http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/scmsAdmin/uploads/005/121/Culturally%20Responsive%20Classroom%20Mgmt%20Strat2.pdf
Monday, June 30, 2014
10 Effective Developmentally Appropriate Practice Teaching Strategies
http://www.naeyc.org/dap/10-effective-dap-teaching-strategies check out the website!!!
10 Effective DAP Teaching Strategies
 10 Effective DAP Teaching Strategies |
|
An effective teacher or family child care provider chooses a strategy
to fit a particular situation. It’s important to consider what the
children already know and can do and the learning goals for the specific
situation. By remaining flexible and observant, we can determine which
strategy may be most effective. Often, if one strategy doesn’t work,
another will.
 |
A response to::An Interview With Lisa Delpit on Educating 'Other People's Children' | The Nation
This article was interesting, made some good points, but I had an emotional reaction to it. While I appreciate her take and contribution, I have to add that in addition, there needs to be more focus on inclusivity in education and academic dialogue around education. Not all low-income children are non-white, and not all middle and upper class children are white. There is still a presumption at the social level around poverty and how it interacts with concepts of race that I am struggling to find words for at the moment.
I have to return to my homework and if I don't post this now, then I probably won't post it at all. I hope I will return to pull apart my reaction to this article later.
My point I want to make here is that there are inherent and inaccurate assumption around race and poverty and this article unintentionally highlight them for me. That's what I want to sift through and clarify for myself. And how those faulty perceptions affect our future generations. If we could deconstruct them and build better ways to address inequality in a holistic, inclusive way, that is empowering for all and makes everyone visible and imbues everyone with a voice, validates the 360 degree viewpoint, we would ALL benefit!!!!
It is always interesting to note, Martin Luther King Jr. did not focus on difference but on sameness. Difference exist, inequalities persist on the basis of those differences. Education is only one arena where those inequalities are perpetuated. History continues to either be silenced, shadowed, or disregarded despite the fact that is plays a pivotal role in shaping today. Can we address this from a framework of inclusivity and unity-based thinking, without silencing or disregarding or making anyone invisible? This is my wish. We have never been more global centered in communication and connection can effect each other more dramatically than ever before. Science has proven our family bloodlines are one, all across the planet, with our Adam and Eve coming out of Africa. Race is only a relevant term in relation to history, society, and politics.
As a white person who comes from those communities where the 'Other People's Children' came from, I feel made invisible too. At least race, an artificial construct, made some children visible, if in retrospect alone. The poor white kid is invisible on the basis of social class by the white majority, by the community s/he is based in on the basis of race/ethnicity/culture, and then again by the greater social majority when seeking to validate the unvalidated. The poor white kid somehow is excluded from all discourse. I need to get back to my homework. But I will percolate on this for awhile.
Other than that, this is a great article
An Interview With Lisa Delpit on Educating 'Other People's Children' | The Nation
I have to return to my homework and if I don't post this now, then I probably won't post it at all. I hope I will return to pull apart my reaction to this article later.
My point I want to make here is that there are inherent and inaccurate assumption around race and poverty and this article unintentionally highlight them for me. That's what I want to sift through and clarify for myself. And how those faulty perceptions affect our future generations. If we could deconstruct them and build better ways to address inequality in a holistic, inclusive way, that is empowering for all and makes everyone visible and imbues everyone with a voice, validates the 360 degree viewpoint, we would ALL benefit!!!!
It is always interesting to note, Martin Luther King Jr. did not focus on difference but on sameness. Difference exist, inequalities persist on the basis of those differences. Education is only one arena where those inequalities are perpetuated. History continues to either be silenced, shadowed, or disregarded despite the fact that is plays a pivotal role in shaping today. Can we address this from a framework of inclusivity and unity-based thinking, without silencing or disregarding or making anyone invisible? This is my wish. We have never been more global centered in communication and connection can effect each other more dramatically than ever before. Science has proven our family bloodlines are one, all across the planet, with our Adam and Eve coming out of Africa. Race is only a relevant term in relation to history, society, and politics.
As a white person who comes from those communities where the 'Other People's Children' came from, I feel made invisible too. At least race, an artificial construct, made some children visible, if in retrospect alone. The poor white kid is invisible on the basis of social class by the white majority, by the community s/he is based in on the basis of race/ethnicity/culture, and then again by the greater social majority when seeking to validate the unvalidated. The poor white kid somehow is excluded from all discourse. I need to get back to my homework. But I will percolate on this for awhile.
