A response required to receive training credits. The final reflection is in addition to required 8 posts for training credit or 12 postings for those who did not attend one of the face-to-face meetings. All posts and final reflections should be completed by Monday, March 5th. Your final reflection should be the equivalent of one-page, double-spaced paper or about 350–500 words.
In the final reflection, discuss new learning from Mind in the Making and our face-to-face discussions. What are some new ideas; information; connections; attitudes; and/or priorities? Which idea has the greatest impact on your thinking or feeling?
Also describe specific changes you will make in your teaching practice as a result of this experience. Do you anticipate changing the environment; the schedule; interactions with children; curriculum; and/or communications with families? How will you continue to discuss the seven essential skills?
Feel free to share any other final thoughts.
20 comments:
Where does one begin when one seeks to end an experience such as this? Perhaps end isn't all together accurate but " final blog" does indeed denote completion of sorts, yes? I've often been compelled to use new information ( making connections) to help myself come full circle or at least move forward with my learning ( pursuing on going learning) in hopes of confirming / reaffirming or even better, being totally swept up in a new wave of thinking . I respect those that take this a step further and continue on a a path of research and unending websites to feed their new hunger. This is usually my initial intention but alas , the real world usually wins out.
Reading is hands down one of my favorite hobbies and therefore I was drawn to an opportunity to earn training hours while doing it . as much as it's rewarding for me to sneak an hour a day to myself to read, I'm always conscience of the level of focus and self control it takes to not let myself be pulled away from reading. This book discussion group requires a level of critical thinking that I hope to continue to expect in myself and recognize in others.
As much as I like taking on new challenges and encouraging others to do so, it's never easy to delve into totally new experience; and bogging for me is totally new experience. The experience of combining the reading with the blogging with the face to face discussions allowed me to use many forms of communication as well as perspective taking. So often I was impressed with ideas that I read in others blogs and it altered my view of how I would handle situations.
Going forward, I would like to think that I will first and foremost, take the time to really listen to the children's verbal and nonverbal communication , as well as be as patient as possible. Ideally, I would like everyday to be a new opportunity for me to not only teach but to learn!
Mind in the Making puts out there some new thoughts to consider and implement. I think it organizes into categories, labels and expands quite a few things that I and many of us already do on a day to day basis within our groups.
To a certain degree I have been doing confidence building and perspective taking with the children for years, but now that it has ben specifically pointed out and labeled I will be looking for and creating more teachable moments on these skills as well as the others in the book.
Some things I picked up from the blogs the I am looking forward to trying in my group are the lap books, the mystery bags and checking out the homeschoolshare.com website.
I do have a computer in the play room for the children to use and even thought we don't use it very much, from the face to face discusion the other night I will be lessening the time that it is being used. Everyone made good points about it being a solitary endeavor and it takes away time for the children to interact with each other as well as the ones who just stand around as spectators.
From the beginnig this book has been quite challenging for me. I found the book intersting and it has many valid points, but I found it very difficult to keep track of all the terms which in turn made it difficult for me to follow. I am quite sure my blogs reflected my difficulty in comprehending. I can honestly say I am happy I stuck with it and finished this book discussion group, however, I am now looking forward to going back to reading just for fun and relaxation.
This has been a great experience for me. I have not participated in a forum such as this and the whole process was more enriching than I anticipated. I enjoyed delving into the life skills concepts that Mind in the Making covered. The research studies noted in the book were amazing. I was very interested in watching the videos of these studies on the VOOK version as well. I felt at first like "this is what we do anyway" but I don't think I fully understood the full value of teaching children these concepts--at least not in the light the book presented them in. Like mentioned in the previous post, I now see the statistics and studies that support our teaching and will try to be even more aware of how I can implement things I have learned even more frequently.
I think being aware of these life skills is extremely valuable and helpful. The book was very interesting to me and I really appreciated the feedback from the group. It's nice to hear everyone else's perspectives and experiences and bounce ideas off of each other. This blog enriched my experience of reading the book.
I am sharing Mind in the Making with others I work with now too. I want to take this opportunity to thank you all for organizing this and being a part of the group. I know it has impacted the way I interact with the kids in a positive way.
I have really enjoyed reading this book and participating in the discussions. One of the things I like most about the author's perspective is that she says it is never too late to learn new ways to approach learning and improve skills like perspective taking. Other philosophies seem to suggest that there is a fixed window of time whereby if a skill has not been learned, it cannot later be learned. This book is encouraging in this regard.
