Two weeks ago, my wife returned home with terrifying news—it was our turn to visit our daughter’s preschool in Mérida, México, to read a story to her class. Marimar saw the look on my face and offered, “Don’t worry I’ll do it.” For a moment I thought I was off the hook. Then she added, “But Sandra would love for you to be there."
“Of course I’ll go."
I’ve observed many masterful preschool teachers. Who first came to mind is a teacher in West Palm Beach who took the ideas from a workshop I’d led and applied them elegantly in her own classroom. Each of her students sat in a square listening to the story. She’d ask them all to close their eyes and imagine what a character looks like in the story. Then she said, "By the count of five you’ll rise up from your seat to make a still statue of your character . . .1 . . . 2 . . .3 . . .. “ As they grew into statues the kids were completely focused, embodying their characters. They were doing playful, imaginative work, and the classroom wasn’t absolute chaos. When working with kids I'm always afraid that I'll completely lose control of the classroom—a third grade classroom in Manchester, Massachusetts still haunts my memory.
Teaching reading is what we do in our day to day work, so the pressure was on! We started by discussing the kinds of books our daughter loves and what her interests are when she plays around the house. Many of the mistakes we make in "educating" children is imposing our adult priorities onto their worlds. Educator and philosopher Krishnamurti writes,
“When we are working together for an ideal, for the future, we shape individuals according to our conception of that future; we are not concerned with human beings at all, but with our idea of what they should be. The what should be becomes far more important to us than what is, namely, the individual with his complexities.”
Rather than thinking about what kids should be, we looked for clues of what to teach in Sandra's natural play. One of her primary occupations is taking care of her many dolls and animals—reading stories, bathing, and feeding them. Sandra also has several imaginary friends that she talks to when her dolls aren't around. Children at this age aren't in much control of their lives—they always have adults issuing orders from "be careful" to "get dressed it's time to go." Preschoolers are also navigating relationships with friends, relationships that require constant negotiation, "What do I do when we both want to play different games? How do I compromise?"
The world of creative play with dolls and imaginative friends gives children a sense of control, allowing them to set the rules of their own world.
Could we create an experience of play in the school where students are fully in control of building their own worlds?
Children at this age (or perhaps of any age) are fascinated by monsters. Sandra consistently picks a few favorite monster books at bedtime.
Since Sandra's school is bilingual we decided to read one monster story in Spanish, Monstruo Rosa, and one in English, Leonardo the Terrible Monster.
Finally the day came. We entered the classroom and, of course, I threw Marimar to the wolves asking her to read her story first. One little girl grabbed onto my arm and kept looking up and laughing at me as I tried to refocus her. As students became interested in the book, they moved closer and to closer to Marimar. I never know how to deal with masses of climbing kids, and I was worried when it was my turn I’d be buried under a mountain of five-year-olds. We were taking a small step towards the classroom chaos I feared!
Marimar finished and I took the stage. I opened the book and began. To my disbelief most of the kids sat in their seats and actually listened. Although the little girl on my left still laughed at me from time to time, I finished reading with a “yay . . . round of applause," and they clapped with enthusiasm.
We believe that while kids can certainly enjoy hearing a great story, the reading experience improves when they become co-creators of the story world. To use a jazz metaphor, we think of books as the initial melody for students to riff off of with their own original work.
After we read the monster books aloud, the students sat on the floor in a circle. We asked them, "If you had the chance to create your own monster who would be your best friend, what would it be like?" The responses poured out faster than we could control them, "blue," "furry," "with wings," "with lots of teeth."
It was now time for the students to design their own monsters. We know from experience that just handing students a blank piece of paper and telling them to "draw a monster" doesn't always result in the best product. So to give just a little structure to their project, we offered students just a shape (download the "Make a Monster" template here) and explained that the shape could be the monster's body or head. The students started eagerly drawing with markers.
Driving to school earlier that morning, Marimar thought about this project, and knowing how Sandra loves to paste "stuff" onto her artworks (glitter, buttons, stickers etc.), she stopped at a craft store to purchase a few more materials—packages of googly eyes and colored feathers. After the students were well into drawing their monsters, we introduced the other materials and the kids enthusiastically added accessories.
Preschool educator Erika Christakis writes in The Importance of Being Little: What Preschoolers Really Need from Grownups, "a playful childhood is worth more than the accumulation of every conceivable standard, real or imagined." In today's standards-obsessed educational climate, we could do with a lot more watching and listening to our young people and much less telling them what we think they should be.
Sandra's final monster.
Other Resources.
Although we only had time to read two books to the kids, if we were building a larger monster unit in a school, these would be some of our top picks.
The Gruffalo has an absorbing sense of rhythm and rhyme—perfect for read alouds. The monster in the book, the Gruffalo, is imagined piece by piece in the story by the various characters. In the classroom, students can design the specific body-parts of their own monsters.
Love Monster is another favorite. The story is about a monster's quest for a companion. After designing one monster, students can design a second one to be the first one's friend.
In The Importance of Being Little: What Preschoolers Need from Grownups, Erika Christakis really considers the world from a preschoolers point of view and helps us to see how we might better raise our kids from the perspective of the child's world.
