Teaching to Strength

EDUC6358: Strategies for Working with Diverse Children “Building on Children’s Strengths”

Program Transcript

[MUSIC]

NARRATOR: How can we truly foster children's healthy development and learning? Why is it vital that early childhood professionals focus on children's strengths, rather than deficits? What does it mean to say that the image of a child is co-constructed? Early childhood educator Janis Keyser responds.

JANIS KEYSER: The way teachers think about children, the way they perceive them, the things that they believe about children, effect everything they do with children. They effect their interactions, the planning, the environment, the curriculum. And when teachers come from a place of thinking of children as strong, competent, and capable, their teaching encourages children to grow and develop. When teachers come from a place, as many of us have come from a place, of thinking of children as needing to be taught, deficit, and lacking in some kind of a way, our approach is different.

And I want to think today about what's the difference. What happens for children when we hold a strong image of them as capable, competent, self-motivated, interested, initiative takers, curious. Versus a model of thinking of children as not knowing what they need to know, not having internal motivation, not being interested or curious. So I want to think with teachers about how we can see children, how we can build an image of a child. It's interesting that the image of the child is really co-constructed between teachers, children, and families. And without all of those voices we can't really know who children are. We're in a constant state of discovery, observation, documentation, reflection. To think about who are children, what strengths and capabilities do they bring to our learning teaching relationship? And in that learning teaching relationship, everybody's a learner, and everybody's a teacher, everybody's a researcher.

So I want to talk a little bit about what happens when we fall in the place of thinking of children as lacking, coming to the learning table lacking. Unfortunately many of our assessment tools work that way, we try to figure out what children don't know so that we can make sure that we can catch up, and we can teach them what they don't know. And what's interesting-- I was talking about strength based learning in a class. And I often ask parents or teachers or children, whoever I'm with, to say talk about your strengths. What do you know, what are you good at, and then I say, and what are your challenges? And sometimes I say, why did I ask this? Why did I ask you about your strength and your challenges? And a student raised his hand and he said, our strengths leverage our challenges.

And so it's from that place, it's almost like strengths provide the scaffold upon which we can build. And if we spend as much time thinking about what kind of a learner is this child, where are their strengths, where are their interests, where are their natural motivations, as we spend thinking about where could they go next. What else could they learn? We're going to really build strong and competent learners.

Interesting that when we work with young children, and we come from a place of punishment or shame or criticism, the experience that young children have is feeling scared. Unsure, unconfident, inadequate, and not really safe to take the kinds of risks that they need to take to learn well. If we help children build a picture of themselves as competent learners, with good ideas, then they're ripe. They're ready to take on any challenge in the world. They become so curious, they become so interested in very hard tasks.

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I was with babies the other day and they were crawling down the slide, and one turned around and wanted to start to crawl up the slide. And it was fascinating because it was harder in some ways. And yet, you could just see the child challenging themselves to do it in a more complicated way, in a harder way. And that was that child's own motivation, nobody said now you should try to do it this way. And so we want to try to create the context in which children get in touch with their own ideas, their own motivation. And in which we become facilitators, co-researchers, co- constructors of the curriculum, and learn along with children.

We can talk a little bit about some of the places we get kind of stumped, or hung up as teachers. And so one of the things I want to think about is, how do we hold the children, hold that idea about any behavior a child does, as evidence of the fact that they have a good idea? Even when the behavior isn't something we can support, or something we want to continue. Even when it's hurtful to other children.

There was another child in the group who greeted every child by coming in just exuberant in the morning, and pushing every child down, and laughing. And the teachers were stumped. But they were watching carefully, because they wanted to see what it seemed like his idea was. What he was thinking about, what he was trying to do, and trying to accomplish. And they noticed that he was laughing, and he truly seemed joyful except he seemed a little confused that he wasn't being met with equal joy. When children would fall down or cry, he would have sort of a puzzled look on his face and then he'd go try somebody else. Let me try it with you! And the teachers, with their own observations, couldn't quite figure out what his good idea was. And so they very soon had a conversation with the family. Tell me about your family, how does your family play. These are some of the things that we're seeing your child do here, can you help us understand what his context is. And how he plays at home, and some things that we can then have to help us understand. And they learned that the family is very physical, does lots of wrestling, lots of older siblings. And going up and pushing somebody down, and laying on top of them, and tickling them, or laughing with them, is a really appropriate way to play.

So the teachers had a really different idea about who this child was, from that context. We cannot figure out what's going on with children without that partner of the family. Without hearing from the family about what's important to you, what are your goals for your child, what do you know about your child. Way before a child even shows up in a program, teachers and administrators can reach out to families and say, tell us about your family. Tell us about your child. Question after question about, how does your child express themselves? What does sadness look like? What is their schedule? But what does sleepy look like, and how do you help them sleep? And what do you hope, what are your goals for your child? What are you hoping they're going to learn in this program? What's important to your family? Are there special events that are important to your family? All of that kind of information.

