Rexdale's Cradle Rockers

The Library

What a glorious thing it is that the human mind can retrieve information saved for it on the pages of a book. It’s so special and so wonderful that even small infants are able to participate in the enjoyment of a book.

As teachers, we have a special opportunity to help children discover the joy of books, and with it the appreciation and power of the printed word.

Creating a real library, not just a small display to satisfy educational consultants, in the classroom is a necessity. Having a real library is not an option if we are to be true crusaders of education for all. A couple of books standing on a table won’t make it. Books are an important presence and demand respect.

The Infant Room library can host oodles of board books. They are the kind of books that are colorful, filled with interesting animals, and can even be used to “taste” as the young learner begins to understand the concept of a book. Learning to focus eyes, hold a book, hold a book right-side-up, and learning to turn pages is a revelation to students who are working through the object constancy stage of development. A kid has to practice focusing to do these things. A kid has to coordinate the mental images presented with the physical skills it takes to retrieve these images. Yes, there’s a lot to learn by just holding a book.

For slightly older children, the brightly colored picture books help children visually explore the page. An animated reading of “Brown Bear, Brown Bear” can be almost as exciting to the experienced reader as it is to the first time listener. Enjoyment aside, it helps the ear discriminate various sounds. It helps children anticipate what is coming next and it presents an on-going sharing of syntax and grammar.

As the learner grows into chapter books he learns about character and plot development. He learns how to use words to influence the reader. He is encouraged to predict what will come next. Reading is often the springboard used to encourage young writers to comment, change the storyline, or create their own stories. In short, reading a lot helps the young student find his own voice.

Perhaps you remember your classroom when the dictionary was introduced. Wow, what a great idea that was. Imagine, someone wrote down all the words in the English language so we could use them, and then that someone told you (through writing it down in a book) how those words could be used. Even though learning to thumb through that dictionary was a challenge, it was well worth it.

One of my preschool teachers, who happened to hail from Russia, was an avid reader. You might have called her a bookworm because she would walk to the lunchroom reading a book. Every moment she was on a lunch break she was reading…sometimes the book was written in Russian and sometimes it was written in English. Her classroom was piled high with books that she had organized by subject matter. When any question came up, she took herself and the questioning child to the appropriate book case. There they would find more information about the question and they would read it together.

Throughout the year these preschool children brought in books they wanted to share with this special teacher and with their classmates. Some books were mere picture books from Disney while others contained scientific information about the stars. All of the children in her class left for kindergarten reading. There were no reading workbooks. No one had presented a formal lesson other than the presentation of the normal alphabet, word families, and a vocab list the kids developed for themselves as they wrote in their school journals. It became obvious that the best ways to create readers was to love books and share books.

Today’s economic environment often places the classroom library in the crosshairs of budget cuts. Either there is too little money for books or the hours of service must be cut. One educational consultant once told me that there were enough books in the classroom if there was one book for each child. Hogwash! The library is the visual repository of all our knowledge. It represents our link to people and their thoughts from centuries past.

If there is no budget money for books then teachers must find creative ways to have access to books. Finding books at a thrift shop or writing a letter to a publishing company for donations may help. Regular visits to the public library, if possible, may help. The quest for books and books and books must never stop even, no especially, when teachers are told there is no money.

To Lead Or Not To Lead

In an educational environment, where test results are valued, it is easy for teachers and parents to overlook the entire student’s development. We all encourage the achievement of a certain level of skill in the areas of reading, writing, and arithmetic. This does not mean we should forget or push aside the many other skills that the young learner needs to acquire during their school years.

School report cards used to address issues that were aimed at monitoring and assisting children in developing those citizenship qualities that we, as a society, find valuable. Among those qualities was an assessment of a child’s ability to lead, follow, or do both.

At first glance it might appear we would want all of our students to become leaders. A leader exhibits, strong and often charismatic intra-personal skills, strong organizational skills, and perhaps, above all an aura of confidence. If that leader also processes a realistic version of reality, so much the better. A leader is identified when he is recognized by his force of example or his commanding skill or performance in a specific area. Who among us would not want to have these qualities?

On the other hand, the follower, at first glance, may seem to occupy a “second place” position. The follower may appear to be shy, retiring, or perhaps idea-less to those around him. The position of follower is also in danger of being shunned by parents or educators and viewed as someone with less ability. But is that always an accurate assessment?

