Home and School Connections

  
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Table of Contents

1. Nurturing Chick and Child:  Maternal Thought and Practice in the School Curriculum
2. Book Review - The Schoolhome
3. A Few Comments After 14 Years of Schooling Our Children At Home
4. Early Childhood education Lecture Series
5. Summer Reading
6. Newsletter Information

Nurturing Chick and Child:  Maternal Thought and Practice in the School Curriculum

In this issue we present different perspectives on links between home and school learning. The editors feel this is a timely topic as New Brunswick begins the implementation of parent advisory boards.

"Events or occasions such as a birth, or a storm, or a meal might be described in precise technical terms...But in a deeper, more grounded sense of knowing, a birth for example, begins with ones ancestry, with a courtship, with poetry, a first touch, and even before, imagination." (Oliver, 1990)

I have chosen to write this story about love in public education as a diary because the form is fitting for what I have to say. Diaries, a genre historically favored by women for recounting the intimate details of their lives, existed, until very recently, only in the margins of academic literature. The education canon, striving for scientific credibility, couldn’t accommodate their gossipy, "subjective" style any more than it would admit their sensual, intimate subject matter. Things are beginning to change, but still it came as no surprise to me that only last week my eleven-year old daughter had to argue for the genre when the novel she is writing was criticised for reading "too much like a diary." She was able to cite a convincing stream of famous published diaries - The Gathering of Days, The Diary of Anne Frank and The Stone Diaries - to prove her point. Her novel is no epic novel of heroism - the heroine always dies in these anyway (Thompson, 1993) - but a story of the countless small victories and defeats that daily life allows a girl such as herself. The diary is the perfect genre for her sort of story. The fact that in 1996 it was still not considered quite legitimate makes it all the more perfect for mine.

May 21, 1996 12 noon

The goslings have hatched and I have joined the steady stream of professors, janitors, secretaries, university students, the siblings and the parents of the primary children who attend school at the Faculty of Education, drawn to the classroom to see how they are doing. It’s not just the cheeps of new life that are so compelling, although in themselves they are sufficient to attract passers-by "just to pop in for a quick look," but it is the children’s enthusiasm and sheer love for their brood which is so contagious. First the chickens, then the turkeys and now the goslings; we have all been kept well informed as to the due dates, informed by five, six and seven year olds who have maintained countdown records as carefully as any expectant mother.

A small group of children has moved over to eat their lunch with their goslings. This staying close enough to be watchful yet at the same time getting on with daily routines has come to characterise their work and play lately. They can already distinguish between turkey poults and fowl chicks, something most of the adults are still having difficulty with, and although I know that their intense watching will eventually lead to perfectly accurate, meticulously labelled drawings which we may call scientific, theirs is not the gaze of the detached objective scientist. They are besotted with their subject, speak tenderly about their beauty, take note of their growth, point out their individual characteristics and idiosyncrasies, laugh at their antics and worry about their welfare. I am reminded of the loving detail in Rachel Carson’s The Sense of Wonder - a beautiful photographic essay, first published in the Woman’s Home Companion in 1956 under the title Help your Child to Wonder - to show and tell mothers how they might cultivate in their children the sense of wonder. "Once the emotions have been aroused," says Carson, "- a sense of the beautiful, the excitement of the new and unknown, a feeling of sympathy, pity, admiration or love - then we wish for knowledge about the object of our emotional response. Once found, it has lasting meaning" (Carson, 1990). As I watch the children’s unwavering attention to the minutest detail of the chicks’ appearance and behaviour, I am reminded of Nobel laureate Barbara McLintock, the geneticist, who, "without distinguishing between ‘cognitive and visual’ knew by seeing and saw by knowing" (Keller, 1983). In the context of what Ellen Fox Keller refers to as an "intimate relationship between her and her kernels of corn" McLintock was eventually able to see chromosomes which had formerly eluded her and other research geneticists (Keller, 1983). As I watch a child totally absorbed in the chick she is cradling I am also reminded of how I gazed so long and deep into my newborn daughter’s face that I knew every hair in her eyebrows.

May 21, 1996 2:30 p.m.