A few new ideas I got from this book are some of the games and experiments. I like the section that explained games that require children to pay attention in order to promote focus, for example guessing games, I Spy, musical chairs and puzzles. I also was really interested in the Marshmallow Test, which assessed a child's ability to postpone gratification. I had not read about that study previously. I found it so intriguing I immediately tested my own kids! The peg-tapping exercise which measures working memory and inhibitory control is also an interesting one.
One of the concepts I plan to use to strengthen my own teaching (and parenting) is helping to promote a growth mindset. Some of the quotes from the book that will remain with me include "Making errors is fundamental to learning", "If we focus on what the child can do - the child's strenghts - these will likely be fortified", "The brain is like a muscle - it gets stronger with use". Promoting this in young children will help them develop the confidence to approach learning new skills.
I agree that perspective taking needs to be embedded into the curriculum and taught as a skill to young children. It is clear that "human relationships are the building blocks of healthy development" and perspective taking is an essential component to developing positive connections. I am planning to research, and hope to learn more about, the program used in the New York public schools that "doesn't separate teaching children to handle conflict from other kinds of academic teaching; it combines...social, emotional and intellectual skills". That is something I intend to pursue for my own ongoing learning.
In conclusion, I am glad I had the opportunity to read this book and discuss ideas with other childcare professionals.
This is the first blog that I have participated in and I very much enjoyed reading the posts over the last month. My fellow bloggers have a plethora of time tested suggestions that are truly invaluable. While reading is not one of my strong areas, it was fun and enriching way to stay focused.
I felt Galinsky’s seven essential life skills to naturally be included in my daily routine; it has given me more understanding as to why I have naturally incorporated them. The mind is amazing as are children. Not a day goes by that I am not in awe at these beautiful young people.
During our open forum, I enjoyed our discussion on technology. It is not often that I run into a group that views technology as different as I. I am of a social networking era and have grown up with such. I look at social networking as a positive, yet different way to communicate with the world. I traveled extensively through my schooling and met many people – all whom I was able to keep open dialog with thanks to the internet. You folks have opened my eyes to potential downfalls if not addressed and directed.
While I do not think our audience of young children are emotionally ready to handle any aspect of social networking, I do think they are ready to be taught how to handle the technology of the computer. We have decided to set up a computer station and plan to work on the problems you folks brought up during our discussion. You mentioned children in your program had trouble focusing on other tasks and lack of self control. We will use the computers as a reward and a privilege. We will teach when is an appropriate time for computer work and when is not. We will incorporate the computer into our curriculum as well as Galinsky’s seven skills; focus and self control, making connections, and critical thinking.
This weekend I put my objectives to work with my son. While he learned his shapes some time ago, he has been struggling with name recognition with some of the not-so-common ones. He is done with flash cards and books and talking about shapes. (He is into construction, so we use street signs to help learn – he is so over it.) So I found a shape game we sat down together to “build” things out of shapes. He did not know how to navigate the mouse so I did it for him. He had to match shapes, count sides, and say its name in order to build the object that would ultimately “save the day.” His attention and focus on shapes was the best it’s been. It was not easy to figure out – he had to use his critical thinking skills and enthusiastically took on the challenge. The following day, we set up parameters that would entitle him to 20 minutes of computer time. I was pleasantly surprised at how much he retained from the day before.
To conclude, I do feel free play, social interaction, and multiple avenues of hands on learning are all important parts of teaching children. I simply think technology should be incorporated so children learn how to regulate the use of this powerful tool.
FINAL REFLECTION
I found it fascinating the way Galensky grouped the critical areas that children need most to succeed in today’s complicating and challenging world. The critical areas are; Focus and Self Control, Perspective Taking, Communicating, Making Connections, Critical Thinking, Taking on Challenges and Self-directed, Engaged Learning.
Growing up today in our culture is complicated, children are bombarded by so much information and are involved in so many activities and exposed to so much more than children of the past. We are so mobile and children are exposed to many more caregivers and different styles of caregiving. Focus and self-control are difficult when children are exposed to so many distractions. She talks about executive functions and explains that these tap into your ability to use what you already know to be creative and to problem solve. When children pretend and use imagination they are increasing this skill and reliving what they know from prior experiences and knowledge. This is acted out daily in our dramatic play area. I didn’t realize what an important area this is in my classroom and in the future I hope to improve this area and relate it more to what the children are learning and their interests. The book made me realize how important it is for children to act out and play with their prior knowledge and keep what they know. In the future I will try to relate this area to places we have visited-grocery store, pet shops, police stations, libraries, fire stations, etc. Also I will relate these classroom areas to themes children are interested in learning. It could become a dinosaur cave or a favorite story and we can fill the area with props and costumes. I will certainly be more sensitive to changing the environment to reflect back to what we have put into their memory banks based on their interests. She talks about children are motivated by what interests them. Another example of this concept being incorporated into curriculum was one of the boys was interested in making garages out of cardboard boxes. We found some boxes in the kitchen and the kids painted them and on Monday we will incorporate them in the block area. I can’t wait to see the outcome.