Other than that, this is a great article
An Interview With Lisa Delpit on Educating 'Other People's Children' | The Nation
An Interview With Lisa Delpit on Educating 'Other People's Children'
In her groundbreaking 1988 essay “The Silenced
Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People’s Children,” the
elementary school teacher cum theorist Lisa Delpit dismantled some of
the pieties of progressive education. Deliberately unstructured teaching
strategies like “whole language,” “open classrooms,” and “process, not product”
were putting poor, non-white children at an even greater disadvantage
in school and beyond, Delpit argued. Instead, she suggested teachers
should explicitly “decode” white, middle-class culture for their
low-income students, teaching them Standard English almost as if it were
a foreign language, for example, and introducing math concepts through
problems with cultural resonance for disadvantaged kids, such as
calculating the probability that the police will stop-and-frisk a black
male, as compared to a white male.
In the years since the publication of “Silenced Dialogue” and the 1995 book it inspired, Other People’s Children,
the standards-and-accountability school reform movement rose to
prominence. Its focus on closing the achievement gap through skills
building echoed many of Delpit’s commitments, but she found herself
troubled by the movement’s discontents. Many low-income schools canceled
field trips and classes in the arts, sciences and social studies, for
example, in order to focus on raising math and reading standardized test
scores. Now Delpit is responding in a new book, “Multiplication is for White People”: Raising Expectations for Other People’s Children.
(The title quote comes from an African-American boy who, bored and
discouraged by the difficulty of his math assignment, proclaimed the
subject out-of-reach for kids like himself.) “I am angry that the
conversation about educating our children has become so restricted,”
Delpit writes in the introduction. “What has happened to the societal
desire to instill character? To develop creativity? To cultivate courage
and kindness?”
Here, in an interview with The Nation, Delpit discusses the
intelligence of poor children, how she would reform Teach for America,
and why college professors should be as focused on closing the
achievement gap as K-12 educators are. The interview has been condensed
and edited for clarity.
critical thinking; having kids question what is in newspaper articles,
even question what is in textbooks. One of the things I talk about in Multiplication
is that I once visited with some students who were at an Afrocentric
school. I asked them what the difference was between their school and
regular public schools. These middle-schoolers told me they couldn’t
just accept what was in books, they could argue any point if they gave
sufficient and clear arguments supporting their position. That, I
believe, is what we need to aim for, that children bring their minds to
school and not just their ability to regurgitate facts.
good researcher—who had looked at similar kinds of work and had come to a
similar kind of conclusion. While we were in the meeting, I made a list
of words I knew many 3- and 4-year-old low-income, African-Americans
kids would know—like “po po” [slang for “police”]—but it was unlikely she would know. I gave them to her, and she looked at me like, are these really words?
It dawned on me then that one of the problems is that if you don’t know
the culture, you may not know what words kids do know. Granted, they
may not be words that would be validated in school, but it may be the
case that children’s vocabularies are greater than we anticipate.
It is definitely true that children of non-college-educated parents
are likely to have less school-based vocabulary. The issue is what do we
do about it. Many researchers, in their attempt to get rid of the
achievement gap, have said, Well, what we need to do is to make sure
that the preschool and kindergarten teachers help kids learn a lot more
vocabulary. But what they kept finding was there was a washout later on.
It was hard to find a program you could put in preschool that would
continue to have an effect in fourth or fifth grade. The point is, you
can’t stop in preschool or kindergarten, because it’s not like the
college-educated parents with cultural capital are stopping their
education of their children at home. Schools have to continue intensive
development.
[Some educators believe disadvantaged children] shouldn’t go on field
trips and do music because they have to do basic skills. That is said
without understanding that it is through all those experiences that kids
develop the knowledge and background information kids of
college-educated parents already have. You can’t just sit in the
classroom and teach basic skills and assume kids are going to be
developing the rich knowledge they need in order to read complex texts
later on.
deprivation. It should be looked at as the intelligence of a child
learning from his or her environment in the same way a child from a
college-educated family would.
which is one we need to look at again. They actually had teachers
living with families in a community. We may not be able to do it as
deeply as they did, but we certainly can have new teachers visiting
houses of worship, community organizations, and spending time in
afterschool and daycare programs so people can get a deeper knowledge of
who it is they’re teaching.
professors spend time looking at how to diversify whatever they’re
teaching to include other cultures. One of the activities I sometimes
bring audiences is, I ask them to think about an explorer, a famous
writer and a famous mathematician. Then I go back and ask them to write
down a famous Chinese explorer, a famous African mathematician and down
the line. What you end up with is the first list is usually all white
and male, and the second list has no answers in it.
any system yourself, with your own child. I was blessed with a child who
was not school-sensitive. She was also a kid who would have been
diagnosed with ADHD. Just yesterday I was speaking with a teacher who
said she had three kids who just looked blank all the time when she was
talking with them. I knew that was something my child would do. In the
early grades, every teacher would say to her, “Earth to Maya!”
