists or guns. He used words – words of love – to change things he thought were wrong.”
“Yep. And the strongest part of his body was his words.”
And then, yesterday morning, in my classroom doorway: Billy’s mom.
“I know what day it is, and what you’ll be teaching. These are for you.”
In her hands, 2 heart-breakingly beautiful, brand-new picture books, about Dr. King and the Civil Rights movement.
“Billy still talks about this lesson. Thank you.”
And so, yes, I teach Canadian kindergartners about Dr. King. Because we never know which words will be the ones that break the surface, that reach the bottom, that make contact with something buried so deep you weren’t even sure it was actually there.
Oh crap, that’s right, I HAVE A BLOG!
Hello friends. I know you have all been losing sleep, wondering what has happened to your beloved Miss Ni… Oh, who am I kidding?! You all have been living your lives, most of you teaching your kiddos, getting by just fine without me. Let’s all be honest here for a minute, and admit that one of the strongest realities of this line of work is how completely the day-to-day nitty-gritty can consume us – to a point that it seems we blink, and suddenly it is the end of October.
CAN I GET AN AMEN ON THAT?! (Or a what-what, or a whoop-whoop, or a hallelujah, or a hell-ya, or whatever exclamation of agreement you prefer…?)
Anyway, have no fear: I am back, with a great question from a reader we will call NE. NE is new to kindergarten, and is struggling with transition times. She says:
Well, since this is my first experience with Kindergarten I have no expectations of what is going to happen but here’s something I’m struggling with. My dismissal time routine is really rough as is right after lunch. With our schedule we eat lunch then start math. What are some attention grabbers you use to help keep the attention of your students? After unstructured time (lunch) my class is really wild and hard to settle down……
When I dismiss, I dismiss bus students then have the walkers get their backpacks from their lockers. As I’m watching for parents another unstructured time, the students seem to be wild and not wanting to read or do a puzzle.
First, dear NE, please know you are not alone. Dealing with transitions is one of the hardest part of teaching little ones. Even the most angelic group of kiddos can seem to turn into a whole other species at the times of day when there is more than one thing going on at once, or when they are waiting for the next thing to start. To make things worse, transitions often seem to happen at times of day when kids are tired (Post-recess! After lunch! End of the day!) and/or hungry (Pre-lunch! Before snack! End of the day!) And, even when you have GREAT transition routines, there are still random days where those in-between times go back to being a 3-ring circus of chaos, and all you can do is breathe through them. The good news is: by their very definition, transition times MUST come to an end.
That said, there are things you can do to help things go more smoothly. Since it has been several weeks since you submitted your question, you may have discovered some of these, or stumbled into other solutions. I’m also going to ask the readers to share their best tips and tricks in the comments, since they are ALWAYS much smarter than me!
My first approach would be to eliminate as many transitions as possible. Look critically at any time of day when you are asking the entire group to stop one thing, come together, and than start another thing. Is there a way to change it, or to create a routine that has less stop-and-start. My favourite example of this is doing snack as a centre rather than a whole-group activity: during my afternoon play centres, one table is designated as the snack centre, where children can choose to eat whenever they are hungry. This saves me multiple transitions – from play to cleanup to hand-washing to snack to cleanup to bag-packing. Instead, we just do play to cleanup to packing. So, for your lunch-to-math transition, is there a way to have a routine allowing each child to finish lunch, clean up, and start a math routine of some kind, without having to wait for everyone? A math journal? A designated shelf of math-related games or manipulatives? Something they can start independently, but that is not mandatory, so that the slow eaters can skip it if needed.
My second piece of advice would be to consider the noise level, as transitions are a time when it is WAY too easy for kids to get sucked into an escalating spiral of LOUDNESS, where the LOUDNESS makes them speak LOUDER to be heard over the LOUDNESS which makes everything LOUDER… you can see where I am going with this. While I am not a huge fan of making children be silent, a “no talking” rule, when used sparingly, can help kids focus on the task at hand, and develop the self-regulation to move through a particularly difficult transition. My current group has been struggling with the “getting ready for recess” routine (we are already into snow pants and heavy coats and boots and hats and mittens), and just last week we instituted a “no talking until you are dressed” rule. It is not my favourite, and will not be the rule forever, but right now it is helping them stay focused on details like “MITTENS GO LAST.” So, for you, NE, are there times where a temporary “no talking” or “whispers only” rule would help create a habit of calm and focus?
My final addition to a transition tool kit is songs and chants. Songs, poems, and fingerplays are your best weapon at any time that some of the kids are waiting for others to be ready, or when ALL the kids are waiting for an event or activity. Sing, sing, sing. Find songs for the transitions themselves (like a cleanup song), and sing songs while you wait. If half the kids are at the circle and the other half are still wrapping up lunch, start singing with the carpet kids. It will keep them out of trouble, and the slower cleaner-uppers will hurry to join you. SInging a familiar song at steadily decreasing volume can help bring a group together and quiet, so you can start instruction without battling chatter.
There you go, NE: my three best techniques for taming the transition monster. Now, awesome readers, please share your brilliance in the comments, because I KNOW you know way more things than me.
And don’t worry, i won’t leave you hanging this long again!
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