Herein lies the re-assessment educators must routinely make for their students growth. It is often the teacher who is able to explain a student’s progress as he tried on different behavior and takes the necessary steps to understand what it means to be a leader and what it means to be a follower. It’s the teacher who can see the overall growth of a student within the classroom context. That same teacher may even be able to explain to parents how their child may be offered out-of-school options to strengthen his leadership and following qualities.

There is a third category. This category combines the leadership and following skills that we want all our students to attain. Now what could that mean and how can that be done. What possible value could their be to this?

Imagine a society where individuals were able to assess their own skills accurately for each situation. For example, little Johnny has a talent for using words but really doesn’t like math. He realizes that there is an opportunity for a leadership role when the class is working on the school newspaper. However, when the class embarks on a math unit involving establishing a classroom bank, he feels comfortable. He knows his classmate George is very capable and he easily takes directions from George. He can be part of the team. Each child is able to excel in a leadership role, and each child is able to relinquish the leadership role upon he recognition of another’s superior abilities. Each values the group dynamics and desires to contribute to the best of his ability.

As teachers and parents assess a child’s development it is helpful to remember that options and time often provide a rich environment for children to learn how to develop and use the very skills we know they will need to become productive citizens.

The War of the Ads

Most of us in educational administrative positions recognize that families are giving very serious attention to applying to schools. Why, because daycares and on-going private schools consume a very large portion of a family’s income. And because each child has only one childhood.

Admissions Directors are careful to point out the great benefits of having a child in their facility. What might those benefits include? Could be smaller classroom size, extra curricular activities, better hours, closer to home, great teachers, low staff turnover, etc. etc. etc. The sales pitch is well polished and delivered sincerely time after time. Each incoming student represents a business account of five-figures.

But what concerns me are the unnoticed ads that are located within these schools and their brochures. The “ads” are hiding in plan sight and they are often missed.

A co-worker emailed me the following today: “At the cafeteria they write the day’s choices on a blackboard. Today’s choices included pasta with meet sauce. I kid you not.”

This came from the cafeteria of a well-known private all-boys school in New York City. Their website blurb says, “Learning in the primary years sets patterns for future academic growth…” I couldn’t agree with them more.

Private schools do not have an exclusive hold on these problems. A recent advertisement on www.Craigslist.org for a public daycare position in Hollywood, FL was posted as follows (spelling and punctuation have not been altered):

“Experienced manager needed for early childhood center.Must have all licences and cirtifications up to date, have verifiable work history and references,have a happy nature, be good at sales and dealing with government departments ,family central and be VPK cirtified.”

When I saw this ad I wanted to warn everyone to run as fast as they could and run away from this school. I felt for the children and parents who rely on trained and dedicated educational professionals to guide their young children to good educational habits. If the administration is satisfied with this ad, what expectations will they have for their staff or their children?

Don’t get me wrong. Anyone can be a horrible speller, but I can’t help but wonder just where the Quality Control concern in our schools is? There must have been double digit staff members going through that lunch line. Did anyone other than my visiting co-worker notice or care enough to get a correction made? Clearly it wasn’t worth the trouble. They must have been thinking, “Not My Job.” Wrong. It’s everyone’s job.

Sadly the person who posted the Craigslist ad didn’t care enough to have someone proof the ad before it was placed. Misspelling the word “cirtified” was more than I could take.

Yes, The War of the Ads really tell their own stories. These stories document a school’s philosophy and history. How does a school and a staff attend to detail? How does a school and a staff envision their teaching mission? Life is made up of a series of little details. Taking time to correct these little details is taking time to embrace a teachable moment.

Do You Have An Ear For Babies?

Educators place great emphasis on knowing the students in their charge. After all, if you don’t know your students, how will you know your curriculum is appropriate and how will you know if students are making appropriate progress?

But what if your students are infants? Child care centers across America take in infants beginning as early as two months old. Many times the only criteria for this young student is proof of him receiving his first set of immunization shots.

The infant room teacher is presented with a student who doesn’t talk, doesn’t walk, and needs a lot of custodial care. Sometimes this can seem like a breeze to the uninitiated teacher who thinks she can feed him, diaper him, and watch him nap. What an easy job.

