Lessons We Learn From Children

From experience with my own daughter, I have learned that you have to give a child credit for the good things they do. Some teachers are not good at recognizing the good in students.

In "Walking Trees" (pg.65-66) Ralph was working with the teacher, Florence Smith who has nothing but negative comments about a particular student. Florence comments about her student and says, "fifth grade and can't use quotations right". Ralph does not agree with this teacher and instead he points out the positive qualities in the students writing. Ralph also points out that even though the student has not used quotation marks correctly the student has taken a risk to try them in their writing. Ralph continues to say that at least the student realized that quotation marks are lined with spoken words. I think Ralph did a great job at looking "deeper" into the good qualities of this particular students work. I think that many teachers are quick to respond negatively toward students work. Children pick up on the teacher's negativity which causes other types of problems in their students, behavior problems, lack of motivation, low self esteem etc.

I will share a similar example that I had with my daughter's Pre K teacher. When my daughter was first learning to write she was using all capital letters in her first and last name. As a parent I thought to myself this is fine for now because she is only just learning how to write her full name and that she will eventually learn how to use upper and lower case letters. As time went on my daughter was criticized by her teacher. The teacher told my daughter, "you must learn how to use upper and lower case letters in your first and last name". She put my daughter down a lot. My daughter at the time understood that upper and lower case letters were used in her name and she had been practicing this at home with me. The teacher repeated it all the time to her and put so much pressure on her. My daughter would come home and repeat to me the things her teacher was telling her. The comments eventually got to my daughter and she came home one day crying about it. It made me furious to know the teacher had made my daughter that upset so I decided to put an end to it!

I confronted the teacher and held my daughter's work out to her and said, "can you point out anything good in my daughter's work?" I said, "Do you even recognize how neat and clear this child writes her first and last name?" "Do you realize that she can print her name straight on a plain piece of paper?" I also pointed out that my daughter knows how to write all of her ABC's. She refused to acknowledge anything I had to say but continued to tell me that she does not know how to correctly use upper and lower case letters. I acknowledged that she did not know how to correctly use upper and lower case letters but I pointed out to her that she had been practicing at home and that she would master it in time. I told the teacher to give the her a chance and to stop all the negativity she had been placing in my daughters head. I said, "do you realize that the negativity is preventing my daughter from learning?" The following day I had to address it with the principal who ended up talking with this particular teacher.

The point I am making is that this particular teacher made my daughter obsessive about her writing now. My little one is so critical about how she writes and her Kindergarten teacher now points this out to me. All of us as future teachers have to remember to look "deeper" into students work just like Ralph did in the book. It's important to look for positive qualities in your students. Also remember that making negative comments and not saying anything positive leaves scars on a child. All students make mistakes but students need to understand that they will learn and grow from their mistakes.


Teresa Duardo