Some kids are bright kids, but whatever’s going on in their mind is
so interesting compared to what you’re doing, it may appear they have
totally blanked out. That is something I was able to assess more readily
by having understood how Maya’s mind works.
Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People’s Children,” the
elementary school teacher cum theorist Lisa Delpit dismantled some of
the pieties of progressive education. Deliberately unstructured teaching
strategies like “whole language,” “open classrooms,” and “process, not product”
were putting poor, non-white children at an even greater disadvantage
in school and beyond, Delpit argued. Instead, she suggested teachers
should explicitly “decode” white, middle-class culture for their
low-income students, teaching them Standard English almost as if it were
a foreign language, for example, and introducing math concepts through
problems with cultural resonance for disadvantaged kids, such as
calculating the probability that the police will stop-and-frisk a black
male, as compared to a white male.
In the years since the publication of “Silenced Dialogue” and the 1995 book it inspired, Other People’s Children,
the standards-and-accountability school reform movement rose to
prominence. Its focus on closing the achievement gap through skills
building echoed many of Delpit’s commitments, but she found herself
troubled by the movement’s discontents. Many low-income schools canceled
field trips and classes in the arts, sciences and social studies, for
example, in order to focus on raising math and reading standardized test
scores. Now Delpit is responding in a new book, “Multiplication is for White People”: Raising Expectations for Other People’s Children.
(The title quote comes from an African-American boy who, bored and
discouraged by the difficulty of his math assignment, proclaimed the
subject out-of-reach for kids like himself.) “I am angry that the
conversation about educating our children has become so restricted,”
Delpit writes in the introduction. “What has happened to the societal
desire to instill character? To develop creativity? To cultivate courage
and kindness?”
Here, in an interview with The Nation, Delpit discusses the
intelligence of poor children, how she would reform Teach for America,
and why college professors should be as focused on closing the
achievement gap as K-12 educators are. The interview has been condensed
and edited for clarity.
In your new book, you write that since Other People’s Children,
some of your ideas have been misinterpreted and used to argue in
support of a drill-and-kill type pedagogy. But if skills are important,
what’s wrong with a “basic skills” curriculum?
One cannot divorce the teaching of basic skills from the demands of some of your ideas have been misinterpreted and used to argue in
support of a drill-and-kill type pedagogy. But if skills are important,
what’s wrong with a “basic skills” curriculum?
critical thinking; having kids question what is in newspaper articles,
even question what is in textbooks. One of the things I talk about in Multiplication
is that I once visited with some students who were at an Afrocentric
school. I asked them what the difference was between their school and
regular public schools. These middle-schoolers told me they couldn’t
just accept what was in books, they could argue any point if they gave
sufficient and clear arguments supporting their position. That, I
believe, is what we need to aim for, that children bring their minds to
school and not just their ability to regurgitate facts.
You are critical of researchers
who focus on the deficits low-income children bring from home into the
classroom; for example, there is the frequently cited finding
that poor children hear only 3 million words annually at home, compared
to the 11 million words children of white-collar professionals hear.
These findings are considered uncontroversial. Why do you find this
research problematic?
I happened to be in a room a few years ago with a researcher—a very who focus on the deficits low-income children bring from home into the
classroom; for example, there is the frequently cited finding
that poor children hear only 3 million words annually at home, compared
to the 11 million words children of white-collar professionals hear.
These findings are considered uncontroversial. Why do you find this
research problematic?
good researcher—who had looked at similar kinds of work and had come to a
similar kind of conclusion. While we were in the meeting, I made a list
of words I knew many 3- and 4-year-old low-income, African-Americans
kids would know—like “po po” [slang for “police”]—but it was unlikely she would know. I gave them to her, and she looked at me like, are these really words?
It dawned on me then that one of the problems is that if you don’t know
the culture, you may not know what words kids do know. Granted, they
may not be words that would be validated in school, but it may be the
case that children’s vocabularies are greater than we anticipate.
