The Importance Of Teaching How To Make Good Choices (First Days of School Part Two)
“Life is a matter of choices, and every choice you make, MAKES YOU!”
- John C. Maxwell
The biggest gift and the biggest difficulty as a Kindergarten teacher is getting to be there for children at the foundational level. You are literally helping them build themselves from the ground up. This means teaching curriculum on top of teaching them how to perform specific thought processes they never have before! I always begin on the first day addressing the worry and nervousness in the room. I empathize and expose my own vulnerability letting them know we’re ALL a bit apprehensive to see where we’ll end up, and unsure of what challenges we’ll face this year, but reassuring them that we’ll be here to support each other.
This year, my students wrapped up their first day by discussing how their emotions changed from the beginning of the day to the end now that we’d met, connected with our classmates, learned our campus, and discovered school rules and class expectations. They made emoji faces as representation to put on our “First Day Feelings” poster! One of my students was sitting in front of his blank yellow circle with his arms crossed. I asked, “How are you feeling?” His answer was “I’m mad!” It had been a tough day for him as he had gotten constant reminders of each rule as he had to be continuously redirected. I validated his feelings and we talked through it. “Why are you feeling that way?” I asked “It’s too many things to remember to do and NOT do,” he told me. I told him that feeling is actually frustration and that’s OK. We are in a new place, with new expectations and we will practice HOW together. I helped him make a frustrated emoji. Then, he smiled, and he said, “Can I make another one on the back, because I’m also excited to be at school!” I flipped his circle over and he was very happy to be able to communicate and represent both emotions.
The discipline we as educators implement in our classroom is a delicate thing. It should come after clear and consistent expectations have been explained, be a generalized system for whole class but individually doled out based on each child’s triggers, and should always be influenced by the question, “Have I first taught them how to make good choices?” We can never assume they are coming to us with ANY processing knowledge at the Kindergarten level, especially complex cognitive or social/emotional. Here are some things to consider:
MODEL EVERYTHING
For younger children especially verbal instruction is nothing without visual representation. I get this because I am a visual learner. So, when presenting an expectation model what both a good choice and a bad choice look like by stating, “what if I chose to do this? then what would happen?” Then, act them out or show it using pictures! This will help your ESL (English Second Language) students greatly as well!
Use Relevant Literary Resources
“No David!” and “David goes to School” By :David Shannon are good resources to show how many students need more guidance and redirection with examples of how and why to make a better choice. Once reading however, it is important to anchor chart what David’s character did in the story that was a no-no and then pose the question, how could David make a better choice? These are his “Yes David” expectations. There are so many great resources to Google or get straight from an educator on TeachersPayTeachers.com to accompany this text and assist students in processing both good and bad choices and their results.
David is going to school….
David isn’t a “bad child.” He’s in a new environment and doesn’t fully understand what’s expected of him or how to process his choices….JUST YET
Another great series my daughter loves is “What Should Darla Do?” and “What Should Danny Do: School Days?” By: Ganit and Adir Levy These books present a scenario every few pages and offer two choices for the character to make, but the reader decides. As the story goes on, the outcome is affected depending on which choices are being made. It’s fun to see how the plot is unraveling in a bad way and then decide to correct it midway for the best ending. This shows kid’s how to recover instead of doubling down on already making a bad choice. We should always, as parents and educators, offer our students similar grace to comeback from a few bad choices and right their behaviors as they realize their wrongs and learn along the way.
Darla has some choices to make…
Help her choose what’s right and learn from her mistakes as she goes throughout her day and see how each choice changes the kind of day she has!
What Should Danny Do at School…
Help Danny make his best choices in his school day!
3. Know Your Students
A teachers knowledge of her students is powerful! Every student learns differently, processes differently, and responds differently to redirection and correction. If you are a parent of more than one child, you definitely get how you can raise completely different spawn (lol). So, it can be frustrating sometimes and a reflex can be to yell or take things away, and if your a parent, it can even be to hit. The problem is these actions devoid of verbal communication (the hows, and the whys) can ignite their anger, cause walls to be built, and de-sensitive them eventually to that type of correction and ultimately leave the question of “how to do better” unanswered. Come from a place of educating, even when frustrated, and you’ll get an independent individual with better processing skills when presented with a choice to make both at home and at school.