Those teachers working with infants for any period of time quickly learn and feel the enormous responsibility of taking care of these fragile students. A well child delivered to the morning classroom may develop a raging fever within the next few hours. Infants are not miniature adults and this makes a teacher’s task of getting to know students all the more difficult and all the more exciting.

Most infant room teachers, if they have really thought about it, will tell you that each infant in her charge has five distinct cries. If she is caring for four infants at one time (which is a normal regulatory limit) she has the possibility of hearing 20 different cries. That’s not including hers if she finds she is not proficient in “baby-ease”. If there are eight students in the room with two caregivers that would be listening to 40 different cries.

Here are the five distinct cries each infant room teacher must master for each infant.

　

Hunger

The hunger cry is an attempt to get the caregiver to feed the baby. It sounds simple enough. If you feed the baby, the baby will stop crying. Maybe. Hunger changes quickly when you are an infant. The two month old who was admitted to care will need to be fed more often than the four month old. But, the four month old will probably need a larger quantity. It is possible to feed an infant who will continue to communicate hunger by crying, sucking on fingers, and visually searching for more food.

What’s wrong? Consider the timing and amount of the feeding. Staff may have to talk with a parent about the need to change. Sometimes first time parents are so focused on doing as they were told on their first doctor visit that they really forget the baby is growing.

　

Dirty Diaper

“Hey you, I’ve got a dirty diaper.” When the baby feels uncomfortable he’ll let you know. If the baby continues to cry after being cleaned and changed look further. What kind of a diaper was it? What brand of diaper was it? Babies are very sensual and may respond differently to different textures or chemicals in diapers. Perhaps a change in diaper caused distress. Is there a rash that needs medical attention? Is teething causing excessively caustic bowel movements?

　

Illness

When an adult doesn’t feel well he can moan and groan to a friend. The baby will cry to the caregiver for some support. A tuned in ear can often hear this pre-illness cry before a fever develops. This cry often comes with a slow down in behavior and an increase in sleeping.

　

Fear

The child in a trusting relationship communicates fear to his caregiver. Anything that frightens the child can cause the child to cry. This cry can seem desperate but can be eased by comforting words and a calm demeanor from the caregiver.

Affection

This cry comes about when the infant is seeking some attention. “Hey, I’m bored over here…want to play?” Or, “Hey, I’d like to cuddle a bit…got some time?” Or may it is, “Gee, can you rock me for a while?”

This reaching out to the caregiver is the main method the infant has to communicate his needs. Sometimes, if the caregiver isn’t fast enough, the crying will intensify. And, most times once the baby’s needs have been met the crying will stop.

Many first time parents and first time infant room teachers are amazed that the experienced infant room teacher can distinguish the child’s needs through the sound of his crying. There's no trick, it just takes careful listening and practice.

There’s a whole world of communication going on in the infant room and it isn’t just one-sided.

Interviewing for A Director Position

As early childhood professionals gain experience and begin to want to take on managerial roles they will want to consider just what their active role in interviewing is and what it means in the long-term for their professional path. While the potential employer is interviewing you, you should be interviewing him.

The tangled, uneven, and ever-changing growth of child care throughout the world has been consistently tightly interwoven with the role of women in society, the economy, and a new understanding of early childhood development, national interests, and human rights.

It is not surprising that child care has changed dramatically over the years as our understanding of a woman’s role in society has evolved. As societal interest and support for women’s expanding role waxes, new child care models have been developed, refined, discussed and eventually discarded or utilized for specific populations. As societal interest has waned for women’s expanding role, support for new child care models has languished.

In the summer of 1984 I read an employment ad in The New York Times Newspaper. Even though I was happily employed as a Director at a private nursery school in Manhattan, it was my custom to always read the employment ads. They always told a quiet story about what was happening in schools throughout the city. You could always tell where the problems were since the same ad for the same position would appear every month or two.

Today’s ad was very different. It advertised for a position of director at a new daycare center in Northern Manhattan that was affiliated with a major medical center. The center was just getting off the ground and the director would be heavily involved in shaping the new program. Being an eager professional chomping at the bit for my big chance to make a mark in the world, I turned to my friend and said, “Here’s my new job!”