In my future teaching practices I will certainly spend more time finding out where my students interests lie thru direct conversations with them and their parents. A fellow book discussioner stated she makes a chart at the beginning of the year and asks the children about their interest. I will certainly do this in the future and I am going to leave an interests chart in the classroom which can be added onto at anytime.
To be continued:
completed statement:
I found perspective taking an “aha” concept for me. I didn’t relate it to teaching young children, but now I am convinced what an important concept it is to include in my teaching practice. I didn’t realize I was already using it with our PATHS curriculum and conflict-resolution technique. The importance of this has changed and affirmed my thinking and attitude and interactions with the children. I liked the way she connected perspective taking with empathy. I always wondered how to teach empathy. I always hug a hurt child and try to model and demonstrate how to care for each other and talk about how they might be feeling at that point if they can not express it themselves. It is hard to teach, but an important skill for our world to survive. It is the basis of caring for our environment and understanding each other. I liked the way she talks about adding a new sibling to the family and how the Mom discussed caring for the baby as a matter of joint responsibility and the baby was a person. Often times our little ones are jealous of a new addition and the attention they crave and miss. This skill will help me to explain alternatives to parents who might be struggling with these issues. I will look for a good children’s book which will explain and illustrate this skill to the little ones. My son and his wife are experiencing this and the 3 year old seems empathetic to the baby. They explained what the baby will be like before he arrived. Little Bella was surprised he wasn’t going to wear shoes. It is funny what goes thru their little minds, but she is showing lots of care and understanding for her new little brother.
I’m hoping perspective taking skills training will help me with the children who have more challenging behaviors and strike out at others. We are trying to emphasize this skill with a little guy in our program, but it is still a work in progress. We’ll keep working on it, but the other children are picking us this skill and we see more caring and empathy among the others. I liked her problem solving techniques and how she used them with her family. They include; Identify the problem, Determine the goal, Come up with an alternative solution, Consider how these alternative solutions might work, Select a solution to try and Evaluate the outcome.
Also, I now tell the little ones when I’m not feeling well and having a difficult day and they often hug me and understand and show more cooperation. Hopefully by emphasizing this skill our little ones will be better adjusted when entering Kindergarten and be able to learn and focus more easily.
I am having parent/teacher conferences next week with families. I will recommend this book as a valuable tool to help them with parenting skills and I will comment on particular sills which will help them achieve their goals. I will certainly emphasis asking them about their children’s interests and how to expand on their interests by finding books at the library, simple field trips and interactions with their play. I will talk about perspective taking, empathy and understanding others feelings. Many of our little ones are lacking communication skills. I’ll encourage parents to model language and to converse with their little ones more at the dinner table or when reading them stories or during everyday experiences and activities. Children with larger vocabularies will likely to be more successful in Kindergarten and be able to understand our complex world more easily.
I really enjoyed this experience. It was a lot of work and a great way to learn a lot of important knowledge. I loved the book and I will certainly recommend it to others and use my new found knowledge in my teaching practices.
I really enjoyed reading Mind in The Making. Galinsky talks about the science of early childhood development and puts in terms that we as parents and educators can understand and relate it to our own situations. She talks about seven essential life skills that include self-control, perspective taking, communicating, making connections, critical thinking, taking on challenges and engaged learning. After each chapter she includes anecdotes, quizzes, and real life examples, and activities you can bring into the classroom. I really enjoyed reading these because it makes you stop and think about things and can change your way of thinking. I also found a lot of activities that I can bring to my classroom that I think my children will really enjoy.
I really enjoyed reading everyone's posts. There were a lot of great posts that I could relate to and I got a lot of ideas to bring into the classroom. This was the first time that I blogged so it was a new challenge for me to take on but pretty simple to learn. Reading is a skill the we learn at a young age and now learning to blog is becoming very popular in the schools. I like the idea of using an old skill and combing it with new technology. I also like the idea of face to face meetings and blogging. It was good to have discussions in class and then go home and read everybody's post and comments online.
In our last face to face discussion I found our conversation about technology really interesting. Today's technology changes the way children our learning today. I found the part of texting and reading emails rather than talking in person or on the phone really interesting because kids aren't really learning any social skills or learning how to react in different situations or even to express their real feelings and emotions because you really can't tell how someone feels or see their facial expressions through a simple text or facebook message. Even though technology changes day to day I think that learning still goes back to the seven skills that Galinsky talks about.