Back in the primary class again - just for another quick look. It’s never really quick! Pam Wister, the classroom teacher, who has been coming in on weekends lately just to be sure that all was well with the incubator and to attend any out of school hours hatchings, showed me the gosling with the crooked bill. She told me how Sandy Latchford had helped with its hatching. In contrast to the chicks and turkeys, this gosling had cracked its shell with agonising slowness and Pam, fearing that something was wrong, had dithered between whether to help or whether to stick with the old poultryman’s maxim "If they can’t get out by themselves, don’t help them. They won’t survive anyway." Sandy, a professor in Special Education who had happened along - just for a quick look - had no such compunction. Stating firmly that, "This is what the mothers do," she helped break the shell. All three goslings were born this way. Two survive.

May 23, 1996 1:15 p.m.

Today when I went into the classroom children were sitting around the large aquariums which currently house the chicks, poults and goslings, absorbed in drawing and conversing in the language of experts - about poults, broods, egg teeth and the like. They use, read and write words like incubator, embryo, foetus and allantois membrane with ease, teaching us, the adults, new terminology gleaned from the many reference books Pam Wister has provided. The goslings have taken to following everyone around and the need to know why has let one 7-year old boy to re-search the literature for an explanation. His account of imprinting is as knowledgable and articulate as the one I first heard in introductory psychology at university!

Joy, a student teacher, was cradling a turkey poult in her hands. She was concerned, Pam told me, because it seemed listless. I thought it was just tired.

May 23, 1996 7:30 p.m.

The turkey poult is very sick. When I brought the students from my curriculum theory class in to show them how the lived curriculum was evolving in one multi-age primary classroom, (and, secretly, to show off the chicks) the tiny bird was lying prostrate in a little cardboard compartment which someone had made to keep it separate from the rest. Louise Berube, an education student and a mother, told us how she and her daughter Erin had found an injured bird. Erin didn’t want to leave it. She lay down beside it and said, "Poor bird, mommy." Again at bed time she cried for it and couldn’t get to sleep. She is just two years old.

May 24, 1996

The poult died during the night. Laid out next to the living as it awaits burial, the contrast is enormous and terribly disturbing to me. The children have talked about possible causes of the death and have planned to bury this tiny corpse next to the hamster which died last year. As they get on with performing the burial ritual, I keep thinking about the group of middle school children who were so shocked and filled with indignation when they read the epigraph on the tombstone of Sarah Clarke, a mother, who died in childbirth at Gagetown, in 1808:

"...of Gershom Clarke I was the lawful wife
In child bed was forced to resign my life
My ail born infant on my feet it lies
In the cold grave till we are called to rise."

They couldn’t fathom how anyone could have been so callous as to lay the baby at her feet. It was beyond their comprehension how anyone could ever do such a thing. The baby, they insisted, should have been laid to rest in her arms.

May 26, 1996 5:00 a.m.

I am writing this article at 5:00 a.m. on Saturday morning, carving out a little time for my academic work before my family gets up. My daughter, that same daughter whose eyebrows I knew to a hair eleven years ago, has had two friends over for the night. Soon they’ll be up and my quiet time for writing will be disrupted. But I don’t resent the interruption. After all, it was this daughter who first introduced me to the pleasures of getting up at dawn and she from whom I learned the practical lessons of mothering, practical lessons which awakened my academic interest in the place of maternal thought and practice in the school curriculum. She has played, and continues to play an important part in enabling me to see and celebrate the inclusion of care, concern and connection in the curriculum, the three c’s that feminist writer Jane Roland Martin proposes should coexist with the three r’s (Martin , 1992). Before my daughter’s birth I would probably have written only about how the children’s scientific, mathematical and literacy developments were enhanced by the chick hatching. Now, I can see how enormously this disciplinary learning is enhanced by what Nel Noddings, mother of 10 and acting Dean of Education at Stanford University calls an ethic of caring, but what Maria Montessori called "love" (Martin, 1992, p. 20).

WORKS CITED

Carson, Rachael (1990) The Sense of Wonder. Berkeley: The Nature Company.
Keller, Evelyn Fox (1983) A Feeling for the Organism. New York: W.H. Freeman.
Martin, Jane Roland (1992) The School Home. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Noddings, Nel (1986) Fidelity in Teaching, Teacher Education and Research for Teaching Harvard Educational Review Vol 56 (4).
Oliver, Donald (1990) Grounded Knowing: A Postmodern Perspective on Teaching and Learning. Educational Leadership, September, 1990.
Thompson, Joanne (1993) The Pathetic is Political: The Educational Implications of Heroinism. Curriculum Inquiry 23(4), pp. 395-407.

