E.B.

Prof. Gray

ECE 251

23 February 2018

Caring Classroom Elements

School: Oaklane Preschool Academy Telephone: 702-293-5188

Teacher: Mrs. Gordon Age/Grade: 3-5, preschool

Date: Feb. 21, 2018 Beginning & Ending Time: 8:30am – 12:00pm

Teacher Characteristics

1. Meeting the teacher: I felt perturbed and frustrated after a few minutes of meeting the

teacher, for a variety of reasons. She was both too involved in the children’s activities and not

involved enough. It’s as if she has a mix of an authoritarian and a permissive authority style. An

example of this is her behavior during free play time. She didn’t engage with the children at all.

She did some office work, was on the phone, and spoke to a parent, but did not speak to children

about what they were playing, didn’t extend or deepen their play, didn’t comment on it at all.

Contrast this with her behavior during coloring time. She told the children exactly how to color,

“not to leave any white” and use to several colors, and didn’t give them enough time to finish

coloring when they wanted.

The teacher seemed impatient, saying “let’s go, let’s clean up” several time during clean up time,
yet she didn’t participate or model how to pick toys up. She also seemed condescending at times,

which made me feel uncomfortable. She didn’t seem emotionally close to the children, but she

frequently used pet names like “honey”, “baby”, “sugar”, “good girl/boy”, and gave out empty

praise such as “good job” and how “the Oaklane children are so very good”. The teacher was

also very particular; if a child didn’t do something exactly the way she wanted it done, she would

have them do it again, which cause me annoyance.

These initial feelings did not change. They were only strengthened by further observations.

2. Individual differences: As previously stated, this teacher is very particular. She doesn’t seem

to differentiate between different ages and skill levels. The three-year-olds are expected to do the

same activities at the same level as the five-year-olds, regarding listening skills, singing, reading,

and letter, word, and number recognition.

During music time, there were two children in particular who really enjoyed singing and acting

out the songs. Multiple children appeared uncomfortable with loud singing or dancing, but were

made to do it anyway. One instance in particular highlighted this discomfort – the children were

singing “Jack and Jill”. The teacher told a boy that he would play as Jack and hold hands with

the girl playing Jill. He said, “No”, the teacher said, “Yes, go hold her hand”. He said no again,

and they disagreed for another moment before the teacher assigned the role to another child. It

was an uncomfortable exchange to witness.

The teacher also expressed clear favoritism to one boy in particular, giving him extra attention

and praise, even when his performance was the same as the other children’s.

One boy put on his blue gloves during group time, but the teacher quickly told him to put them

away, as he wasn’t outside. He wasn’t allowed to wear something different than the other

children, something he appeared to be interested in.

Also, with one soft-spoken, withdrawn girl, the teacher said that if she always spoke that quietly,

no one would ever hear her or listen to her and she’d “be a bore”. This wasn’t appreciative of

differences at all, and shamed the girl into speaking louder instead of encouraging her.

3. Challenging behaviors: The teacher doesn’t seem to be very accepting of children who

present challenges, and communicates this lack of acceptance in understated, implied

disappointment. For example, a 3-year-old had a small accident on the floor while attempting to

use the restroom. The teacher looked in on him and asked, “How did this happen? Oh, how did

this happen? We’re going to have to clean this up.” There was no encouragement for his growing

independence in using the toilet, making it a negative event instead of a positive one with a

teaching moment.

Another example is that for the three-year-olds’ coloring time, they were told to sit down, feet on

the floor, and color their entire picture, leaving no white spaces and using more than one crayon

color. There was one boy in particular who seemed to just want to use yellow, and really took his

time coloring. The teacher made several comments about how he needed to hurry up, at one

point taking his hand and showing him how to color.

Another example of potentially challenging behavior and the teacher’s response to it is during

group time. A boy said he had to use the restroom, and before the teacher excused him to go, she

said, “You have to go potty every group time, how convenient.”

Bonding

1. Bonding rituals: The teacher didn’t seem to use any bonding rituals as described in this

course. Children were discouraged from touching each other, and there weren’t any points of
communicating friendship, family, or community.

2. Other ways: The only real bonding strategy I witnessed was during music time. During one

song, the children would form a circle and hold hands with the teacher while singing to one

particular child. The children took turns until they all had a chance to be sung to. The physical

touch of holding hands is important to make emotional connections with others, and the act of

singing is a fun way to bring everyone together.

Schedule & Routines

1. Schedule: The school’s schedule reads as follows:

Oaklane Daily Schedule (subject to change)

6:30am – Opening – Breakfast

8:00am – Free play

8:45-9:00am – Go outside to play

9:15am – Come in for snack

9:30am – Calendar, weather, counting in Circle

10:00am – Go to designated classrooms (letter, number, unit)

11:00am – Music time

11:30am – Lunch

12:00pm – Kindergarteners go to Mitchell

12:15pm – Nap

2:15pm – Start to get up from nap

2:45pm – Snack
3:00pm – Play outside

3:15pm – Story time

3:45pm – Divide into designated classrooms (appropriate craft, review)

4:30pm – Spanish

5:00pm – Music, P.E., games, free play, etc.

6:00pm – All children play bingo, cards, free play

The online reading suggests a greeting time in the morning with parents and children. Oaklane

has an informal greeting time, where the teacher greets both parent and child, the child plays a

bit with the other children while the teacher and parent visit, then the child hugs their parent and

tells them goodbye.

Though they are not included in the written schedule, I did observe consistent warnings before a

transition. They weren’t consistently five full minutes, but they might occur ten minutes before

the transition, and again two minutes before the transition.

