Tuesday, January 22, 2013
What if a diary was used and writen in for each child in your classroom? What could be the benefits?
Reading the first couple of pages I was a little bit confused on what the book was about. I didn't understand who Laura was. Was she a teacher? When I got to page 29, I then realized who Laura was and what the text would be about. As I kept reading, it was very fascinating to me. I found it interesting how the teachers wrote in this diary about different things they notice about the child. It makes me think about what if we had this kind of diary for the classroom I work in. I think it might be kind of hard to keep a diary for 22 children, but it's actually something interesting to think about. All of the teachers could contribute to each diary, including aides and substitutes. The diary entries kind of remind me of anecdotal observations and running records. I really enjoyed the pictures in the diary. It makes the diary come to life and brings a face to Laura. I feel that this diary brings heart and passion to the work that the teachers do. It helps me to understand a different outlook on observations of children. I feel that this diary goes deeper and truly looks at Laura as a small individual ready to take on the world. Each little diary entry shows " a first" or a "new discovery" that Laura had done or accomplished. I really like this text and can't wait to read more of it.
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I’m not in a classroom anymore but in the program where I used to work, we put together for each child what we called a “Memory Book”, which would be kind of like a pictorial version of an educational diary since we had small captions accompanying the photos rather than a more detailed diary entry. While I do consider the “Memory Book” to be valuable, I think an educational diary would take it one step further as an observation and assessment tool, and the more detailed diary entries would provide families with more information about what is happening in the photos and why the photos are important. I think that too many people (particularly those who don’t work in our field) underestimate the capabilities of young children, so an educational diary would not only allow families (and others) to “see how a child lives his or her experience” (p. 31) at a program but also to see what young children really are capable of doing.
ReplyDeleteHi Ashley,
ReplyDeleteI am intrigued by your first statement as you wondered who Laura was -- a child? a teacher? I wonder how this speaks to power dynamics in this described classroom. Is it possible that how the diary is written, both Laura and the teacher have equal amounts of power? How does a sharing of power create documentation that depicts relationships rather than mastery? How do traditional report cards use power as a means to manipulate and hurt children? How can the documentation of ordinary events as extraordinary (like the diaper change) empower children and honor the world of the child? Is this what we we should be striving for as we create spaces for children?
Jeanne
Hello Ashley,
ReplyDeleteIt was very interesting to learn that teachers of the Reggio Emilia programs completed diaries for each child. I truly believe it is important to document events and incidents for record and data purposes. One thing that I liked about this learning technique is that teachers not only documented events, incidents, actions the child did during the day, etc., but also included their reactions and emotions in their diary entries. I agree with our text, when all details are written, it allows both the readers and writers to have a better understanding while reflecting upon on the situation. It is very true; the teachers of the Reggio Emilia programs believe diary entries are crucial to their learning and teaching and students’ learning, progression and growth. I remember when I did my service learning; we would document students’ performance, but never did diary entries. The text is right about the different perspectives of the diary, comparing the teachers of Reggio Emilia and teachers in America. Teachers of Reggio Emilia think diary method and feel they are a necessity to students’ learning while teachers of America would stress over the amount of time this technique would take up during their academic school day; so how do we change the perspectives of our teachers in America?
Hi Ashley,
ReplyDeleteWhy we don’t see much documentation of child diary in Hawaii? Is that because it doesn’t work well with our school system? If school provide enough time and staff to every single classroom, will you want to do the child diary? I feel the same way about using the child diary system. Don't take this in the wrong way that I am lazy and scare of hard work. I think it might be really hard for 1 teacher and 1 assistant teacher to keep up with 20 or more children per semester. However I think parents and the family of the child will appreciate your hard work. I feel that diary will provide more detail on the child personality and abilities. It also does not require standards that we have tried to match children learning with. Actually we can show the children in the way they are without limits from the list of the standards that some school require to have in order to document the child portfolio.