Observation Project
“Education is the key to success”, that is what most children are told at a very young age. No matter where you are from, that is universal. Learning is a never-ending process and it a teacher’s job to help students gain a sense of who they are academically and personally to achieve growth and change in each area of development. As an observer at Public School 13 in Yonkers NY, it was stated by the principal that “School 13 serves 651 students in grades PK-8. Minority enrollment is 94% of the student body (majority Hispanic) and operates within the Yonkers City School District.” The classrooms I observed were Pre- K and 1st Grade. Distinguished behaviors and patterns were more prevalent in Pre- K in the area of Social and Language Development.
In Ms. Heidelberger classroom, it’s a child centered, center-based model that allows the children access to all areas mostly independently and teacher instruction is not the focal point. The way the classroom is set up, it allows for mostly small group targeted instruction and the rug area is used for meeting time and mini lessons of introduction or review. Ms. Heidelberger organized her centers based on “quiet” centers near quiet ones and “noisy” centers near noisy ones to create control and less distraction when they are working on their own. She has a calming chair “not time out” so they “calm” down rather than “be good”. According to Ms. Heidelberger “we are all good people; no one is “bad”!
Some learning centers are Dramatic Play, Reading Area, Block and Water/Sand Centers. Each table in her classroom has different colors and numbers on them. On the side of the tables there are dots to help children be aware of how many should be at each center and the color codes help them to recognize what centers they need to be in based on the levels they are (not known to them). Breaking up the room into sections seem to give a sense of coziness to the environment, as there is a form of control and children were less likely to engage in rough play. The classroom is bright and clean which help creating an environment that is both welcoming and appropriately stimulating for the students.
From my observations I saw that she grouped students based on assessments she performs informally and by observations in order to meet their needs academically and socially/emotionally. She has groups for children with similar needs and mixed groups for kids with different needs where they can help one another. One of the students that stood out to me was Johnny (name changed for confidential reasons). He was of particular interest to me because during my hours there I saw that of the 18 children in the classroom, he was the only one sitting on a chair on the outer circle of the rug area. The daily routine that Ms. Heidelberger has is that once the children arrive and place their belongings away, they all take a seat at their rug spot (a specific Letter assigned to them). John could not stay seated on his chair nor stay focus at the task at hand. He kept getting up, circling his chair, jumping around and touching materials that were placed around the classroom.
Johnny had to be redirected many times to stay seated and the assistant teacher had to be close to him at all time. Every day I went to observe at the same time and I saw the same types of behaviors were prevalent throughout structured and unstructured activities for Johnny. I spoke to the teacher to get some insight and she told me that he has a speech impairment, lack of body/impulse control and he cannot communicate clearly what his wants and needs are clearly. She said that “Johnny continues to struggle with body awareness and speech. He is better at speaking Spanish than English even though there are still difficulties for him to communicate effectively.”
Johnny behaviors fit into the social and language area of child development since he cannot verbally socialize appropriately. He copies others especially some of his peers that engage in other negative behaviors such snatching and pushing other students to get what they want. The poor behaviors seem to get him more stimulated and is a bit challenging because he cannot not sit still, has short attention span and cannot play appropriately with other children. He showed lack of self-control skills especially when trying to take turns, letting others speak and sharing.
I was given the opportunity to work with Johnny in a small group with two other students. The activity was to circle the things that started with letter Q and write Q three times. At the table it was clear to me that he could not communicate clearly as I could not understand anything he was trying to tell me. He got super frustrated and I had to change the way I spoke to him so I can try to understand. I also had difficulty with understanding communication that isn’t spoken because the messages he sent through body language, facial expressions and tone of voice did not match up with what he is trying to convey. Slowing down things for example learning how to wait caused problems with coordination and balance as he then starts to wander and jerk his body around. His language difficulties affect him academically since reading and writing skills are directly connected and were prevalent in the letter activity that I led.