I have learned a lot from reading Mind in The Making and reading all the blogs. I have changed my way of thinking inside and outside of the classroom. I will be using some of the ideas mentioned to build confidence in my children. I have a few children who will hopefully benefit from the great ideas that I have read. I have also learned that is so important to be excited and enthusiastic about what your teaching to the children to keep promoting their curiosity. I plan to implement a lot of the great ideas from the blogs and book so that the children can have a greater perspective of life and the situations they may encounter.
I've enjoyed this book group. It's been nice to connect with other educators who I may share views with or have discussed different views on educating our children. Sharing views with others, helps reinforce the way I teach. Listening to different views, opens my eyes to all the many options out there. Both, are very important to educators. Building confidence and camaraderie, and being reflective on our own teaching skills and styles, with an excitement for trying something new; I believe this helps us to be the best teachers that we can be.
Our discussion about technology was interesting. Whatever our beliefs on technology are, it is here to stay, and will/has become a way of life for our children... just as telephones and cars are a way of life for us; something we don't think twice about. I'm sure when telephones first came into common use, there were comments such as: "it so nice to talk over a cup of coffee, and here we are talking into this mouthpiece instead!" As educators, we need to guide our children to be well rounded, taking advantage of and appreciating technology, but also taking advantage of and appreciating real human contact as well.
The book speaks of supportive adults in a child's life that "can create supportive environments that help children learn to cope with and recover from major adverse experiences." This part of the book really caught my attention. Our children come from very diverse backgrounds. Many of our children have had adverse experiences in their lives,...and unfortunately, we all end up having some type of major adverse experiences in our lives as we grow. As much as we would like to make the "bad stuff" of life just go away, especially for our children, that just isn't reality. In our little preschool, some of our children are dealing with divorce, the death of a parent, death of grandparents, absentee parents, and illnesses. We can't make these things go away. But the book gives us hope, that by creating a supportive environment for our children, we can help them learn how to cope with the bad stuff that comes their way. Learning how to cope with what life sends us, is a lifelong gift.
Time and Patience. In promoting the seven essential skills to children, the two things that keep coming up are time and patience. Helping children balance out life and technology, and coping with adverse experiences also takes time and patience. The greatest impact on my thinking, what I need to work on the most is time and patience. This is not something new, this is something I am always working on. This book group has given me a nice reminder about what is important. It has reminded me and renewed my passion for giving the children a little more time, and giving the children a lot more patience. This book group has also given me a nice reminder that every day is a new day. Every day we can push forward and give our very best for our children.
As I read, Mind in the Making, I tried to focus on the things that I do in my own classroom to develop the seven life skills that are mentioned in the book. As I think about my daily schedule, I often play games like Watch and Copy during large group times. This gives the children an opportunity to copy my physical movements, like toe tapping or hand clapping, and once I see that I have everyone’s attention, we move on to another activity. As far as perspective taking goes, working on social skills is something that I assist children with every day. When they are struggling with one another over toy, accidentally knock over someone’s block tower or say something that upsets one of their classmates, I bring the children involved together to really look at each other so that they can see each other's facial expressions. They are then asked to tell me how they think the other child feels and what they think could be done to solve the problem. If they need help with expressing themselves, I’ll give them words that they can use in that particular situation. When it comes to making connections, I can think that we provide a variety of sorting, matching, and counting games and manipulatives. The opportunities for storytelling, making predictions about what’s going to happen next, and using descriptive words are all things that are done naturally in our book corner. Our curriculum topic is always related to what interests the children and we research and ask questions to extend topics further. Our KWL charts and documentation panels allow the children to review and revisit the topics of interest.
While it was beneficial for me to review how I teach the seven essential life skills to the children in my classroom, this book has had the most impact on how I think about and relate to my co-workers. We have recently experienced a lot of change in our center and new people bring new personalities, ideas, and challenges. It’s not that change is a bad thing, but it was really helpful for me to read the chapters in the book about perspective taking, communication, and taking on challenges. Our staff was recently encouraged to look at the daily schedule, planning sheets, and set-up of the classroom, in order to think about ways to make them more efficient and adaptable to Department of Early Education and Care regulations. Change is always hard, particularly when people have doing things the same way for many years. It can bring with it stress and anxiety. At first there was resistance to the change and people seemed genuinely unhappy. It took some time, but I think that the new administration is beginning to understand that it is important to include everyone involved in the decision making process. People are more willing to help and make changes if they feel that they have a voice and are really being listened to. They also want to feel valued and, as a result, are more willing to take on new challenges.