I phoned for my appointment, readied my resume, and rehearsed the standard interview questions. Then the big day arrived. After I found the building, I walked around the block twice just so I wouldn’t arrive at my appointment too early. I met with a very nice young man from Human Resources. He quickly described their new project – the creation of the daycare center – and he added, it was something that had to be done to satisfy the demands of a new employee union contract. He was motivated, to be sure. He had a boss who needed a daycare. But he knew nothing about daycare, nothing about kids and parents and nothing about the needs of employees at the medical center. But, he did know that the union contract would end in five years. And that meant there was an excellent chance that the daycare center he was creating wouldn’t last past that date.

So he explained that the corporation had rented space in a nearby apartment building. This space would be renovated to meet the building departments code. In addition, staff would be hired at $3.50 an hour and to create an inexpensive program, the staff would receive no medical or dental benefits. Additionally it was planned that the staff would be sent home, without pay, when the daily attendance allowed for it.

He wanted to know what I thought.

I wondered who was interviewing whom? I wanted to tell him something about the history of child care so that he would understand the foundation of what he was trying to create. It was inconceivable that this man was trying to do something so positive, so on the cutting edge of science and social development, without the benefit of its historical perspective.

He needed to know why women were adamantly speaking out for child care and why their cries would not be silenced. And it was tragic that on behalf of his company, he was innocently and ignorantly abdicating a prime leadership role in modern child care simply because he did not know the “why” of the question.

When early childhood professionals attend an interview, it is really important to pay attention to the questions asked and the questions unasked. What may seem like a wonderful position may have no foundation at all for a lasting program. What may seem like a plum of a job may end up being filled with frustrations as the director tries to build an appropriate early childhood program without the board’s approval.

Many of the large corporate child care companies have competent managers. But many of those managers have training in fields other than early childhood and their goal is to adhere to a business model. That model often does not account for downturns in enrollment or special needs children. These corporate mandates are often inflexible and can be extremely frustrating for the director.

So, when interviewing at what seems like that plum of a job, be sure to ask the questions. Find out who the board is, what their training is, how committed are they to establishing an excellent program, why did the last director leave? These may give you an insight into the workings and politics of the new job.

Oh, I ended up being offered the job but only if I left my present job that day - it was first day of school - . It was an ultimatum. Since I could not commit to leaving my present job without notice I wasn’t hired. I was okay with the decision. I realized the board member did not understand the importance of the first day of school and would not received his support on important issues. Sometimes they just tell you where the problems will be.

Keeping Track of Those Pests

Where there are kids there are bound to be pests. No, the kids are not the pests. The pests are the little critters that like to munch on the easy pickins so often left by children. Daycares can be absolutely a bug or rats delight. Where else could you find an abundant supply of goodies that are so often tossed around a room? Even the best sweeper is hard pressed to get every crumb.

So as a routine, most child care facilities must deal with pest control. The most likely offenders are roaches, flies, mice, and their cousins the rats. The difficulty is they dont want to be controlled. And we have limited means of controlling them because we have small children who put everything in their mouths.

For the furry creatures and the little crawling critters, the exterminator uses glue traps. He puts them only in places the children dont have access to. Sometimes the exterminator will stuff the holes with steel pads to block their access. For the flying ones there are fly strips. And the exterminator has his spray, often regulated by a licensing agency in the type and amount he can use at a child care center.

Whatever the pest control action taken, it is important to log that action in a specified book. This will allow the review of an entire history of problems with pests, their locations, the time of year they appear and what was done.

What was done is very important. Heres why its so important to keep an updated Exterminators Log.

We are aware of chemicals around children. Pesticides can be dangerous and can have long-term affects on their health. We dont want that…we only want to get rid of disease carrying pests. By keeping a record of the chemicals used we are able to track any ill-effects. This information might be life-saving for a child.

By keeping a pest control log we can also see where the recurring problems are. Perhaps the pest problem is enhanced because sanitary measures are not followed by staff members. Perhaps there is an unseen means of entrance for the pests. This is an area that may need to be addressed before the pest problem goes away. There are building problems that prove to be friendly to pests.

Administrators should be aware that maintaining a pest control log is a way of documenting that pest control rules and regulations have been followed under her watch. In todays litigious society a request for such documentation may be required from a school board or court. In these cases it is always best to have the documentation that includes: date of service; area serviced; type and strength of chemical used; exterminators name. Documentation should not be in a “loose binder” but rather in a bound book with stamped and pre-numbered pages. This will show no entries have been added or subtracted.