It is definitely true that children of non-college-educated parents
are likely to have less school-based vocabulary. The issue is what do we
do about it. Many researchers, in their attempt to get rid of the
achievement gap, have said, Well, what we need to do is to make sure
that the preschool and kindergarten teachers help kids learn a lot more
vocabulary. But what they kept finding was there was a washout later on.
It was hard to find a program you could put in preschool that would
continue to have an effect in fourth or fifth grade. The point is, you
can’t stop in preschool or kindergarten, because it’s not like the
college-educated parents with cultural capital are stopping their
education of their children at home. Schools have to continue intensive
development.
[Some educators believe disadvantaged children] shouldn’t go on field
trips and do music because they have to do basic skills. That is said
without understanding that it is through all those experiences that kids
develop the knowledge and background information kids of
college-educated parents already have. You can’t just sit in the
classroom and teach basic skills and assume kids are going to be
developing the rich knowledge they need in order to read complex texts
later on.
I love the example you write
about and just mentioned, of the 5-year old girl who, when she sees a
police car drive by her classroom, says she isn’t going to let the “po
po” mess with her.
The problem is that it’s not viewed as intelligent but as evidence ofabout and just mentioned, of the 5-year old girl who, when she sees a
police car drive by her classroom, says she isn’t going to let the “po
po” mess with her.
deprivation. It should be looked at as the intelligence of a child
learning from his or her environment in the same way a child from a
college-educated family would.
You are critical of Teach for
America, writing that too many of the program’s recruits are white, that
they don’t stay in the classroom long enough to perfect their teaching
skills, and that they are too often ignorant of the social contexts in
which they teach. How would you reform TFA?
There’s a model from the 1970s called the Teacher Corps,America, writing that too many of the program’s recruits are white, that
they don’t stay in the classroom long enough to perfect their teaching
skills, and that they are too often ignorant of the social contexts in
which they teach. How would you reform TFA?
which is one we need to look at again. They actually had teachers
living with families in a community. We may not be able to do it as
deeply as they did, but we certainly can have new teachers visiting
houses of worship, community organizations, and spending time in
afterschool and daycare programs so people can get a deeper knowledge of
who it is they’re teaching.
In the last part of the book,
you describe why college can be an alienating experience for
disadvantaged kids. What is your advice to colleges that want to
increase the graduation rates of their low-income, non-white students?
I would love to see some professional development in which universityyou describe why college can be an alienating experience for
disadvantaged kids. What is your advice to colleges that want to
increase the graduation rates of their low-income, non-white students?
professors spend time looking at how to diversify whatever they’re
teaching to include other cultures. One of the activities I sometimes
bring audiences is, I ask them to think about an explorer, a famous
writer and a famous mathematician. Then I go back and ask them to write
down a famous Chinese explorer, a famous African mathematician and down
the line. What you end up with is the first list is usually all white
and male, and the second list has no answers in it.
You frequently reference your
daughter’s educational experience. She attended nine schools in ten
years in the search for a good fit. Is there something about education
you learned through motherhood that you didn’t know before?
Everything! There is something very different about trying to move daughter’s educational experience. She attended nine schools in ten
years in the search for a good fit. Is there something about education
you learned through motherhood that you didn’t know before?
any system yourself, with your own child. I was blessed with a child who
was not school-sensitive. She was also a kid who would have been
diagnosed with ADHD. Just yesterday I was speaking with a teacher who
said she had three kids who just looked blank all the time when she was
talking with them. I knew that was something my child would do. In the
early grades, every teacher would say to her, “Earth to Maya!”
Some kids are bright kids, but whatever’s going on in their mind is
so interesting compared to what you’re doing, it may appear they have
totally blanked out. That is something I was able to assess more readily
by having understood how Maya’s mind works.
Sunday, June 29, 2014
Raising Joy
"Can the kitty come out to play?" Mostly, it's just a delight and an honor being your momma. And I get you all to myself. Lucky, lucky me!
Just Thinking Out Loud
I'd like to pursue the concept of poverty and how we apply that framework to perceptions of impoverished peoples and how that dichotomy sets up a perpetuating cycle of victimhood and multi-generational poverty mentality. Its a thought that has been percolating in my head. Defining poverty, the have and have-nots, noble poor vs. undeserving poor, and the systemic, historical, developmental, environmental, and corporate interests that all play into how the concept of poverty is created.
