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Category: July 2021 — Children
Relating Deeply: Security Guards & Goddesses
About seven years ago a new security guard started working at one of the several part-time universities I work at and I nodded to her in passing. She nodded back. Then a year later we were still nodding but also smiling and from a distance started to wave now and then. Push a few years forward and we started actually saying a word or two “Otsukaresama” (thanks for your work—a typical Japanese greeting and farewell). Later, I dared to pose a question “Genki?” (healthy?) and we actually exchanged some real words.
Lesson Plan: “Foods of the Rainbow”—Not the Brown Palette!
Lesson Plan: “Foods of the Rainbow”—Not the Brown Palette! By: Ai Murphy Share on facebook Share on twitter Share on linkedin A common issue with food choices… Typically, the young
The Unique Language of a Child with Learning Difficulties
I was almost brought to tears in front of a class of 10-year-old students recently. While I was teaching a class, a boy with “learning difficulties” (a term Barbara Arrowsmith-Young prefers over “disabilities” ) had an emotional meltdown. Two of his classmates were having a play-fight as they made their way into class after lunch, and he became agitated and ready to cry because he couldn’t understand why they were pretending to hurt each other. I tried to help him cope with the overflow of his emotions, but I also had 25 other kids in the class to look after and I couldn’t leave the room to help him find a quiet place outside to calm down.
Theory to Practice: Rules of Thumb for Teaching Children
Theory to Practice: Rules of Thumb for Teaching Children By: The Practitioners Share on facebook Share on twitter Share on linkedin Dear readers, the Think Tank Team has contacted some
The Hidden Role of Teachers of Young Learners
I am going to say something drastic: Of all teachers, those that teach young learners are, by far, the most important. They have the potential to save the world.
This is not a statement I came up with. It came from some economists who produced a National Public Radio Planet Money podcast with the title: Why Preschool Can Save the World. Economists? Preschool? Save the World? Trust me, it all connects.
A Scientific Approach to Early Language Learning
My daughter read her first word on her third birthday. My family was amazed. We thought we had a true genius on our hands. But when I visited her Montessori preschool, I discovered the truth—in Montessori school, they explicitly teach you how to read as soon as you’re interested in it. Not to say that my daughter isn’t a genius (she’s amazing), but she was not the only 3-year-old in her class who was happily sounding out words. How could that even be possible?
An Earnest Investment
Children are without a doubt fascinating in many aspects. They possess many unique features that make teaching them crucial, tricky, and rewarding: their amazing ability to enjoy mundane tasks repeatedly, their never-ending curiosity, and the fact that they are always busy with a task can teach adults a thing or two about life. Children are blessed with some amazing physiological characteristics as well: they make more than 1,000,000 neural connections in a second and at age 3-6 months, they can discriminate all the sounds of all languages of the entire world!