I think that in the future, I’ll use this book as a reference to remind myself about the importance of teaching the seven essential life skills. While teaching the social skills comes more naturally, I do like the specific examples in the Critical Thinking and Making Connections chapters and will try to incorporate more of these into my own classroom. As preschool teachers, we teach many of these concepts as part of our early childhood philosophy, but I worry that when these same children enter elementary school, there is more focus on academics and less on life skills. If this is the case, it’s our job to share this wealth of information with the parents of our children before they leave us.
Since I began reading Mind in the Making I have been sharing many of the ideas with my co-teachers. They are enthusiastic and willing to try some of the ideas I have brought from this class. I have recommended both the book and the class. I am anxious for them to read the book so we may do more brain storming for implementation into the classroom
Although, we have been teaching perspective taking within our Paths (social emotional) curriculum we need to expand this component. The book and discussions have inspired me to see the importance of perspective. Just from our brief discussion on bullying verses joking I realized as preschool teachers we have this brief period of time to model and teach empathy. I had not considered that before. One of the things I have been doing is looking at Path’s material’s to see how we can individualize some of the lessons for the children in our class. Another idea we have come up with is to have the teachers do more roll playing. It is interesting to see the children’s reaction when we do this.
I look forward to sharing with parents information about Mind in the Making and how the seven essential life skills impact their child’s growth and development. I hope they will want to read the book or at least parts of the book.
This class has also been a completely new experience for me. I didn’t know how to blog and was unsure if I would be able to do it. I have thought about how our children feel when faced with a new learning challenge. I really did enjoy our face to face discussions because of the spontaneity in response. Those meetings went by so quickly. I would have liked to discuss further our thoughts on computer use in the pre-school setting. That discussion has certainly peeked my interest in what research has been done and how/if it impacts brain development in the pre-school child. Another book discussion group?
I look forward to re-reading the book now that I have read the comments of the other teachers. I think I will understand it at a deeper level.
Thank you all for making this such a positive experience.
Mind in the Making is a compilation of sensible, timely material that is informative and helpful. In particular I appreciated the author’s clear and concise introduction. More used to concise information, I had some difficulty getting through the book’s considerable anecdotal material. This is not criticism of the book, but rather simply an expression of stylistic preference.
In my view, the book’s seven essential skills are intuitive. But the book supplements this intuition by defining, clarifying, and analyzing the seven skills in ways that are most useful in their application to parenting and teaching, serving to bring the seven skills into objective awareness.
The book’s idea that the central purpose of literacy is to communicate, and that this process should be surrounded with enjoyment, connecting the visual with the verbal, is especially salient for my classroom. At Story Time in my classroom the teacher tells the story rather than reading it. The story is told using eye contact and body language, to empathetically connect with the children. This technique amplifies the experience of the story for the children, stimulating their imagination and feelings, and enlivening the group experience of Story Time. The children participate in this intently enthralled, and are transported together into the world of the story.
I enjoyed our study group’s get-togethers. The second discussion group seemed especially thoughtful and friendly. As a concerned observer of today’s ever more enveloping electronically-communicating world, I was sympathetic with the group’s cautionary views about the effects that this non-physical means of interacting is having on child development. The views of our group’s mothers of teenagers were especially relevant. Electronic devices are beguiling tools for communication. They are clearly having profound, disturbing, and not-as- yet-understood effects on the development of our children’s all-important socialization skills. We must seek to understand and address these effects. Relating well to the book, this concern and other issues comprised the second evening’s edifying discussions. Susan, our friendly and knowledgeable professor kept our discussions lively and relevant. The discussions were a working example of “Perspective Taking!”
The course and book presented ideas which are applicable in my classroom. Using the impetus from the book’s section on focus and control, my class has played “I spy” instead of standing idle, while waiting in line for children who take longer to ready for outside play. The class has had fun with Topsy-Turvy ideas and words. These games enliven, bring variety to the moments when we are all together, and burnish the essential skills. Recently, an example of children having learned perspective-taking took place in my classroom. Three new children came to our school with their parents and were encouraged to join our class of twelve children in free play while the parents talked to one of the teachers about prospective enrollment. It was gratifying and heartwarming to observe how well the children applied their newly acquired prospective-taking kindnesses as they enjoined their three, new acquaintances.
