Excerpt from Still Teaching in the Key of Life: Joyful Stories From Early Childhood Settings
Get the Elephant Out of the Room:听We're Finished with the Es!
Shiggy听started it all when he wore his new firefighter鈥檚 hat to his class鈥檚 first movement session in September. He and his toddler colleagues came zooming into the dance room all fired up about fires. It was such a hot subject! How could I fight such enthusiasm?
Scrapping my plan to celebrate the folk tune 鈥淥ld MacDonald Had a Farm鈥� with music, dance, improvisation, animal dialogue, humor, and drama, I switched to the teacher version of automatic pilot (in other words, winging it) and created a story about firefighters: 鈥淥nce upon a time the firefighters were sleeping in the firehouse.鈥� (The children dropped to the floor, closed their eyes, and snored. Debbie, their good-sport teacher, tiptoed to the corner of the room. At my signal, she burst into arm-waving, fingervibrating, torso-swaying flames. I sounded the alarm.)
"The firefighters jumped up, dressed quickly, slid down the pole, and hurried to their fire trucks!鈥� I continued. (The children accompanied the narrative with rapidly changing movement patterns, demonstrating dressing, sliding, rushing.)
"Sirens blaring, the fire trucks raced round the city to the fire.鈥� (We always practice moving around the room in the same direction. This safety habit is deeply instilled in all the children I work with.)
"The firefighters arrived at the fire. They听uncurled听their hoses,听stretched听their ladders,听climbed up, and听balanced听themselves as they aimed their heavy power hoses toward the flames. Finally, the fire was out!鈥� (The fiery Debbie slowly drooped to the floor. The firefighters and I hoorayed. To the percussive rhythms of African drums and bells, the fire engines raced back to the firehouse.) Before I could steer us on to Old MacDonald鈥檚 farm, as I had planned, the children sang out, 鈥淐an we do that again? Can we have another fire?鈥� (Confession: I am a person who lets children boss her around鈥攅specially when they are enthralled with an idea. I call the ideas children are madly in love with听magic vocabulary. Obviously,听fire听was at the top of Shiggy and his classmates鈥� magic vocabulary list.)
That day we extinguished three major fires. From that day on, Shiggy and his classmates continued rushing to every single movement session with their zealous chant, 鈥淐an we do the fire story?鈥�
I never brought up the word听fire听to these children, yet they always requested the firefighters鈥� story. Whoever believes that young children have short attention spans needs to spend time with a group of young children when they鈥檙e immersed in a fascinating subject. Confronted with this weekly challenge, I realized that my choices were limited to three:
- Burn all my plans and curriculum guides.
- Sweetly say, 鈥淓nough is enough already with the fires! We need to get on with our other very important work!鈥�
- Be creative, imaginative, flexible, open-minded, playful, holistic, courageous, tuned in to the children, and brilliant, and figure out ways to link fire to every other subject or topic. In other words, make connections.
Naturally I chose number three, over and over again. Shiggy鈥檚 class did not miss a chance to work with a fire story; we integrated fires and firefighters in every session. We put out fires in all kinds of places:
- On Old MacDonald鈥檚 farm
- On the Yellow Brick Road (didn鈥檛 poor Scarecrow almost catch fire?)
- At the circus (all those torches and fireworks)
- On the property of the Three Pigs (remember when the wolf slid down the chimney into a pot of boiling water and burned his tush?)
- In the rain forest (forest fires are very dangerous)
- On the road with Jack Be Nimble (better jump very high over that candlestick, Jack!)
Over the decades, I have experienced hundreds of incidents in which very structured, inflexible teachers slammed shut doors that would have led to opportunities for joyful learning. They have said:
鈥淚t鈥檚 not in my lesson plan.鈥�
鈥淚 didn鈥檛 have enough advance notice.鈥�
鈥淚t doesn鈥檛 fit into our schedule.鈥�
鈥淚t鈥檚 not included in our curriculum.鈥�
鈥淲e鈥檝e already finished studying that.鈥�
But aren鈥檛 the moments we remember most clearly the ones that simply happened, like Shiggy鈥檚 firefighter story?
Fire hats off to those creative teachers who put a marker in their daily plan books and embark with their children on adventures into uncharted territories! They improvise new combinations, discover amazing connections. The powerful elements of surprise, delight, appreciation, and comprehension dazzle the participants.
From听Still Teaching in the Key of Life: Joyful Stories From Early Childhood Settings, by Mimi Brodsky Chenfeld. Copyright 漏 2014 by the 51吃瓜网.
