Questions, Questions, Questions!

Recently I put a handout from the North American Reggio Emilia Alliance in your mailboxes. The subject of the handout is Frequently Asked Questions Related to the Reggio Emilia Educational Philosophy. Hopefully this can serve as an additional resource to you while you continue to question your certainties about the work going on every day in your classrooms.

My April provocation to you is this:

You already have the "techniques" of teaching.

This month, focus on deepening your knowledge to find new ways
of helping children learn on their own.


How do you frame your own questions about your children's work?


How do you look at what your children are doing and then do something else with their work?


Revisit.

I really look forward to hearing what you've learned about your work.
Happy Spring!

Legislative Alert!!

This is a little different provocation but I hope you will take action.

This session I have had the opportunity to testify at the legislature on the 2 bills relating to an increase in the general community education levy and a bill introduced last week by Rep. Nora Slawik to increase the ECFE levy beyond what the Minnesota Community Education Association has requested. (Wow!!)

We are quickly approaching the deadlines for the budget bills. It is imperative that your legislator hears from you about the issues and concerns that impact ECFE and School Readiness. Below are the key messages for you to deliver to your legislators. I also want to encourage you to ask friends and family members who not only live in SLP but other communities to contact their legislators and ask for their support on these issues.

(It really is true--legislators pay attention to what their constituents tell them. If you have never contact a legislator before, now is the time to do it!)

General Community Education
* Community Education provides learning opportunities for the entire population of the District Community.
* Community Education opens the school facilities to residents for use during non-school hours and days.
* Community Education supports the community to identify and meet local needs by utilizing school and community resources.

HF138 & SF203 seeks to restore the 2003 budget cuts, bringing the per capita formula back to their 1987 level of $5.95.
* This increase would allow school districts and community education departments to increase programming and citizen involvement efforts for every district resident.

Early Childhood Family Education (ECFE)
* ECFE engages and supports parents as their child's first teacher.
* ECFE is a nationally recognized model that provides access to all families.
* ECFE is a school based program that offers a sliding fee and fee waivers based on family income.

HF178 & SF 803 seek to restore ECFE funding to its 2001 level of $120 per 0-4 aged resident, increase the minimum amount a small district can receive and increase the money set appropriated for home visiting families with unique needs.
HF 1232 seeks to increase ECFE funding to $135 per 0-4 aged resident.
* This funding increase will help restore cuts to programs and allow more families to participate, including families on limited incomes, and will offer more support to smaller districts assuring that ECFE is deliverable state wide.

School Readiness
* School Readiness is funding to increase the school readiness of children of low income or at risk of starting kindergarten behind their peers through community collaborations.
* School Readiness involves parents in their child's learning and success.
* School Readiness uses the Indicators of Progress to assure program quality and the Work Sampling Tool, to evaluate early learning and family outcomes.

HF 327 & SF 803 seek to increase the state appropriations from the $9 M
annually set in 1991 to $20 M annually.
* This increased funding allows districts to offer greater intensity and duration of programming to children and families most in need.

MCEA's Position on Early Education Allowance, Scholarship, or Voucher
Bills? (This is SF3)

We are pleased to see the Legislative interest in providing quality early education programs that all learners can access to close the achievement gap. However, we have some concerns that need to be addressed.

* Many families who would benefit the most from scholarships do not file income taxes, some are not English speaking, and many are intimidated by government systems. How would they access these financial awards?
* Who would insure that quality learning environments will exist in programs that can help close the achievement gap?
* How will the scholarships work for school based programs that are required by law to offer our services for free to families who are low income?
* Why create a new early education system when programs like School Readiness exist in statute already? Why not invest in this school-based program designed to achieve the outcomes of the new programs but it has not seen an increased state investment since 1992?

If you have any questions, please either email or call me (obrien.mary@slpschools.org) or 952/928-6778.

Thank you for your help!

Math-ness

At a recent district meeting, we spent quite a bit of time looking at the district's math scores (I know, you're all jealous you weren't there!)

What I took away from that meeting, besides sore eyes from squinting at the little tiny numbers in narrow columns, was that there are a few things we can begin doing with our youngest learners that will contribute toward their proficiency in mathematics.

So here are your end of February provocations dealing with math-ness.