Also, I'ge been thinking about the inseparableness of the destruction of the planet and the deep, systemic misogyny of American culture. For all its touted "independence" as a main cultural value, we are fast approaching the top of the list in regards to extreme inequality of the sexes. Women's liberation has been slowly moving backwards over the last decade or so. We have embraced self-degredation as a means of power, (a woefully inaccurate and DIS-empowering belief). We have the freedom and independence only as far as we perpetuate the sexist dogma on ourselves or risk being wholey out of step with society. There is a connection between the way this Patriarchal society views Women's worth and views the worth of nature, of the land. It is only as valuable as what monetary value can be culled from. Likewise, a woman's worth, no matter what she may or may not accomplish, overcome, contribute, can always be reduced to a measuring up against an imaginary ideal built to accesorize a man.
Also, I'ge been thinking about the inseparableness of the destruction of the planet and the deep, systemic misogyny of American culture. For all its touted "independence" as a main cultural value, we are fast approaching the top of the list in regards to extreme inequality of the sexes. Women's liberation has been slowly moving backwards over the last decade or so. We have embraced self-degredation as a means of power, (a woefully inaccurate and DIS-empowering belief). We have the freedom and independence only as far as we perpetuate the sexist dogma on ourselves or risk being wholey out of step with society. There is a connection between the way this Patriarchal society views Women's worth and views the worth of nature, of the land. It is only as valuable as what monetary value can be culled from. Likewise, a woman's worth, no matter what she may or may not accomplish, overcome, contribute, can always be reduced to a measuring up against an imaginary ideal built to accesorize a man.
Sunday, June 22, 2014
Thursday, June 19, 2014
Can the wind rise up and swallow me clean, like a tide, a tidal wave, a soft revolution. An answered promise of sunsets in the valley smelling like heather and lost love and the terrible mourning of a child longing for a father who has forgotten her name and so like a copied recopy copy cut paste I gave birth I sift the worst I carry like oak you touch sun like an olive tree. I cherish the holy ordinary. I dance skeletons free. I turn the skeleton key. I expect respect. I bend and bow, to and fro, discard and grow. Honor the Mystery I do not know. Delight and fear and retrospect. Double down and place my bet. To the top with a voice. Speaking by choice. Marching like a marionette for the purpose of change. Keeping eyes on the mission. The prize a vision without fission. I dance for truth and shake like a soldier. History staring down at me. All the story I have believed. Been told. Tell myself. Tell the spirits. The trees. The elves. The sky blesses me ignorant or whole. The apple shared is sweeter. I love. I dissolve. Return like a star atom of emptiness. It is not not nothing. It's warmth and it's now and it's for you too.
Can the wind rise up and swallow me clean, like a tide, a tidal wave, a soft revolution. An answered promise of sunsets in the valley smelling like heather and lost love and the terrible mourning of a child longing for a father who has forgotten her name and so like a copied recopy copy cut paste I gave birth I sift the worst I carry like oak you touch sun like an olive tree. I cherish the holy ordinary. I dance skeletons free. I turn the skeleton key. I expect respect. I bend and bow, to and fro, discard and grow. Honor the Mystery I do not know. Delight and fear and retrospect. Double down and place my bet. To the top with a voice. Speaking by choice. Marching like a marionette for the purpose of change. Keeping eyes on the mission. The prize a vision without fission. I dance for truth and shake like a soldier. History staring down at me. All the story I have believed. Been told. Tell myself. Tell the spirits. The trees. The elves. The sky blesses me ignorant or whole. The apple shared is sweeter. I love. I dissolve. Return like a star atom of emptiness. It is not not nothing. It's warmth and it's now and it's for you too.
Behaviors That
Still
Challenge Children and Adults
Developing Young Children’s
Self-Regulation through
Everyday Experiences
®
1, 2, 3
As university faculty,
I
often collaborate with teachers
when young children experi
-
ence learning or behavior chal
-
lenges. Every child is different.
Some have difficulty express
-
ing their ideas verbally. Some
struggle to get along with peers
or follow classroom routines. In
each case, however, one thing
is the same: improved learning
and behavior requires strong
self-regulation skills.
According to Ellen Galinsky,
president and co-founder of the
Families and Work Institute and
author of
Mind in the Making,
regulating one’s thinking, emo
-
tions, and behavior is critical
for success in school, work, and life (2010). A child who
stops playing and begins cleaning up when asked or spon
-
taneously shares a toy with a classmate, has regulated
thoughts, emotions, and behavior (Bronson 2000).
From infancy, humans automatically look in the direction
of a new or loud sound. Many other regulatory functions
become automatic, but only after a period of intentional
use. On the other hand, intentional practice is required
to learn how to regulate and coordinate the balance and
motor movements needed to ride a bike. Typically, once
one learns, the skill becomes automatic.