The course’s objectification of the seven essential skills will provide useful guidelines in my classroom. As a result of the course I will be more focused with regard to the application of the seven skills, and perhaps be more playful. I add playful because growing up, and taking on all that growing up entails is serious work, and happy play seems a most important facilitator of learning, especially in the early preschool years.
From birth, humans are animals of curiosity and learning. As teachers we have a vital responsibility to respond to this propensity in providing the learning of life skills in a joyful and exciting way, helping to prepare our charges for an accomplished and happy life. The course and its book have provided me with additional valuable resources as I attempt to work towards these ends.
I would first like to thank Sue for guiding us through this book discussion. This was all new to me but I really enjoyed the face to face discussions and blogging with everyone.
When I first started reading "Mind in the Making", I thought to myself isn't the Seven Essential Skills just common sense? As I read the book I think Galinsky's research and examples really helped reinforce a deeper meaning to just how really important it is to encourage and teach these skills to children of today especially with so many distractions in today's family life; dual parents working, split families, technology, and just the hustle of everyday. The book also made me stop and think about just how much you can teach a child right from birth and also that it is never to late to learn something.
One of the things I will start to do with the kids is asking more open ended questions. I, myself, need to work on being a little more patient at home and at work by listening more and really observing what is going on before assuming what has happened. I also need to let the kids do more things on their own, even if it is not done exactly as I would like it, instead of just doing it for them, I think this is a great opportunity for encourage confidence. Perspective taking is still very interesting to me as there are so many different ways to go about making sure children really understand what someone else is thinking and feeling. I plan to start taking every opportunity that I can to use as a learning experience for not only the kids in daycare but also my boys at home.
I really enjoyed reading the ideas and thoughts everyone has posted. It is nice to get ideas from people who are dealing with the same or similar situations on a daily basis.
Final Reflection
Reading Mind in the Making has opened up many areas of thinking for me that I knew existed but I never could find the right words for like Perspective Taking and Lemonade Stand that becomes a metaphor for something that children care about. It was all put in a nut shell for me after reading; A Parents Perspective “I HOPE SHE NEVER STOPS” I was so moved by this story that I copied it and put it in my March Newsletter. I had fun reading the blogs. Everyone had valuable information to contribute.
The information has been in debate for years; is it better to let children discover knowledge or to teach them directly? I like how it is said that it is the “wrong debate.” It is not just cramming knowledge into our children; it is HOW we encourage children to discover. It was so refreshing to see those words because it has been something I have been in tune with during my teaching career. I always feel that parents just don’t get it. This book can be a wonderful teaching tool for parents and I have already suggested they read it. I would only make this suggestion to parents because it is a non-judgmental piece of work. I wish I had this book when I was raising my son. At the Sandpiper Nursery School, we work through Reggio approach and The Hundred Languages of Children. The approach is very similar to Mind in the Making. I really like how the book was easy to read. I feel the experiments were valid as well as interesting. The idea that had the greatest impact on me is that we teach best when we are learning. I find it very refreshing to have this information come to me at such a difficult time for parents, having to work every waking moment, paying bills and day to day stresses. Sometimes it can be too much to bear. If we can take the time to observe children for who they are, their style of learning combined with these seven essential skills we can be well on our way to a better future for our children!
Final Post- Reflection
I have enjoyed being part of this book discussion even though I was unable to meet all of you. This book was very interesting and thought provoking, helping to focus my attention on what is important in the lives of young children. By having this knowledge and ongoing research at my disposal, it will only help to strengthen my interactions with children. I hope this will only be a starting point for continuing my learning in this area to help me better understand and teach young children in the future.
The following are some ideas from the book that I would like to incorporate into the classroom.
1. Intentionally ask more “where”, “why” and “what” questions to enhance discussions.
2. Use more “appraisal skills” books to help understand intentions of others.
3. Use more “math” talk during play. One of my goals for the year is to create a math center with teacher made manipulatives.
The following topics, books and websites are where I will be focusing my research for future professional development.
Topics:
1. “Tools of the Mind”- to help working memory, inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility skills. (Adele Diamond)
2. “People Sense”- can infants interpret the goal of a person? (Amanda Woodward)
3. “Head-To-Toes-Task- and Literacy”- This sparked my interest as we have a small pre-K group each day for children going into Kindergarten in the fall.
