Linda's ECE World

Prop Me Up!!!

Sometimes I feel like the puppet Pinocchio, no strings to hold me up.  Not that I want someone pulling my strings however I would like to have a mentor to help me prepare better to succeed in teaching.  I am the kind of person who learns on an organic level through experience and it takes doing it over and over
to get something down and feel competent.  It also is helpful to have a mentor to talk things through with and come up with ideas to do better.  So far that has not been the case in the classroom not in my training program as a teacher.  Strategies for helping children with social/emotional challenges who at times can become violent just are not present in training and in the case of a private pre - school are not available in a mentor situation.
  I am  not talking about a 2 or 3 year old that is forming the ability to be self control but the children who have social/emotional challenges.  I rather enjoy working with these children, they usually are engaging and smart.  However compliance to the ground rules of the classroom are something they continually resist, and often abuse.  When there are 20 children in a class and two teachers the ability to attend to the challenges that any child  who is having a bad day is almost impossible.  Attending to the education of all the children when one is continually correcting the behavior of several children who are intent of using the classroom in a manor that is unsafe or inappropriate.

So what I am asking for is strategies for dealing with these situations in the classroom in the early childhood setting.  I'll start and let me tell you it begins with me and you.

1) Be present.  Being present is different from being in the moment.  When we are in the moment we are reacting and that means we are guided by our emotions.  There is a time and place to react, if the building is on fire and you need to get out that is a good time to react.  When a child is refusing to comply with what needs to be done that is a good time to be present and respond.  I can tell you as a reactor this takes time to develop as a habit.  And it takes practice. I'll also tell you I don't have it down pat - yet.  I have to work on it out side of the classroom so that I don't go into auto pilot with a child in the classroom.  I am making progress.

So share some ideas on this topic.  If you want to add to the conversation of being present please do. If you have other strategies please share.

Thanks :-)