The online reading also suggests daily reading, outdoor, and snack times. Oaklane has all of

these included in its schedule, but the outdoor and snack times are far too short. It’s inappropriate

to expect three-, four-, and five-year-olds to wash their hands, sit down, eat their snack, and

socialize within the span of 15 minutes, and it’s not appropriate to rush them through it either.

More time for snack would be advisable. The outdoor time needs a bigger time slot as well.

Young children have a lot of energy and need more independent free play than just 30-45

minutes inside and 15-30 minutes outside. A 15-minute outdoor time is grossly inadequate.

The last critique I have for this schedule is the biggest – circle time. There are 2 hours of circle

time for a typical half-day of preschool, and 3 hours and 45 minutes for those who stay through

the afternoon! Almost 4 hours of sitting, listening, not moving, and not talking is far too much
for this age range. This time slot should be cut down and partially replaced by a free choice time

where the teacher is actively involved and available, but not directing the activities.

2. Routine: The teacher didn’t seem to really understand my explanation and question about

routine and signals. She said that she signaled transitions by verbally alerting children that they

would be changing activities in a few minutes, and that she mostly relies on a consistent, steady

routine for children to learn and know what they’ll be doing in a day. Student signals include

hand raising for questions or comments. Teacher signals include finger on lips for quiet and

lowering hands for sitting down. She didn’t say she had any signals for fire drills or disaster

drills.

3. Transition

a. Observation: As a portion of group time came to an end, the teacher said, “After this,

we’re going to go outside!” She then led the children in an active dance involving clapping,

jumping, and twisting. The children smiled and laughed during this dance. After the dance, the

teacher said, “Okay, we’re getting into a straight line now. And… march! March march march!”

The teacher marched in front of the children and led them to where their jackets were being

stored.

The children put on their jackets, with help when needed, and the teacher said, “Line up by the

door!” The children stood in line in front of the door for a few seconds, then the teacher started

attendance. She said a child’s name, they answered “Here!”, then they were free to run outside.

b. Appropriateness: This seemed to be a highly appropriate transition. There was very little

wait time, and the active dance was a good transition from sitting in group time to active moving
outside. The march, too, was a fun way to move from one part of the classroom to the other. The

children seemed engaged and were not fidgeting, fighting, or appearing bored during this

transition time.

c. Improved: There is always room for improvement. This transition could have benefitted

from a visual cut as well as a verbal warning. If the school had pictures to show what activity

was coming next, then a picture of the outdoor area would be beneficial to show at some point

toward the end of group time (probably before the ending dance, to give children a longer

warning).

Rules

1. Posted: The only rules posted are for playing outside and are as follows:

1. Keep sand in sandbox.

2. No pushing, shoving, kicking.

3. Only teachers push the swing.

4. Don’t stand on front of boat.

5. Do not climb trees.

6. Do not bump or crash into other cars or bikes.

7. Do not run over people.

8. Keep hands to yourself.

9. No screaming or yelling.

2. Verbalized or implied: everyone takes a nap whether they want to or not; child was shushed

when speaking while the teacher was speaking; children must sit down during group time;
children must stay in circle during group time; children must look at the teacher during group

time, and especially when speaking to the teacher; when coloring, there must be more than one

color used and there can’t be any white on the picture; children may only speak during group

time to answer the teacher’s questions; children must speak in a loud voice; children must

participate and sing during music time.

3. Consistent: The majority of the time, the teacher only verbally reminded children of the rules

and they immediately obeyed. There were a couple times, however, when she physically moved

their bodies (moved two children away from each other, moved a child into his chair).

She did not seem to enforce to rules very strongly. When two children were touching each other

roughly, with hitting and stomping going back and forth between them, the teacher did nothing

to stop it. And when one of the children came to her and said, “Mrs. Gordon, he was hitting me”,

she said, “I don’t want to hear any tales.”

4. Nature and use of rules: Many of these rules, especially the implied rules, are for the benefit

of the teacher, in order that the children do exactly what she wants them to do. It doesn’t matter

or benefit the children to color their pictures a certain way, and having rules about it dampens

their creativity and independence. My suggestion for group time rules is to whittle them down to

three: raise your hand before speaking; always listen to whoever is currently speaking; and stay

in the group area. I don’t think sitting still or staying perfectly quiet unless spoken to is

appropriate or necessary. As long as child are still in the area, perhaps they could be offered a

choice between sitting or standing in that area. There’s nothing about the activity that requires

them to sit, and children have a lot of energy to get out.

The outdoor rules are mostly about safety, but many could be consolidated or eliminated. Of

course we want children to be safe and not hurt each other or themselves, but that doesn’t mean
they can’t touch each other at all. Touch is important, and a rule like “Keep your hands to

yourself” doesn’t value touch. In addition, what is the point of using phrases like “We stay quiet

inside” or “use your inside voice” if children aren’t allowed to be loud outside? Is there a good

reason for this rule? I’m not sure there is.

The outdoor rules, then, could be cut down to these: keep sand in sandbox; be kind to others;

keep your friends and yourself safe; stay in the middle of the boat; only teachers push the swing.

The swing rule also sounds like it could be eliminated, as surely this age group can push a swing

themselves, but as I don’t know all the facts, I will leave it. Thus, these four remaining rules are

more focused on what the children should do to be safe and kind, instead of what they can’t do.

This way, the teacher can decide for individual children what’s safe and what’s not, and if they

ask why she’s decided one way or another, she can use one of the rules. “Keep your friends safe”

is a good umbrella rule that covers most dangerous activities, and “keep yourself safe” should

cover all the other important ones. The nature of these new rules is also easier to explain to

children, instead of simply saying that it’s a rule that must be followed.