Both third and fifth graders have trouble
(according to standardized test scores) with numeric sense.

For example, how much is 4? Not just counting to 4
but the 1 to 1 correspondence that constitutes 4.

(remember, I'm an English major who got a 6 on her ACT in
math and had to beg her statistics prof to pass her
so I hope this makes sense to you!)

Can your children count to 10 if the prompt is
to begin counting at 3 rather than 1? At 7?

Third graders have some trouble understanding
(of all things) charts and graphs.

They can identify a chart or a graph but they
don't understand WHY you would use a chart or graph.
In other words, they don't get graph-ness or chart-ness.


When you make a chart or a graph, do you
ask the children what the chart or graph tells you?
What it doesn't tell you?
Do they have opportunities to decide THEY want to
chart or graph some information or does it
always come from you?

I really can't wait to hear your responses to this!

It got me thinking about...

Most definitely the highlight of last week for me was being invited into the Yellow Room to participate in the Kids vs. Adults SPACE KNOWLEDGE CHALLENGE.

It is most humbling to be soundly defeated but very rewarding to be soundly defeated by an extremely bright, extraordinarily exhuberant--not to mention really, really smart--group of preschoolers.

One of the hallmarks of Reggio Emilia is the creation of community, involving others in the acquisition and sharing of knowledge. Aren't there many opportunities you see in your classrooms to help create this kind of community?

So here's your provocation for Valentine's Day week:
what are your children interested in knowing more about in your building and who would you include in that learning?
OR
who from your building community--or the greater SLP community--might you invite into your classroom to provide your children a chance to teach what they've learned?

If you haven't had a chance to read the comments to the last post about the cubbies, give yourself a Valentine's Day present and do it right now!

Short and sweet

Here's your provocation for early February...

Take a look at your children's cubbies or lockers or any space in the classroom where they store their things. Probably you labelled the space, chose where it should be. This is a space that your children could take ownership over.

Let the children personalize their cubbies.
"How would you like to change your cubby so that you'll know it's yours?"

Then communicate with the kids using their cubbies.
Just like adults check the mailbox every day, perhaps the children could check in their cubbies for occasional messages from you.
They also could communicate with their friends via the cubbies.

Sort of like getting ready for Valentine's Day!


I would love to hear if any of you try this and what the kids' reactions were. In fact, we all would love to hear it!

Winter Wonderings

Greetings to all!

I want to invite you to take a look at the blog about the playground again, especially the comments that are posted. Think about the playground not in terms of the "stuff" but rather as an outdoor classroom environment. (I know, sounds like splitting hairs but remember, that's one purpose of this blog--to encourage you to examine your work a little differently.) Now, how can you and your children vision this space through that lens? What would it take to make our outdoor space reflect that vision? Then post your comments for all of us to see and reflect back on.

And, as I mentioned, no ideas, no grant writing!!

Thank you for all your hard work in making our early childhood open house a successful event. Lots of good questions and comments from families.

Finally, here's your provocation for the rest of January...

Listen...listen some more...listen again

Then reflect back to the children

"What were you thinking?"

"What did you mean?"

"I'd like to understand that better."

"Tell me about that. Tell me more."

In your work the rest of this month, try for deeper understanding of what is going on through the children's work. Please post your reflections so we all know what you've heard. It's a great way to work collaboratively!

Playground Provocations

It has been brought to my attention that our east playground at Central could use updating and remodeling.

There are, of course, a couple different ways to go about doing this.

The first is to generate ideas as to what those updates, remodels, revamps, etc. should/could look like.

My question to you is: what do the children think they should be able to do on the playground? What could the playground look like? In other words, let's approach this from an inquiry perspective rather than "How much stuff could we buy with $5,000" standpoint.

Before moving forward on anything playground-related, I think it's important that we ask the children what they think about the playground.

So in the comments that you can post to this blog, would you suggest ways that teachers can engage their classrooms in conversations about the playground? If you would do that before January 17, it would give everyone ideas on talking with the children about the playground.

There is a $5,000 Lowe's grant that I'd like to apply for to be used toward revamping the playground. But I want to use the children's ideas and suggestions in writing the grant, which is due Feb. 15. Also, we can request money from capital for the playground.

Looking forward to hearing from you on this!