Whatever the reason for pests, it is important that qualified and licensed exterminators record their activity and the chemicals they are using. It is important that administrators view this record keeping as an important document.

As an administrator it is important to remember you will not always be the administrator of your current program. Someone else will need to have access to this history. As a parent, its important to know that supervisors are aware of and practice the safe use of chemicals in the child care setting.

Introducing Brush Painting to Young Learners

Learning to handle a big tool can be an adventure, especially if you are a child. There is so much to explore.

The brushes we use in early childhood centers generally have wooden handles of varying lengths with short bristles…hard and soft.

It takes a lot of experimenting to find a comfort level in holding a brush:

Should I use my left or right hand?

How about trying a grabbing, fist-style approach?

What is this “pencil-style” approach?

Which end do I use…the wooden end or the bristle end?

How much noise can I make with this thing?

What happens if I just throw it across the room?

What is this gooey stuff in the pot?

Before the child can begin to think of this new object as a useful tool, he needs to experiment with it. He needs to gather some basic data about its physical characteristics and discover what they mean to him. During this time of exploration, teachers should not expect artwork to magically appear. In fact, no artwork may be produced.

But, after the child has had time to explore the paint brush properties, it will be time to introduce a painting medium.

Learning to dip the brush into a paint pot is an exercise in eye-hand coordination. Eye-hand coordination needs time to develop and can be seen on a time continuum. Some will be naturally better than others. So, what can teachers do to make the child’s first painting attempt fun and successful? Here are a few thoughts to consider for the classroom learner.

Use chubby, short handle brushes. They are much easier for the young artist to negotiate.

Use wide tip brushes. Very large brushes that might normally be used to paint the trim on a house would work just fine. A little hand could really get a grip on this type of brush.

Be sure the paint pots are secured to a surface to avoid the artist chasing the pot around the table or even creating spills. A secured pot also allows an artist with any level of coordination to get some paint on that brush.

Use wide mouth paint pots. Save the fancy covered pots for later.

Use a thick paint that will easily stay on the brush while the child learns to take the brush from the paint pot to the paper.

Use a large canvas so the child, regardless of coordination can see the immediate relationship between dipping the brush and making a change on the canvas.

Make sure the canvas is also secure. Clip it to an easel or tape it to a table.

Use one color pigment. Original forays into learning to paint are not about learning to recognize or mix colors.

Learning to paint develops children’s important pre-reading and writing skills. As children recognize they can make marks or alter the appearance of paper they want to express themselves. The more competent they become in handling painting tools the more sophisticated their messages become. They want to create their own symbols that can be retrieved. They want to share information through their artwork.

School is often the only place some children can experience the joy of self-expression through art. This sometimes wonderfully messy activity offers great joy to children as they unknowingly develop hand muscles, develop eye-hand coordination, and learn about transferring knowledge through symbols.

Teachers of young children need to be completely committed to this activity. It is the classroom teacher who is able to provide for this important classroom experience and it is the classroom teacher who is in a unique position to share the development importance of this activity with parents in their class. The simple activity of learning to paint really does provide pre-reading and pre-writing experiences that will be invaluable for future classroom academic success.

It's Not Easy Failing

It’s not easy failing. As an adult I do it often and sometimes find it quite embarrassing. Failing is a lot of hard work. For kids, failing is a necessary, down-in-the-trenches, dirty hard work known to most of us as “child’s play”. Most of the time kids don’t worry too much about failing. They’re too busy taking on their daily challenges. Sometimes they break down in frustration and throw a toy across the room. Sometimes they re-route their attempts through negotiations. Sometimes they refuse to approach the target again. Sometimes they give up. For them, failure is not an option and avoiding failure at all costs is preferable to trying ever again. It takes guts to try. It takes guts to put your ego on the line.

It starts early. An infant makes countless attempts to rollover. Each time he’s strengthening those little abdominal muscles. Most times he fails at reaching his goal of rolling over. Sometimes he cries in frustration and who can blame him? It’s hard work…just try working your abs in the gym.

Parents and caregivers are on the sidelines. No one can do this work for the baby. This is only the baby’s job. Nevertheless, parents and caregivers offer verbal encouragement to the baby. One day, facing possible failure again, he makes it and finds he’s on the other side of himself. Success at last. Failure is all but forgotten as he moves on to the next challenge.

