RE_5539

laurie,

i teach kindergarten...in kindergarten we have a home living center. in my center i have telephones, telephone books, cookbooks, regular books, paper and pencils, kitchen tools and foods, a four piece kitchen set, table and chairs for two and of course...babies...one with dark skin and one with light skin. i enjoy observing behaviors in this center. children that have siblings tend to play with the babies. you can tell so much about their home life from just watching. what i find so interesting is when i observe children teaching each other about their home life. in other works those children that dont have little siblings show their friends how to take care of the babies. sometimes the little girls sit the boys at the table and serve dinner...other children hand the babies to the boys and pretend to go to work. they explain that that is how they do it at home.

in pet vet center those children that have pets, show their friends what it is like to go to the vet. those children that have had a pet have puppies or kittens act out what it was like when the babies were born. those children that have had a pet to die, usually act it out...complete with a funeral.

in city/town blocks the children are able to act out what it is like for the school bus to come to their house...those that have had the police at their house act that out as well.

in kindergarten the children share so much of their prior knowledge with each other. i believe that it is such an important time for these young children. it is also a great time for me because i get to know so much about them and their lives.

this year i had two children that did not have a mother...one lost his in a murder and the other child's mother left due to her involvement with drugs. for mother's day we talked briefly about how some of us would be writing to our grandmothers because some of us do not have our mothers. i talked about how my father died when i was young.

i suppose we just share a tremendous amount in kindergarten. i like knowing my children and i like for them to know me. it was actually helpful for the children that have lost a parent to know that i too lost my father.

i dont know about other grade levels...perhaps kindertgarten just lends itself to sharing the different kinds of social situations that we grow up with.

donna byrd-wyatt

Hi Laura,
I too have recently thought a lot about the fact that many of our students are coming from broken families. Out of a classroom of 17 students this year, I had only 7 students who were still living with both their mother and their father. The lack of 1 or both parental figures in these children’s lives is definitely evidenced in their behavior at school and with others. We worry about the lack of role models (males especially) at school; what about their role models at home. Just imagine being a young boy who is constantly surrounded by a mother and a female teacher; but, he has no interaction with his dad. This boy will not have the constant contact with a male role model that is necessary for his development. This past year I had a little girl in my class who is being raised by her dad. One can tell this by the way she dresses and talks. The lack of a “mother” figure has caused her to be more like a little boy than a little girl. Just like you, I definitely see the serious issues that are becoming prevalent with children from broken homes. As teachers we need to try to provide examples of excellent role models in our teaching. We also need to keep students “situations” in mind when thinking about how we treat, talk to, and discipline them.

Kelly Mabe

Laura-
I related to your comment about working with children from broken families. At my school, we have noticed in Kindergarten that those children who are scoring at the top of our classes are almost always from two parent homes. Amazing how something as simple as having a father to put a child to bed at night can affect their academic careers. However, I do have to say that most of my children do not come from two parent homes either. If I ever get through with graduate school and actually have some time on my hands (like that will happen with a baby on the way) I would like to do some research on academic careers of children in two parent homes versus single parent homes. I bet there is some interesting research out there.

Last year I had a student in my class who, like Laurie, was so far behind the other children that I wondered how in the world did she make it to second grade. She was reading at a kindergarten level and was unable to write numbers from 1-30 without skipping numbers or getting assistance with thinking of the next number. She had never been retained. She was also a behavior problem. She knew she couldn't do the work the rest of the class was able to do, but seemed bothered when she was given easier work than the rest of the class. She was stubborn and sometimes challenged teacher authority. She also had trouble getting along with classmates. I often found myself in power struggles with this child.

She had never been retained because her grandparents, who were her guardians, resisted retention and won every year. They felt their granddaughter should be promoted like the other children and didn't want her to be treated differently. This girl also had a lot of issues going on at home that probably contributed to a negative self concept of herself, which didn't help motivate her in school. I sometimes wonder if her grandparents had allowed her to be retained in kindergarten, if this child's k-2 experiences would have turned out more successful? On the other hand, maybe other factors, such as her home life, would have been too big of a problem for retention to solve. Perhaps if I had read Reading Lives before having this child for a student, I could have been more understanding of why she behaved the way she did, and possibly could have been a more effective teacher for her.

Vickie Howell

Laura,

I believe there are many broken families today. When this happens it is so difficult for the child to deal with what is going on at home and what is going on at school. I have seen this in my classrooms. Usually the child exhibits academic and/or behavior difficulties. I wish parents would realize that this does affect their child. I believe some do realize it but I have actually had parents tell me that their divorce, etc. doesn't affect their child. I don't know the answer but I guess as teachers we have to be aware of this and help the child the best way we can. I know that each child is different and what works with one child may not work with another child.

I am not sure how we can prepare children for the ever-changing roles they may have around their home. I think these changes can affect children if they are not willing or happy about their responsibilities at home. If not, then they may act out at school especially when it is time to return home in the afternoon or even when they come to school in the morning. As family dynamics change our schools are changing as well. I think we need to look at this with fresh lens and try to develop a new perspective and strategies to deal with the problems we may face.

I too wonder what happened to Laurie and if caught up to her peers. I wonder how the situation at home affected her life in later years.

Laura,

You raise a good point of whether or not domestic roles are being addressed in the classroom. I teach Kindergarten so it it easy to teach this while students are in housekeeping or building houses in blocks. Our principal really wasn't big on housekeeping, but if she looks at it in that we need it to teach students domestic roles.

I too would love to find out about what happened to Laurie as she progressed in school.

Linda Younts

I too sometimes wonder how to handle the situations between home and school life. Can we really expect a child to bring their homework in when we know they lead a terrible home life with no support? But then if we don't that not only makes us not treat all the kids with equal resposibility but it also shows them they don't have to do something because of their situation and what if they start to use that crutch the rest of their life? I sometimes wonder about this in my classes because there is so much going on at home that many times we don't know about. How can we become better aware but still hold all the kids to the same resposibility level?

Laura,
I too see how families are changing and how women's positionality in families are becoming more widely defined. I wonder if children in classrooms are playing out what they see and understand that there are indeed different ways of being a mom. I would hope that this is happening and that good teachers out there are using what might be conflicting representations of motherhood as a teachable moment to show that moms have many identities!