What We Learn From Teaching Children


Tracy Caldera is a kindergarten teacher in Livingston, New Jersey, who has learned many lessons from teaching her young students.

"Learning is a relative term," she says. "I had a student once who had a terrible home situation. He was barely able to communicate at all. He couldn't perform many of the basic tasks most children can perform. He couldn't say my maiden name, which was Tenacia—he called me Natno the whole year. But by the end of the year he had learned to speak up and to organize his thoughts. While the other children were beginning to read and write, he was finally able to sit and color and to put a puzzle together. What he learned may have been on a smaller scale than what the other children learned, but it was a huge accomplishment for him. It taught me to appreciate what it took for him to accomplish what might seem like a small goal, but was actually a huge goal for him.

"I've learned two important things from teaching children. One is that there are many different ways to look at things. An adult can look at a tree and say, 'Oh, that's pretty.' A child will look at the tree and say, 'That's a beautiful home for squirrels.' Children always have a fresh way of looking at things, a refreshing point of view. The second thing I've learned is to have enthusiasm for the simple things in life. I'm now teaching my class about duckling eggs. It's amazing to watch how excited they get, how curious they are. You see that they can learn the terminology we know, and they can use the vocabulary we use. They get excited about the smallest things. They have such great enthusiasm for learning. We get so caught up in our daily lives and worries; children take you back to the simple enjoyments that are out there for all of us."

The excitement of learning separates youth from old age. As long as you're learning, you're not old.

—Rosalyn Sussman Yalow,
physicist

You cannot talk about learning without talking about children. They come into the world with open minds, with no preconceived notions of how the world should work. I learn from my own children. After a big snowstorm one winter, I was building an igloo with two of my kids. We hollowed out a big dome of snow. My son, Jordan (who was 5 at the time) began breaking up pieces of ice and putting them onto the floor of the igloo. Without thinking, I said, "Jordan, that's not a good idea."

"But Daddy," said my daughter Hallie (who was then seven), "you said any idea you have is a good idea." She was right. That's what I said, and that's what I meant. Although my perception was that Jordan was just throwing chunks of ice around, he was really fitting the broken pieces of ice together like a puzzle. He explained that he was making a bed out of ice on top of snow so that it wouldn't melt as fast and would make a comfortable home for the igloo dwellers. Hallie was right—it was a great idea!

I also teach my children not to say the word "can't." It makes me think about what I say to them. If they ask me if they can run across the road to play hide-and-seek, I can't just say, "You can't do that." I have to say, "You're not allowed to do that."

Children teach us how to learn. They have no barriers, no rules set in stone. All their ideas are fresh and fascinating. It reminds of the old saying I heard years ago, "I'll never be young enough to know it all." Our minds are never again as clear and uncluttered as they are when we are children, primed for learning. If we only learn to listen to the children, they teach us how to live.




Diamond Power. Gems of Wisdom From America's Greatest Marketer
Diamond Power: Gems of Wisdom from Americas Greatest Marketer
ISBN: 1564146987
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 207
Authors: Barry Farber

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