OBSERVING COMMUNICATION

Observing Communication

 

                I am the teacher and Director at the center where I work.  My hands are full throughout the day!  However, I brought in a substitute and went to visit another center.  I visit Amazing Grace Learning Center.  The teachers were full of life and seem to enjoy what they do.  I observe Ms. Turner who worked with the three and four years old.  She had a great schedule that she followed however, she did not communicate with the children well in the learning centers.  The students ask her to come and eat with them and she told them in a minute.  She never stopped what she was doing and visited the children in the centers.  Children learn through communication.  She let the children play with the toys but there was no interaction with the students and teacher doing center time.  Ms. Turner seemed to enjoy the time to do other things than engage with the children in the learning center. After observing the children and Ms. Turner for over twenty minutes I intervened and visit the children in the learning centers.  Before intervening, I ask Ms. Turner will it be okay if I visit with the children in the learning centers.  The children were very excited.  In Dramatic Play the girls ask me could they comb my hair, I said “yes.”  Zadaisha and Carmen told me that I was at the Beauty Shop and they were going to wash and roll my hair because I did not need a perm.  So I asked them what is a perm, Zadaisha said “a perm is what you put in your hair to make it straight.”  I talking with Zadaisha and Carmen I visit the Block Center.  Zadarian and Kenji were in the block center building a farm house for their animals.  As you can see these children had great vocabulary and were very eager to have conversation.  I ask them what kind of animals live on the farm.  Kenji and Zadarian said that on a farm there are pigs, horses, cows, chickens, goats and sheep.  They told me they were going to put the pigs in the sty with some hay and mud.  Kenji told me that a sty is where the pigs sleep.  I told him that he was right and ask him where did he learn that from?  He said, “My mother read me the story Big Red Barn.” 

            The students had great communication skills whether they learned it from school or home.  The students were great, but Ms. Turner was poor at communicated with the children during center time.  Ms. Turner could have been learning the children as they played in the centers.  As Lisa Kolbeck stated, “You learn a child by watching them play.”  Learning children is getting to their level.  You have to interact and intervene to establish learning in the classroom.  She could teach the children but she seems to be unaware of the best teaching experience that may happen in the classroom.  Children learn from teachers and teachers learn from their students.

Reference

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2010) "Communicating with Young Children"