Research has shown that good oral language is the precursor to functional reading and writing. Tsurata stated that “Language is the foundation of all learning and one of the major milestones during the birth to age 5 developmental phase” (2018). Having language is very important as it is our way to communicate with each other and members of society. With Johnny not being able to fully express himself, he needed lots of help. “Vygotsky’s (1962) social development theory indicates the importance of reasoning and language development in the zone of proximal development, specifically interactions with adults and participation in language-rich environments. Teacher-child interactions and interactions with peers are the foundational ways children learn” (Tsurata, 2018). Classrooms that have a very positive atmosphere, educational providers who are delicate to kids' needs and individualism can help improve language skills.
Since the classroom has a child center, center-based set up, the students all engage in play with each other. Most of the time Johnny is in centers playing but does not talk to the other children. He is sort of isolated in some sense. When he takes toys away from his peers, they too redirect him and tell him to ask or say please. They encourage him to use kind words and gentle hands. According to the article “Play is another way children develop language. When children engage in play, specifically make believe play they learn to think in a planful fashion. Vygotsky (1967) argued that children attain their “greatest self-control” in play. In play language develops through child-child conversations and exchanges” (Tsurata, 2018). Language is a precursor to help shape behaviors of individuals as well as influencing bi-directionally when socializing.
If every student or child was able to learn everything on their own then there would be no need for parents, schools or even teachers but fortunately, that is not the case. We do require educators, and a noteworthy purpose behind that can be portrayed in Lev Vygotsky's idea of Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), where he weighs on the significance of the social condition and how it impacts children psychological advancement.
Vygotsky was a Russian psychologist who emphasized on the sociocultural perspective, which means a youngster's advancement can't be comprehended by the negligible investigation of the individual, however one should likewise mull over of the impact of the outside social conditions such as language, culture etc. By using his concept of ZPD, where the zone he refers to is the difference in a child’s performance when he/she tries to master a complex problem on his/her own, compared to how he/she tries accomplishing the same task but with the help of a more skillful partner (more knowledgeable other), in this case, a teacher can provide the extra assistance to his/her students in understanding and meeting their potential. Vygotsky refers to this extra assistance as, scaffolding, which is a term that is more familiar to construction workers, because a scaffold helps to support a building from falling down, thusly scaffolding pertaining to a student’s development is extra assistance which could be an individual in their life or even an inanimate object, like a computer or calculator.
“Vygotsky (1962) states that learning occurs in the Zone of Proximal Development. In language acquisition, parent or teacher conversations best promote learning when they calibrate their own speech to be just challenging enough for the child, but neither too simplistic so the children do not learn new skills, nor so advanced to be overwhelming to them”. (Tsurata, 2018). In Ms. Heidelberger classroom the use of ZPD is being applied and reinforced because she knows that her students are competent in meeting her expectations, so she does not lower it. In the case of Johnny, she gets to know him better and also her other students and formulates her lessons according to how she thinks they will best understand the concept/content. A study done by Kelley L. demonstrated that “early childhood teachers are significant socializers of children’s emotions (Karpov 2014; Yan et al. 2011). Adults use language to acknowledge and label children’s emotions; this mindful language becomes a tool then for children to recognize and interpret their own emotional reactions (Karpov 2014) (Kelley 2018).
“This narrative study addressed the following research questions: What kinds of supports do preschool teachers give during challenging tasks? How do preschool teachers decide which supports to provide?”. “During observations, the researcher took field notes. The notes focused on the activities children chose, the types of problems they encountered, and the ways teachers participated and supported problem-solving efforts. (Kelley 2018.) The findings in the study was that “Modeling and mindful language were the two most salient themes. Both teachers frequently “think aloud” while solving their own problems in the classroom. These think-alouds model calm, positive, and strategic processes for children (Kelley, 2018). Even though Johnny is not able to fully articulate his wants and needs, in due time and lots of help he can be able to interact in a positive way. Assistance and support not only from teachers and peers but also the people that surrounds him on a daily basic can help him curve his behaviors, communicate more effectively and be aware of proper social cues in and outside of the classroom. According to Kelley “Interactions with other children and with teachers shape the plot of each problem-solving narrative” (2018).