Parents and teachers focus on reaching goals. The books we read about child rearing and early childhood education help us form an understanding in our minds about milestones to be met and timelines we should watch for in young children. All these guidepost are important. Indeed we need to give them our attention.

But while we are paying attention to normal development and sequencing, we are allowed to step back often to appreciate the great efforts put forth by our learners. We are allowed to see the person first and to know the personality. We are allowed to momentarily set aside our need to reach a goal. We are allowed to connect on the human level and to see the individual.

After we have an overall appreciation for the person, we are more likely to be able to appreciate the person as a learner. Now, as a teacher, how can we design the mini-steps our learner will need to reach his goal?

If we are wanting our child to speak, do we provide multiple opportunities for receptive language? Are we maximizing our verbal interactions with the child? Have we paid attention, really paid attention, to the feedback the child is giving us? Have we fully appreciated all the auditory recognition and sorting out that goes into the child trying, failing, and trying again to figure out what is expected?

Failing is to be expected and expected and expected. And repeated failing is to be accepted and encouraged as a tool to reach the goal. Ask any researcher how many times he has failed and you may be surprised. We generally don’t report failure; we often report success.

As teachers of the young, and as role models for their parents, we can champion all the “trying” and “failing” that goes on each day. We can encourage all the attempts children need to make to reach their goals even if those attempts turn out to be incorrect. Our goal is to keep the child engaged in the process. Positive classroom messages celebrating attempts at problem solving give students the permission they need to try over and over to reach their goals.

The confident teacher can set the safe academic climate in her classroom that encourages children to try and fail until they reach success. It’s the trying that is more important than the failing or the succeeding. A teacher’s open appreciation for the learners tenacity reaches well beyond the classroom walls.

The Hurricane Simulator

While walking through the local mall I discovered the Hurricane Simulator. For a mere $2 you walk into a closet-sized, windowed enclosure, click the door closed and be in a “hurricane.” The simulator winds begin slowly and then race to 78 mph. WOW! Outsiders can see the thrill seeker’s hair flying and the soundless giggles abounding. It’s great fun although short lived.

Society has its own hurricane simulator that often blows children right into our classrooms. It’s called “life” and it’s like the hurricane simulator only it lasts a lot longer and often isn’t nearly as much fun.

The National Center on Family Homelessness found one in 50 American children are homeless. The economy is making the problem worse.

Mike Cleary, reporter for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported recently that there are approximately 50,000 homeless children in Florida. These figures were gathered during interviews with Shirley Favali of Broward Outreach Center and Patricia Mantis of Broward County Coalition to End Homelessness. Dianne Lee Sepielli, the Broward County, FL School Board's coordinator for homeless education estimates approximately 1,600 homeless children enrolled in Broward County. Claudia Tuck, division director for Palm Beach County Human Services estimates 953 homeless children enrolled in Palm Beach County, FL school system.

In addition to children experiencing the insecurity of being homeless, there are thousands of children in homes who are coping with the stress of a parent serving in the military. The numerous deployments and separations created by the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan are often not spoken of. However, you tube.com and newspapers often report on surprise reunions of military families. It’s then you can see just how much these children have been holding in emotionally while trying to function in our classrooms.

　

Every year classroom rosters across the country are loaded with the names of children who have moved yet again - this time into our area and our classrooms. The winds of change bring children who live without their parents, who live with foster parents, who live in cars, tents, and shelters, and who either go without meals or have inadequate meals, and often who go without health care. Some have parents in jails. Growing up for them comes fast and hard. It’s not simulated; it’s not fun; and it’s brutal.

In the 1950’s educators used a short film entitled, “A Desk For Billy”. The film told the plight of a young student whose parents were migrant workers - Billy never really had a desk to call his own because he was always on the move. Billy never had much of anything permanent - no house, no school, no friends. Needless to say, Billy didn’t look very happy in the film. At the end of the film, when the director panned to Billy’s vacant desk, the viewer was left to wonder, “What happened to Billy?“ We never found out.

So what’s it really like for a young student to be faced with negotiating a new building, a new authority figure, new peers, new rules…not once but often while at the same time coping with these unimaginable stresses outside the classroom?