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A Few Comments After 14 Years of Schooling Our Children at Home

As our daughter neared school age we didn’t see any need to send her somewhere else to learn. All of our children’s learning was centered around our home, our family and friends. We realized that home was a safe loving environment from which they could explore the world. When our daughter turned seven, she officially began to homeschool and continued doing what she had been doing all along.

One of the key points of the criteria the Board of Education has set for home schooling families is that "learning should be taking place." This was an easy goal to meet.

Of course Home Schooling is not confined to the home. We used everyday living to give them opportunities to learn. We also went out of our way to expose them to new situations. Home schooling provided the freedom and flexibility to organize many types of activities. Every kind of activity or project offered opportunities for active learning. For example, we often travelled, usually to visit family in the United States and other parts of Canada. These trips gave us plenty of opportunity to explore the geography, museums, history and points of interest in the areas we visited. At home we garden, hike and care for animals. Learning about natural science and the environment came logically from working as good caretakers of the Earth. Composting, recycling and growing much of our own food prompted questions, and discussion provided hands on opportunities for experimentation.

Our house is full of books and magazines. We have read to all the children since they were babies. Teaching them phonics and encouraging them to read and write easily became part of daily activities. As they grew older they began to read to us, sharing information that they found interesting or funny.

They learned math from their textbooks and from everyday activities. They used fractions in cooking, geometry in building and basic numeric skills in handling money. Math was a tool for them not a subject isolated from practical use. We feel the arts are very important. At home they have access to a variety of art supplies in the home. As well, all three children took piano lessons and we attended plays and concerts whenever we could.

We also made sure they had a chance to play with other children. Our whole family was involved in 4-H and helped form a local home schooling group.

For the most part our children learned in an unstructured environment. Though we regularly set time aside for text book based learning, we were surprised to find how little time this took during the day. The rest of the day was devoted to learning through play, helping around the house and their own discoveries.

Our children are now in school. As they reached adolescence there came a point at which each of our children wanted to spread their wings and step a little farther out into the world. What school offers them is an opportunity to spend more time with their peers which is not always a rewarding experience. Meanwhile we still provide a safe loving environment for them and our home is still the same stimulating environment that they have always known. They bring home their projects, problems and new learning and share with us as they have always done.

I think that our children are very aware of the obstacles that school presents to learning. They notice that the students have a generally negative attitude about learning. Some of them are regularly disruptive. Teachers are often tired and short tempered from trying to keep discipline in large classes. Because of budget constraints special programs like music, art and shop courses have been cut out. There are also less extra-curricular activities than there used to be. Sometimes the material taught to them does not seem relevant to their lives and there is little connection from one subject to the next.

School is where our children choose to be right now. It is a compromise and often falls far short of its potential. Their love of learning was well developed in the 14, 12 and 10 years before they entered school and we are happy to see that they still enjoy learning.

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Early Childhood Education Lecture Series

Alan Newland is a Senior Lecturer in Language Education at the University of North London and co-author of "Learning in Tandem: Involving parents in their children's education." Mr. Newland has been an elementary school teacher for eleven years, a lecturer for five and one half years and will soon return to elementary education as the principal of a school in East London.

Date: Wednesday, July 3, 1996

Time: 8:30 a.m. - 9:30 a.m.

Place: NBTF Building
                650 Montgomery Street
                Fredericton, N.B.

Ruth Merttens, Professor of Mathematics Education at the University of North London, a mother of six children and co-author of "Sharing Maths Cultures, Partnerships in Maths" and "Learning in Tandem." Professor Merttens is the Director of the IMPACT Project, the largest parental involvement scheme in Europe.

Date: Wednesday, July 17, 1996

Time: 12:00 noon to 1:00 p.m.

Place: Dugald Blue Auditorium, Room 143
                Marshall d'Avray Hall, U.N.B.
                Fredericton, N.B.

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Summer Reading

Ahh! Summer! That time of year is near. A time to relax, enjoy family and friends, a time to reflect on the year gone by, and a time to plan ahead for the next school year. Many of us are looking to do things differently in the next school year and with the recommendations from the Early Years Report there appears to be much support to continue with the momentum begun with the implementation of kindergarten. Early years teachers are concerned with creating child-centered classrooms and with developmentally appropriate activities for the children. There is a vast amount of literature available for early years teachers, yet finding the time to read it all is impossible. The following annotated bibliography may help direct you to the right books to help you plan ahead as well as to help you reflect on past practice. Happy reading!

Barclay, K. & Boone, E. (19950 Building A Three Way Partnership, The Leader’s Role in Linking School, Families and Community, Scholastic Canada.

