Observing Communication

 

 

 

 

Observing Communication

            I was in a preschool classroom and observed Ms. Brown who is a teacher’s assistant interacting with a little boy Chris, who is also a twin.  Chris was working at a table with Ms. Brown during a small group activity and Chris suddenly got up when he had finished the project and walked over to another group’s table.  Ms. Brown got up from her table and re-directed Chris back to her table.  Chris started yelling “No” and told her to leave him alone.  Ms. Brown then raised her voice and told him “stop it”.  Chris ran toward Ms. Brown and started hitting her repeatedly.  She started yelling “stop it”, “I’m tired of you beating on me”.  At that point Chris went full throttle and started running around the room and hitting furniture.  The teacher walked over and spoke to Chris in a low calm voice and asked him to explain to her what happened.  She also pulled a behavior chart she had for him and recounted what happened before the incident occurred and what happened during and after the incident.  She reminded him to use an inside voice and that he had to wait his turn to move to another table.  She also wrote the account of the incident on his behavior chart and explained to him that he would not get a “smiley face” for group time and he would have to improve his behavior if he wanted to ride bikes later on.  Chris began to take deep breaths as instructed by the teacher and he calmed down. The teacher also told him to apologize to Ms. Brown.

            When teachers are communicating with children, children need to feel respected and safe in their environment (Laureate Education, 2011).  In the class scenario Chris was never asked why he wanted to go to another table.  Effective communications with children means taking the time to listen to their thoughts, and then decide what the next step should be in a peaceful manner (Laureate Education, 2011).  Sometimes adults view children as little pawns to be manipulated and they refused to consider that children are human beings with thoughts and feelings.  Teachers need to use teacher-talk and communicate with children and give children the opportunity to ask questions and express thoughts (Dangei & Durden, 2010).  In the case of Ms. Brown and Chris, I think the situation would have been more positive if Ms. Brown had engaged the children more in the activity by asking questions about the project which would have made Chris be more engaged.  The tone of voice makes a difference because when teachers use calm voices when speaking the children feel more relaxed (Dangei & Durden, 2010.  Children should also have the freedom to leave small groups and venture into other interest areas (Dangei & Durden, 2010).  I learned so much from this week’s reading resources and I now know how to better communicate with my students by increasing higher order thinking skills and letting the students lead to help them acquire new knowledge.  Teachers have to take more of a facilitator role which means that we are co-learners with our students.

References

Laureate Education, Inc. (2011). Strategies for working with diverse children: Communicating

            with young children. Baltimore, MD: Author

Rainer Dangei, J., & Durden, T. R. (2010). The nature of teacher talk during small group

            activities. YC: Young Children, 65(1), 74-81. Retrieved from the Walden Library using

            the Education Research Complete database.

            http://ezp.waldenulibrary.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=47964033&site=ehost-live&scope=site