Teachers may not recognize these troubled children because it’s easy to look at them and think all is well. They put up a brave front. They are embarrassed about their situation. They hide the teasing they get from other children and the worry they experience wondering how they will get by. All the while they take on the adult responsibility for trying to encourage their parent. As educators, we are the soldiers on the front lines in our civilized society. It remains our responsibility to anticipate and reduce the anxieties and stresses these students have and to help them assimilate into our classrooms. Here are a few ways to answer some of those unvoiced questions.

Schedule a time for children to tour their new surroundings. Visit the entire school and grounds. Children are very concrete in their thinking. It can be very comforting to actually walk-through and view the entire new school. Taking pictures of the child in his new surroundings is something that be used to make a mini-memory book of his visit. It’s something to hold onto and something to be re-read. It can be shared with his family.

Introduce the child to the new rule makers. Making time to meet the entire school staff begins to make school his home away from home. When children have the opportunity to build a relationship with new authority figures, to see them and be welcomed by them, they begin to feel a part of the new school team. Make sure the child understands that school is a safe place where adults can help with many problems. It’s a place where adults will listen with compassion.

Planning opportunities for new students to work with other classmates will help them get to know each other. Some teachers ask a veteran classmate to become the mentor or special buddy for the new child. Sometimes the special buddy knows better than anyone the concerns of the new child. Staff needs to keep an ear open for teasing or shunning from other classmates.

Providing the child with an explanation of the way the classroom operates is important. What are the rules? What are the schedules? Providing a new student with this information can help him get re-organized. It might be considered “a new student’s Bill of Rights and Responsibilities.”

Paying close attention to all students all the time. In today’s quickly changing environment a child might be secure in a home one day, homeless the next, or parentless the day-after-tomorrow. Noticing behavior changes daily can help determine a child’s situation. 

Obesity’s Knock-Out Punch

Is there a child alive who is not attracted to buttons? If so, where is that child? Surrounded by phones, elevators, keyboards, computers, fax machines, ATM’s and microwaves, the young child begins imitating their adult button-pushing parents the moment they note button-pushing equates “doing.”

Parents report surprise long distance phone calls made by their button-pressing toddlers. They report heightened sibling rivalry when approaching the elevator…who will get to push the button first?

The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry estimates that between 16-33% of children and adolescents are obese. Obesity is the term assigned to a child who is in excess of 10 pounds of what his weight should be. And, this condition is usually diagnosed when the child is around 5-6 years-of-age. An obese child has a much higher risk of poor health going forward and may suffer emotionally from remarks other children make.

Since so many of a child’s hours are spent in a daycare of school setting, it falls to teachers and administrators to participate in this early childhood health crisis.

We have at our disposal a simple, relatively inexpensive gadget - with buttons. Dubbed a pedometer, it will measure distance traveled, calories burned, and count every step the wearer takes. Jump, jog, walk…every bit of energy will be recorded and credited immediately. This is instant recognition and reward. The pedometer seems to be the ideal hook to marry that button-pressing need to math lessons and physical education lessons. It seems like a formidable General in the War Against Childhood Obesity.

Imagine a classroom of children all regularly wearing pedometers. Of course their goal would probably not be to acquire a good health routine or good health. However, children may be interested in a friendly on-going competition.

It could be a lot of fun to use your pedometer to “walk to the moon.” It could be fun to chart which sports activities use the most calories. It might be fun to have team play within the class…which team walks the most steps in a week. Or perhaps a spirited competition with the class down the hall or a sister school in another part of the country.

Now there is a pedometer created specifically for children. It is inexpensive, in the $12-15 area, and comes in the shape of a frog. And with a choice of colors as well. For more information about this pedometer go to: www.mypedz.com . For Internet savvy children the website has other interesting ideas for kids using the pedometer.

The exciting idea here is the range of classroom curriculum that can be created using the pedometers. Math, science, and even social studies are at the top of the possibilities list.

Pedometers are only one fun way to approach the obesity crisis. They are not the entire answer and to have optimum results need to be coupled with diet and nutrition curriculum. And, because we know children model admired adults, a truly effective pedometer program should include everyone: all staff members and parents.

When it comes to facing up to obesity, there is little time to waste. Scoring a knock-out blow against obesity can have positive results of a child’s entire lifetime.