Now isn’ t that a much cooler way than to have a worksheet where you practice the number line?
So that’ s what we mean. If you see it, you can make the world out of it. There are stories everywhere around us, and they build literacy. Imagine what you could say about a falling leaf:“ How does that leaf feel? It’ s going away from all its friends on the tree. What’ s that about?”
Michelle: Well, you touched on this in your story, Kathy. We at NAEYC are talking a lot about how quality early learning environments happen because of prepared educators, educators who understand how to foster a child’ s development to bring out their learning through a strengthsbased approach and a play-based approach. Can you talk a little bit more about the educator’ s role?
Kathy: I think the most important thing for me is first to celebrate the educators.
Michelle: Yes! Let’ s celebrate them!
Kathy: These wonderful human beings are taking care of the next generation of civilization. These amazing human beings are building the foundation for children who are going to learn and be the adults of the future.
We see things as teachers, and can be trained to see things as teachers, that a lot of other people don’ t see. And if we can use that magic in the classroom and learn how to help share that with families, then they can see it too. And the more that they see the magic around play, and it is magical— you are seeing literally a mind at work— then they can take advantage of it. I’ ll give you an example. My youngest son just had a baby. The baby’ s now 6 months old.
One day when baby Sophie was just over 4 months old, we were on the phone. Sophie has a favorite toy, and I saw her open her hand for the first time to grab onto a ring on the toy. Think about what’ s involved with that. She had to see the ring, process the ring, and know to grab the ring. She had to open her hand so that her thumb was in one place and her other fingers were in another place. That’ s an amazing achievement! A good teacher, a teacher who sees that, doesn’ t just think,“ Wow, she grabbed a ring.” They get something thinner and something thicker and see what the child does.
What happens in high-quality early learning settings? The teacher then gives the baby the thicker ring and the thinner ring, and they watch as the baby adapts. We create guided play so that we know what the next step is on the stair to learning, and we provide it for the children. It’ s the teacher in the number line example who says,“ Wow, you discovered four, and that four is bigger than three.” The children discovered it and explored it, and the teacher commented on it.
Michelle: It is amazing how they are doing that for every individual child who is in their program. One of the most joyful things that I see in programs is how educators recognize the context that a child is coming from and, in particular, the different social and cultural contexts of children and families. I think about that a lot, even from my own experiences. I’ m the daughter of immigrants, and I think about those preschool teachers who recognized that I had language challenges because English wasn’ t my first language. They recognized that and supported me
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