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Lead from the Start: The Learning Studio

Monday, November 09, 2009

The Learning Studio

When I walk into a classroom these days I feel like I am walking into a dance studio. I am the only one who isn't moving, learning, expressing, struggling or stretching and as a result, find myself sticking out like a sore thumb. For one, my clothes are too clean. And generally, a clipboard and pen now accompany me. I stand by the door observing, trying not to reflect on how much I'm interrupting by simply doing nothing.

I am enjoying my new job as a Child Development Specialist for Head Start, and some days I feel like I am really making a difference. Like last week, I was able to show a novice teacher how to negotiate the power struggle with a boy who kept pushing. I told her, "He wants to be told no. He wants you to love him by saying no. He wants to know that you won't let him float away." A little modeling on how to connect, some reflection, some follow-up the next day and she was teaching again with a new friend.

I get the feeling that teachers want me to see perfection when I enter their classroom. But there's no such thing as a perfect pre-k class. When I was teaching everyday, my classroom felt a lot like a studio. What happened there was imperfect, unfinished, and always a work in progress. I worked with an instructional assistant so I always had a "partner" to bounce ideas off of, to make sure I wasn't too far off the mark. Now I am by myself when I am "working."

I walk into other teacher's studios. I know they can't be sure how to interact with me. I am a supervisor and I am also too familiar with the imperfections of the classroom. Working in a preschool classroom is one of the most primal experiences you can have in education. I am talking body fluid primal. I am talking pure joy, pure rage, pure uncertainty, cultures clashing, towers smashing, tricycles crashing.

The children shed crocodile tears, Daddy arrested tears, and give me back my doll tears all in a couple minutes. Who am I to judge this chaos but, it's my job.

I could always tell how comfortable a visitor was with this primal experience by how far they came into my classroom. Another pre-k teacher might make it all the way back to the dramatic play area. Most, especially principals and school board members, never made it past the line-up line. The energy, chaos, joy, and terror, stopped them like a moat of tears. It was shallow, but who would want to get their feet wet in "real" teaching when they could just as easily not muddy the waters of their ideals with the human drama and primal experience of real pre-k kids.

I am trying to negotiate this role of supervisor. I wear the micro-politics of my role as a supervisor like a sports coat that is too small. I can see how tight it is, how it doesn't quite fit, and I wonder, does the teacher I am talking to think it doesn't fit either?


image: http://www.metmuseum.org/works_of_art/collection_database/european_paintings/the_dance_class_edgar_degas/objectview.aspx?collID=11&OID=110003530

image: http://www.buzzle.com/img/articleImages/294252-3328-5.jpg

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3 Comments:

At 2:53 PM, Blogger Jonah Holland said...

What a beautiful post. Your writing is like art. Your metaphors are so clear.
Sounds to me like you are being your own harshest critic. They are so lucky to have you. They are.

 
At 12:08 AM, Blogger jindi said...

Traditionally, education has been thought of in terms of a school model. The teacher teaches and the students are

expected to learn. Students are graded on a normal curve with some achieving high grades and others failing. The

assumption is that the teaching is perfect and the only variable is the student's ability to learn. This model is known as

Normative Referenced Instruction. The burden for learning is on the student rather than the instruction.Industry requires

that everyone achieve the level of success needed to perform the job. It is not economically feasible or legally advisable

to fire every person who does not score well on a norm-referenced test. Rather, the objective is to provide instruction

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assumption is that everyone can learn the subject and the burden in on the instructional materials rather than the

students. This model of instruction is known as Criterion Referenced Instruction.Today, industry and the military have

adopted the Criterion Referenced Model where each person must reach a criterion of mastery but everyone does learn

the material. Great emphasis is placed on the instructional material to achieve this result. Poor performance means that

the instruction is not adequate. Because it is recognized that each person will take a different amount of time to reach

criterion, industry has often adopted various forms of self-paced instruction. The idea is that people will not be

constrained by the timing of a classroom or the pace of the slowest person in a group. This is also the reason why

Instructional Design methodology is often focused on Criterion Referenced Instruction and self-paced materials.Note that

the typical online training is both Criterion Referenced and Self-Paced Instruction. Individual users works at their own

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At 1:57 AM, Anonymous early childhood programs said...

I enjoyed your writing!! Your Job is too identical!!

 

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