This week, we are lucky enough to be talking about preschool life with Mari Rutkin.
Mari currently works as a Site Administrator for the Early Education Department of the San Francisco Unified School District, and is a passionate childhood development specialist.
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1. In your opinion, what makes a preschool room a happy, healthy place to be?
A happy healthy preschool classroom is a place where children feel loved, respected and safe. Those classrooms are places where children are valued as individuals and where their developmental strengths and weaknesses are supported and developed. A happy, healthy preschool room helps students to build a strong foundation of knowledge that will ensure they are ready for success in school.
2. What are some common blindspots you see with teachers?
3. Do you notice a correlation between happy kids and their ability to learn at school?
Absolutely! Children cannot and will not learn if they don’t feel both physically and emotionally safe in their environment. Children must build caring and positive relationships with their teachers in order for them to be able to learn.
4. If you could design a classroom, what would it look like? How would the teachers behave?
My ideal classroom would have a caring and warm feeling when you walk in the door. There should be natural light and cheerful artwork and pictures on the wall that are representative of the children in the classroom. There should be materials and resources that are accessible to students, organized in a way to address the different developmental needs of students. There should be a quiet or reading area where there are soft cushions for students to lounge in while they examine books and write, an area for emergent writing where students can write and draw, and an area for science and/or math. In order to enhance student’s learning opportunities, establish a number of smaller, quiet areas where children can go to explore. A preschool classroom should have designated areas for dramatic play where students can engage in social play and manipulatives where students can work with puzzles or other games.
Teachers would create and maintain a positive climate where students feel free to take risks in their education and learning. Teachers would maintain clear communication and expectations with children and their families and encourage family involvement in both the school community and classrooms.
5. What kinds of behavior management strategies have you seen work well in a preschool room?
The best behavior management strategies that I have seen work well in preschool are:
-CONSISTENCY!
-Setting clear and realistic expectations and limits
-Redirection of unsafe or unwanted behavior using both verbal and non-verbal cues
-Building conflict resolution skills
-Recognizing and dealing with inappropriate behaviors and/or strong emotions
-I’ll say it again, CONSISTENCY!
6. What kinds of strategies would you recommend that teachers avoid?
I would recommend teachers avoid inconsistency-specifically when it comes to recognizing and dealing with problematic behaviors in the classrooms. Teachers should also avoid planning and implementing practices or activities that are not developmentally appropriate to their students. Developmentally Appropriate Practices or DAP refers to promoting children’s optimal learning and development by meeting children at their current developmental level both as an individual child as well as part of a group.
7. Why do you love your job?
Preschool offers such an amazing opportunity to address the development of the whole child. I love being to coach and support teachers so that they can provide meaningful experiences for your children and their families. Watching relationships and skills build and develop over the course of a school or program year among students and their school communities is an incredible gift.
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