Step inside ... What's happening?

Blog 44:

Virtually or vicariously immerse yourself in a classroom of about twenty kindergarteners and first grade students.  Are you there?  What do you see?

From my view, it is easy to spot the learning-absorbed young learners who are exceedingly excited about stimulating activities available to them.  In the far corner to the right of the room are four students diving into the computer-animated beginning reading exercises.  To the left, at a rectangular table, are two girls and a boy who have picked up their writing worksheets.  They have already begun following the dotted letter patterns previously demonstrated by their teacher.  In the center of the room, another group of four girls are practicing print paths for lower and uppercase Mm and Pp.  Their teacher assistant is demonstrating how a bendable wire could help them form the letters of their names and the introduced letters/sounds.  Moving in their midst, I could feel that a few are lost, and quietly struggling.  They are staring at the window, the floor, the ceiling.  One is raising her hand, but the teacher doesn’t notice her.  Two or three others, you could just tell from their body language, are scared stiff.  They do not have a clue as to what’s going on, but are hanging in there.  Still, two others crouched on the carpet, in the far corner to the left of room, hit or miss the task in front of them: find examples of /Mm/ and /Pp/ beginning words.  They look around … watch and copy what their three other peers do.  Their stances tell that they will not be bogged down.  One finally picks up a book and sheepishly opens it.  A smile dons on her face upon revelation of colorful pictures and brightly printed words on a book’s spread. 

The children’s fresh swim into the jungle of their wide classroom resources – material and human are amazing to behold.   Every little new learning experience appears to be a new discovery.  Every object replicating life-like item they touch and explore, sound they hear, and movement they make that appeal to the senses appear to be pure delight. 

Learning new concepts, words, and directions is like participating in a chaotic war.  Once a goal is set, you must keep it clear in your mind.  Next, you take on a defensive stance in the stream of noise that distracts.  After that, you take on a focused bearing on information and concepts followed by attack, and repeated attacks until victories are in sight.  Did you reach the end goal?  No?  Start right back up where you fell.  You can’t give up or get trodden.  You must plan for a surge. 

The children in the classroom I visited have entered into a rich and luscious jungle of learning.  They are taking a new knowledge apart and will do so from day to day.  They will manipulate learning tasks until they master them.  As they grow in physical-emotional-mental years, their foundational learning today will breed and get cultivated into higher learning if they so choose. 

Unbeknown to them for now, an exciting window and door to the world with much promise just opened wide.  They invite and send a hearty welcome!