(Megan McClelland)
4. “Brain Networks”- parts of the brain involved in mathematical thinking
(Stanisla Dehaene)
5. “Impact of stress on children”- (Megan Gunnar) and National Scientific Council on the Developing Child”- (Jack Shonkoff)
Books:
1. Distracted- Maggie Jackson
2. Reading In the Brain- Stanisla Dehaene
3. Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experiences of Young Children-
Betty Hart and Todd Risley
4. Right From Birth- Chris Ramey
5. The Philosophical Child- Alison Gopnik
Websites:
1. www.mindinthemaking.org
2. www.medialit.org
3. www.brainbuildinginprogress.org
4. www.familiesandworkinstitute.org
5. www.innerresilience.org
I will strive to share ideas that I have learned with other educators and parents in our center. I was wondering if the two groups could have access to each blog discussion? I would love to read what other people thought about the book too!
I enjoyed reading Ellen Galinsky's Mind in the Making. I like the format that Galinsky used to tie the research, parent anecdotes, and suggestions to create an easy to use guide taking the research and dividing it into seven essential skills that teachers and parents can use to help children fulfill their portential.
I looked forward to reading the blog every evening and discovering a new idea or two that I could try in my classroom. I have shared some of the ideas with my team, especially the lap book and the websites and focusing more on the children's interests and using the KWL charts. Although we have used the charts in the past,we did not use them consistently. I would like to see us use them for every theme.
Although we have "monthly" themes, it seems that they are
becoming "weekly" by focusing on one topic for the week. I would like to see the topics thread throughout the month so that the children can make connections and develop their working memories.
We have a House Area (Dramatic Play) that we change to support our monthly themes. We have had restaurants, beauty salon, Santa's workshop, and farm stand to name a few. I would like to encourage the children to use the Writing Center and Art Area to create the props they need and to bring their fantasy play to other parts of the classroom.
This is the second book discussion that I have participated in; but, I must say that I feel that I have enjoyed this one more. I feel that I have a better understand of the essential skills by, not only reading the book, but by reading the blogs and the face to face discussions. The time really did go by quickly!! Sharing ideas and opinions with other professionals in the field has helped me make connections and improved my perspective taking which is an every day challenge for me. (It's difficult being a first born female!) This became quite evident to me during our discussion on technology and the use of the computer in the classroom. It amazes me to see how computer savy the 3 & 4 year olds are! We have a 3 1/2 year old who has been diagnosed with PDD. He has a 14 mos developmental delay and has delays in speech and language. One thing that he can do well is play his favorite games on the computer by himself!
We are in the age where technology has become part of our everyday lives. We just have to make sure that it doesn't take over-that children and adults alike balance technology with face to face communication so that we can undertand the feelings behind the words and give children the manipulative objects to make the connections with something they may have read on the Internet, ipad, or T.V.
I have already shared Mind in the Making with parents during our winter conferences and have recommended it to my team as a means of understanding the children more fully.
Thanks to all for helping me focus on what is important when working with young children-creating an enviroment for them to satisfy their curiosity and develop their language and social-emotional skills, through conflict resolution and continuing to ask those open-ended questions. Thank you for helping me make those connections with the research mentioned in the book and the wonderful ideas that each of you shared.
Sue-as facilitator, you kept us focused and challenged us to grow beyond who we were when we first met. Thank you.
I enjoyed participating in the Mind in the Making book discussion group and look forward to participating in another group at some point. At our first session, I sat next to Dr. Eliason and couldn't help noticing the reference tabs in her copy of the book. Having read the book, I know that there is much valuable information that I too will continue to reference and share with others.
Each of the seven essential life skills discussed by Ellen Galinsky is worthy of examination. The skill that I have been thinking about most is perspective taking. I will really strive to help the children in my classroom learn about perspective taking and empathy. I will also strive to always be sensitive to another's perspective in my personal life as well. I had to smile when a classmate talked about taking a husband's perspective into consideration. I had been thinking about that same thing.
With regard to focus, self control and communication, I will strive to be be sensitive to the children who are learning and working so hard at these skills. A fellow blogger suggested that we must "practice what we preach" and I feel that I can enhance my children's learning by being focused and communicating effectively with my class. I will also continue to help the children learn to communicate with each other. The sections on making connections and critical thinking are so important as we think about how children learn.
Another area of research that I particularly enjoyed learning more about was temperament. I will continue thinking about stress factors for children and how they cope as well as how my reactions and responses might influence behavior and learning. Many parents and caregivers talk about children's behavior. I have already been sharing information with some of my parents and grandparents. Last but not least, I hope to foster an environment where children will go on to become lifelong learners. I will be a supportive adult role model.
I felt that the discussion at our last meeting was very interesting. Technology certainly plays a huge role in the lives of children today. I think that the use of technology has enormous potential with regard to learning but it can also be dangerous. It will certainly be a hot topic for a long time to come.
