This is going to get messy isn’t it?? It’s ok!
We are on the edge of a shift in our teaching philosophy. And let us tell you – it is a bit scary!
We are two very passionate Kindergarten teachers who spend hours engaging in educational conversations, collaborating, and creating lessons for our young learners. We felt our units were engaging and interesting to the children and helped them to develop in the areas that we felt were most important. We liked to prepare our units in advance and know what our year would look like.
This adventure in PBL is forcing us to reflect on our beliefs as teachers. We have always loved, valued and believed in our students, but now we are wondering…did we really?
Do we really believe that our 4 and 5 year old children could have a say in what was important to learn? Do we believe in our students enough to really listen to their questions, curiosities, and stories and follow their lead?
After careful consideration and discussion...The answer is YES! Yes, we believe in you, Kindies!
For us this was the first piece of thinking that was tested by PBL as projects aren’t planned in advance, but emerge based on the children’s interests. The role we thought we had as teachers is changing.
In this ‘new’ teacher role we are going to start training our ears and eyes to look for the students’ interests. We are going to try to follow the children’s lead and then provide them with the scaffolding to find their answers and explore their interests further. To be honest this does make us nervous, but we know we need to let that go in order to successfully prepare and teach our students.
Now that our role, beliefs, and thinking about learning are shifting we feel we are ready to continue on this adventure. Let’s launch and listen!
During this adventure we promise to:
- trust and listen to the students.
- give ourselves permission to let go of the control. Let it go, let it go, let it go.
-make the process as important as the content.
Corrie and Terra
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