Teaching Towards Excellence in the Elementary Classroom

Blog 5 (3/3) Natalie Gianvecchio, Chapter 4, Roles: Creative Connector and Literary Luminator 

Creative Connections:

1.) On page 160 of the book, Gurian discusses discipline by using fear with children. He stated, "this was not the case a hundred, or even fifty, years ago. Discipline could be a matter of fear- fear of God, fear of the rod, fear of parents..." (Gurian p.160). I made a connection while reading this section to my father. My father is in his 60s now and when he was young, he attended a Christian school with Nuns as his teachers. He told me many stories about how him as well as all of the other children in the class were so scared of the Nuns. They would actually hit the children. He will never forget how scared he was in school growing up. I am so glad to see that this is not the case in schools today! 

2.) On page 181, Gurian shares how important manipulatives are for boys and girls. He included an elementary teacher, Jan Miller in the passage and her experiences with the use of manipulatives with reading. Jan Miller stated, "I tried the magnetic letters on the overhead today for a spelling lesson. The students loved it" (p. 181). Gurian also claims, "making a game out of letter making, she had great success" (p. 181). I related to this as well because in my Preschool class I did this with the children often. They absolutely loved it and learned their letters while having fun! I even put the magnetic letters in a closed box and used the first initial of each students name and shook the box. I asked each child to guess what was inside the "mystery box." When I showed them it was magnetic letters, I passed out the initial letter that went to myself which was "N." I then asked the children if they knew what was going to happen and they figured out that the letters related to their names. They loved this activity. 

3.) On page 197 and 198, Gurian mentions how important competitive learning is for girls and especially boys. He states, "teachers who receive brain based research come to realize the importance of open classrooms and cooperative projects as stimulants to the growing brain. They also see how competition helps the brain" (Gurian p.197). A teacher goes into detail with how she used competitive games in her class to motivate all the children in her class. I connected with this experience because I did this as well in my fourth grade student teaching placement. I did it with Language Arts by having students work in small groups of 4. The students were to write a story about anything they wanted using our vocabulary words for 2 minutes. When the timer went off, they has to pass their paper to the left and that person would continue where they left off. When we finished I allowed the students to share and they loved it! It was a competition to write something funny or silly in the 2 minutes they had. I also played Jeopardy with the students before a unit test in language arts. They absolutely loved it and even got a bit too loud but had so much fun! Competition is definitely useful in the classroom.

Literary Luminator:

1.) I thought a very interesting passage was on page 131. It talked about year round schooling for students and teachers. Instead of getting a full 3 months off for summer, the students would take three breaks that would last for three to four weeks. Gurian states, "there is another way to raise academic performance: year round schooling...." (p. 131). He goes into great detail of why the United States even has summers off to begin with which is just based on an old tradition. I was always against year round schooling while I was in school, but now that I look at it in a different way, I think it could be very beneficial. Students lose so much information over the summer. If there was the same amount of time off, but just spaced out differently I think that it could help many students who forget everything over the summer break. 

2.) Alot of the chapter talked about stress with boys and girls. Gurian states, "many teachers find that girls talk out stresses among their friends or with the person who is the source of the stress, perhaps a parent; by contrast, boys often bring the stress to school and seek attention for it there-usually receiving negative attention" (p.152). This is such a common problem in the classroom between boys and girls and it really has a negative effect on all of the students. One of the elementary teachers in the book stated that she has her students make "stress balls" in the beginning of the year. When the children are upset and stressed, they can just take a stress ball with no questions asked. This is definitely a useful tool to have in the classroom to help children relieve some stress. 

3.) Gurian also talked about the outdoor classroom with elementary age children as well as preschool. It is just as important to elementary kids! Gurian states, "Eliminating recess is a profound mistake, though our culture has come to it with the best of intentions" (p. 139). Recess is such an important part of the child's day. It gives students time to let loose and burn off some steam. He also states, "The mid wants movement and will wreck some havoc if it doesn't get it" (p. 140). A teacher even gave the suggestion of a child who was having behavioral problems, but instead of taking away his recess time completely, she had him run around the field a few times so he was still getting exercise and a brain break but he wasn't able to do exactly what he wanted outside. Students definitely need recess and outside time every day or as often as possible! 

Natalie Gianvecchio