In conclusion, I felt that this was a valuable experience. What I have learned is that there is so much information available to us as educators. My goal is to continue to do what I do well, to learn as much as I can to help me become a better teacher, and to share that information with others. Thank you to Sue Eliason and everyone who facilitated this experience.
Final Reflection;
I am in awe with all the amazing research and information in this book! I feel like, although I borrowed this copy from the library, I will need to purchase it for further review. I will look to this as a reminder, a guide, and a source of comfort. Knowing that we can all make changes for the good at any age, and anytime. I want to share this with my husband, my mother, and my friends! (My coworkers have now read it!) I will be sharing many pieces of this book with the families of my preschoolers by handing out the Tips for Professionals and Parents along with the information about the book at my March parent conferences, and I will be showing some clips such as the Marshmallow Test. I will also share with families, and my children’s teachers, the effect of background noise and play. I want to know how public school teachers feel about temperament and individuality, as well as, background noise in the classroom. I will be including tips in each of my news letters as well.
In my classroom, I have already made some changes. I figured out that the children in my class really needed more space to build, taking their perspective, and I rearranged my classroom to accommodate that. I have been doing some experiments with my 2.9-3.4 year olds. For example, sorting by color, and then changing rules to sorting by shape. The results really were what the study showed, the 3 year olds had a really hard time. They seemed to understand the directions, but could not switch gears!
I want to use more Math Talk, but more important, in my opinion, is the interest in science. Having two children in the Falmouth public schools I have come to the conclusion that the science curriculum in Falmouth is drastically lacking in content. The little science they do is extremely structured and planned out to fit into a preexisting time slot, and no room for real questions, hypothesis, experiments, and answers! I want to offer as much as possible in my preschool classroom. I feel that the real sciences help to make connections, use critical thinking, and with the right environment, can build strong self-directed, engaged learners.
I found many useful videos that I would like to view and share, and the Mind in the making website I will visit often. Hopefully some of you may stay connected here to reflect on some things we see in our lives/classroom after the group is finished.
How long will this blogspot be up? I know I didn’t get to read ALL of the comments, and would love the chance!
Thank you all for your information and comments, I know that my own children, and those in my classroom are benefiting for having this experience!
Mind in the making was an interesting book for me. It started out slow but had very valid information. The studies and tests were very valuable information to all of us as educators. Whether we are in the classroom workung with infants-prek or in the office setting as a director there were very valid points anc studies that truly show us how gifted children are and how much they are capable of at such a young age.
As educators i thought this book was a great tool and resource to have and look back on when needed. It was a bit questionable to me though suggesting this book to parents of children at my center. A parent with no background in education may find this book overwhelming and challenging to understand. I felt myself stopping while reading and saying "is this really wppropriate for parents?" Many parents are looking for a quick fix and a clear cut answer with i do not think this book provided very well. As a parent i would not want to see studies and statistics i would want to see much more real life stories and suggestions from parents, not university professors. Overall i very much enjoyed sgaring stories and opinions with all of you. Its so nice to hear other stories similar to my own about children and their stages. As an educator i would suggest this book but as a parents tool, it would not be the first method i would suggest for them. I have found other resources to be more valuable that they can get more out of and answers faster to help them and cater to there busy schedule
Greetings,
I’ve enjoyed reading your final thoughts and will look into gaining access to the other discussion group. If it is possible, I will send out an email message.
The book seemed to make many of you think deeply about ideas and also to try new practices suggested either in the book or through the blog. Galinsky’s ideas seemed to affirm your teaching practices. I agree with many of you that the information in the book needs to be shared with families. Someone commented in the Confidence discussion about the relationship between high quality childcare and the seven essential skills; I agree that high quality programs are more likely to enhance the seven essential skills. We need to continue to advocate for public policies that support high quality practices.
I appreciate the many words of wisdom from the blog. Some of my favorites which I paraphrased were:
• Take the time to really listen to the children's verbal and nonverbal communication.
• Be as patient as possible.
• Every day is a new opportunity for me to teach and to learn.
• Look for and create more teachable moments.
• Statistics and studies support our teaching; implement things you learn.
• The book challenged my assumption of sensitive or critical periods of learning.
• Incorporate technology so children learn how to regulate the use of this powerful tool.
• To learn children and adults need to play with their prior knowledge and keep what they know and add to it.
• Resilience is a lifelong gift.
• The book has had the most impact on how I think about and relate to my co-workers.
• Model and teach empathy during our brief time in the lives of children.
• Think about how children feel when faced with a new learning challenge.
• Ask more open ended questions.
• Really observing what is going on before assuming what has happened.
• Practice what we preach
Thanks for sharing~Sue
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