Working with Teachers by Judy Lyden

There are so many differences among personality types these days...types who won't give an inch. It makes the "find" in a kindred spirit really rewarding. Today I was talking to our beloved Miss Dayna. We discussed the differences in childhood ages, and how that works in the whole education package.

I maintain...it's my theory...that three year olds NEED to be around older children, because threes need to see the next step. Most of a three year old's time should be spent playing. Confining him to a desk for long periods, expecting what you expect from a four or five year old won't happen...the desire and the ability in most instances just don't exist. If you get blood from a turnip...you are probably really getting blood from a turnip!

Threes watch fours and fives. That's their job. They won't understand the concept of continents, oceans, and the globe...but the words, the ideas, the time spent seeing and hearing will all be there next year when the child becomes four, and his cognitive ability is different.

At four, a child is ready for most kindergarten work. This is the age when all that paperwork, all the pencils, and crayons, and the wonder of the desk is really calling. Most fours would be office persons...they love paper.

You can get a four year old to do just about any kindergarten task if you find the right opening and you stay with it. They will read, write and do arithmetic with relative ease. Some concepts are going to escape them simply because they are lacking one thing a five year old has...an abstract imagination.

So this is the time, at age four, when the mundane, boring, and relatively repetitive kindergarten work is easiest to teach. And there are other reasons to teach a four year old how to read and write...it gets the "how tos" out of the way so that when the abstract imagination begins to invade a five year old's thinking, he won't have to waste his time learning to read when it's already done.

A five year old can understand abstract ideas, so he can do a lot of work based on what if...it's a great time to introduce geography, science, and games. Fives are splendid beings with so much to offer...

So Miss Dayna and I were talking about the different ages, and agreeing about how each of them work off the other and how one group can do this, but another one can't and it was splendid to be able to invent for them.

Miss Dayna works very hard in her classroom. She has all kinds of things she wants for her children to learn and to do. Understand what they can and can't do helps, but like any fighter...she will try nearly anything anyway, just to see who can transcend the job even though...

I love having wonderful, hard working, talented teachers...makes my day.