The authors of this book recognize the value of linking the school, family and community together for the child in the classroom. They present research-based, practical solutions for teachers, district personnel, parents and community leaders to help form these links. There are numerous examples of ways to plan and implement parent conferences, ways of getting parents involved, ways of getting to know families and suggestions that go beyond "Open Houses." The authors also look at assessment and reporting practices; a very timely book.

Bernhard, E. (1992) Life in Language Immersion Classrooms, Multilingual Matters Ltd., Philadelphia, USA.

This book is about teachers teaching in immersion classrooms. It consists of eight chapters organized around three themes - 1) Two in-depth studies of immersion teachers, 2) Distinct dimensions of an elementary classroom (whole language, drama in the classroom, student-teacher interactions, etc.), and 3) The development of Immersion teachers.

Booth, D. (1994) Classroom Voices Language-Based Learning In The Elementary School, Harcourt Brace and Company Canada, Inc., Toronto, Ontario.

The focus for this book is Queenston Drive Public School in Mississauga, Ontario. This Junior Kindergarten to Grade Eight school houses 600 students and 30 staff. Booth describes his understandings of a language-based school through the actual stories of teachers, through classroom observation, and through the research. The text is filled with samples of student work and ideas from the teachers as their stories are retold.

Booth, D., Booth, J., & Phenix, J. (1994) Assessment and Evaluation, MeadowBook Press, Harcourt Brace and Company, Canada.

Assessment, the collection of information about a child, and evaluation, the value judgment made when the teacher considers the information gathered is an ongoing process. This 147 page book is filled with information about assessment and evaluation as well as numerous samples for collecting and recording.

 Davies, A., Cameron, C., Politano, C., & Gregory, K. (1992) Together Is Better, Collaborative Assessment, Evaluation and Reporting, Peguis Publishers, Winnipeg, Canada.

This book shows how teachers, students, and parents can evaluate learning together, and how students can take ownership of that learning. The book is filled with valuable examples of three-way conferencing, three-way reporting, ways of setting up learning goals, ways of integrating assessment, evaluation, and reporting into daily classroom life. You will enjoy reading about these practical examples and innovative ideas.

Depree, H., Iversen, S. (1994) Early Literacy In The Classroom, A New Standard For Young Readers, Lands End Publishing, New Zealand.

This book is designed to help teachers maximize student learning in the first three years of schooling. The emphasis in this book is on reading and writing with the caution that the authors are not suggesting the other areas of literacy learning are less important. I highly recommend this book if you have not yet read it.

Feinburg, S. & Mindess, M. (1994) Eliciting Children’s Full Potential Designing and Evaluating Developmentally Based Programs for Young Children, Brooks/Crole Publishing Co., California.

This is an excellent resource for teachers who want a deeper understanding of the cognitive-developmental model, who want to design and implement programs for their classrooms. The book includes classroom vignettes, a system for classroom observation, and classroom evaluation instruments. Sylvia Feinburg is one of the keynote speakers for the Elementary conference being held at Mount Allison University this summer.

Lang, G. & Berberich, C. (1995) All Children Are Special, Creating An Inclusive Classroom, Stenhouse Publishers, Armadale, Australia.

This book offers practical information and strategies for creating inclusive classrooms that welcome, value, and nurture all learners. It is written for the non-specialist and will help support the classroom teacher with special needs students.

Ostrow, J. (1996) A Room With A Different View, Scholastic. Canada.

This book is a delightful story of one teacher who believes in remaining with her students for more than one year. She provides very detailed information that describes the daily life in this multi-age classroom. You will enjoy the conversations with her students, the photos of her classroom, the description of how the class is set up, and much more.

Politano, C., & Davies, A. (1994) Multi-Age and More, Building Connections, Peguis Publishers, Winnipeg, Canada.

"This is a book written for teachers by teachers... The authors are seasoned educators who have lived and managed multi-age classrooms. In this book they share their best tips, strategies, and ideas.... Whole language teachers moving into multi-age settings will find their practical advice timely as well as invaluable."

- Whole Language Umbrella Newsletter

Rogers, C., & Sawyers, J. (1992) Play in the Lives of Children, NAEYC, Washington, D.C.

This book presents valuable information about how young children best learn. The word play is often misused or misunderstood and this book does an excellent job of presenting background information and a framework for understanding the value of play in the classroom. An excellent resource for early years teachers.

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Newsletter Information

Editors: Anne Hunt, Pam Nason and Pam Whitty