There's two things. One, when we ask families those kinds of questions we begin to establish-- there's a statement there-- we begin to establish the notion that we need to hear from you. We can't do the best care and education for your child, without your active voice. This is the beginning of our dialogue, and we're going to continue to have that dialogue. At drop off and pick up time, in home visits, in parent conferences, times when you come and just hang out in the classroom. We're going to have a chance to get to know each other better, and to more fully understand what happens with your children.

Recently teachers have put together a series of images of children, and their playing, their investigation in the classroom. Brought them to a parent meeting and asked parents, what do you see? What do you think children are working on? What are they learning? How might you help us think about extending the curriculum, extending the environment, to deepen children's questions, to deepen their investigation. That voice is essential without those perspectives, without those

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families perspectives. And it's sweet, also, to get some families perspectives on other children as well as their own. Because that gives you again a wider diversity of perspectives, a different way of thinking about things.

A child's identity is constructed within their family, within their culture, within their ethnicity, within their language, within their family structure, within their home relationships. And it's our job to partner with families in promoting that identity. In helping that child continue to build on that strong sense of self. We need to know what language the family speaks at home. If we can't hook that child up with a teacher, maybe we could hook them up with another family in a classroom that speaks the same language. And encourage those families to speak that language in the classroom. To make it so clear to them that, that language is a gift. Not only to their children, but to all of the children in the classroom who get to know another way of communicating in the world, and get to learn another way of being in the world.

Families in the classroom are an important aspect in many different parts of building curriculum. One of the things I often tell families, when I invite them to come and spend time in the classroom, is this will help your child begin to explore the classroom from the safety of you. It will help you know what the teachers do, the culture of the classroom, who the other children and families are. But most important, it helps the teacher begin to know you and begin to know your relationship with your child. It's part of our job as teachers to support and promote that relationship.

To create a kind of consistency between what we do here, and what you do at home. That consistency is supported through ongoing communication, so that I can reference the fact that grandma and grandpa came this weekend. And they helped cook a big meal, and your cousins came. And I may not provide exactly the kind of care that your grandma does, or that your dad does. But the fact that I know it, and I can reference it, and I can talk about it, begins to help the child build an integrated sense of self. It's not like I have one life in my center, in my school, and another life in my home. My life is integrated. The people who are partners in my life respect each other, need each other, two way communication is essential in that relationship. Teachers have all kinds of great information, observations, to share with parents. And equally, parents have essential information to share with teachers. Teachers cannot do the quality care that we want without that input.

I remember as a new teacher, wanting to be as inclusive as I possibly could. I was working with a very diverse group of children and families around ethnicity, language, culture, family structure, many different elements. And I had this dream of sort of studying all I could study about every different culture, and have all the pictures of every different culture on the wall. And then maybe I would be meeting all of these children and families needs. And I slowly over time, over much time, and many patient families helping me understand, that I needed to figure out how to be in dialogue with families. I needed to figure out how to invite families to talk to me, to teach me, to tell me what they knew about their families.

And there's many different venues. Certainly asking questions is a venue. Teachers have inspired me by inviting families to bring in stories, pictures, artifacts to display in the classroom. There's been just this lovely kind of conversation between families who bring in artifacts, and other families come and look and talk. And children are looking and talking. And then another family brings in artifacts. And the way that the relationships not only between the teachers and the families deepen, but between the families and the families deepen in that community really brings a diverse community together.

And I think it's one of the most important ways that anti-bias work happens. How do I meet you as a person? And what is it about culture, and language, and ethnicity, that's unique to you that you

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want to share with me? How do you define it for your family? Because I can't go to some textbook and learn all there is to learn about your culture. I learn it one individual at a time. And if we can create the stage for not only families to share that in the classroom with teachers and children, but with other families, we do our anti-bias work. Not just in our classroom, but it begins to move out from our classroom, out into the world, in terms of the way the families connections with other families build and grow as well.

A teacher friend of mine had a family in her classroom, and she could tell that the mother was unhappy with what was happening in the classroom. And that classroom had an observation booth, and she would see the mother going into the observation booth. And she could tell by her body language that something was bothering her. She could also told by her body language that she wasn't to be asked about it. And so my teacher friend struggled, and thought, and reflected, and wondered, what can I do? Clearly this person's not choosing to talk to me about this, I think I've made myself open, so she went and sat with her in the observation booth. She sat quietly with her. And she said, what do you see? And she began just a very simple conversation, and pretty soon the mother started talking to her about what she saw. Clearly the mother came from a different cultural perspective in terms of, what do you share with people, when do you raise issues, when there's conflict how do you address it. And my friend had to really be thoughtful about creating space within this other person's context for even that person to share with her.

And it was the hardest thing in the world, because in my context and my colleagues context, talking is the way you share. And talking about stuff that's hard, is the way you share. And creating space for that dialogue is the way you learn about other families. But when families are saying to you, that's not the way that I'm going to share who I am, you have to think about other tools. Whether it's observation, whether it's watching the way communication happens in that family, and just seeing if there's a way that you can bridge to really communicating with somebody who has a very different style than your own. This is the exciting part of the work for me, is that as teachers we're continuously growing and learning more. Not only about the people that we're honored to be working with, but about ourselves as researchers and learners. And from this spot, we're in the best position to support the learning of children, and families, and colleagues.

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