The process of moving from
intentional to automatic regula
-
tion is called
internalization.
Some
regulated functions, such as
greeting others appropriately
or following a sequence
to solve a math problem,
always require intentional
effort. It is not surprising
then that research has found
that young children who engage
in intentional self-regulation learn
more and go further in their educa
-
tion (Blair & Diamond 2008).
Children develop foundational
skills for self-regulation in the
first five years of life (Blair 2002;
Galinsky 2010), which means
early childhood teachers play an
important role in helping young children regulate thinking
and behavior. Fortunately, teaching self-regulation does
not require a separate curriculum. The most powerful way
teachers can help children learn self-regulation is by mod
-
eling and scaffolding it during ordinary activities. In this
article I define self-regulation and discuss how it develops.
I then describe an interaction I observed in a kindergarten
classroom and explain how the teacher used an everyday
experience to strengthen children’s self-regulation.
What is self-regulation?
Self-regulation refers to several complicated processes that
allow children to appropriately respond to their environment
(Bronson 2000). In many ways, human self-regulation is
like a thermostat. A thermostat senses and measures tem
-
perature, and compares its reading to a preset threshold
(Derryberry & Reed 1996). When the reading passes the
threshold, the thermostat turns either a heating or cooling
system on or off. Similarly, children must learn to evaluate
what they see, hear, touch, taste, and smell, and compare
Ida
Rose
Florez
Ida Rose Florez,
PhD, is an assistant professor of early child
-
hood education at Arizona State University. She studies young
children’s readiness for formal learning environments and the
role that self-regulation plays in young children’s early educa
-
tional experiences.
A study guide for this article is available online at
www.naeyc.
org/yc
.
47
Young Children
• July
2011
© Ellen B. Senisi
it to what they already know. Children must also learn to
then use self-regulation to communicate with any number
of systems (such as motor or language systems) to choose
and carry out a response.
Self-regulation is clearly not an isolated skill. Children
must translate what they experience into information they
can use to regulate thoughts, emotions, and behaviors
(Blair & Diamond 2008). Infants translate the feel of sooth
-
ing touch and the sound of soft voices into cues that help
them develop self-calming skills. Toddlers and preschoolers
begin to translate cues from adults, such as “Your turn is
next,” into regulation that helps them inhibit urges to grab
food or toys. They begin to learn how long they must usu
-
ally wait to be served food or to have a turn playing with a
desired toy, which helps them regulate emotional tension.
Because self-regulation involves different domains, regu
-
lation of one domain affects other areas of development.
Emotional and cognitive self-regulation are not separate,
distinct skills. Rather, thinking affects emotions and emo
-
tions affect cognitive development (Blair & Diamond 2008).
Children who cannot effectively regulate anxiety or discour
-
agement tend to move away from, rather than engage in,
challenging learning activities. Conversely, when children
regulate uncomfortable emotions, they can relax and focus
on learning cognitive skills. Similarly, children experience
better emotional regulation when they replace thoughts
like “I’m not good at this” with thoughts like “This is dif
-
ficult, but I can do it if I keep trying.” Regulating anxiety
and thinking helps children persist in challenging activities,
which increases their opportunities to practice the skills
required for an activity.
Self-regulation is also like using a thermostat because
both are active, intentional processes. Setting a thermostat
requires an intentional decision and the device actively
monitors environmental temperature. Similarly, self-regula
-
tion requires intentional decisions (“I will not hit Andrew!”)
and active processes (sitting on one’s hands so they are
unavailable for hitting). Although children’s behavior is
regulated by many processes that function outside their
awareness, researchers have found children’s intentional
self-regulation predicts school success (Zimmerman
1994). When provided with appropriate opportunities,
young children can and do learn intentional self-regula
-
tion. Researchers Elena Bodrova and Deborah Leong, for
example, taught preschoolers to plan their play activities
and found planning helped children develop stronger self-
regulation skills (Bodrova & Leong 2007).
Planning is an
important part of self-regulation. Teachers might suggest
that children sit on their hands to remind themselves to not
hit or touch another child. To use this practice, children
must think about potential future actions and then imagine
and enact alternative behaviors.
Finally, just as a thermostat monitors conditions to main
-
tain optimal temperature, self-regulation monitors condi
-
tions to maintain optimal arousal for a given task (Blair &
Diamond 2008). Everyone experiences peaks and lows in
levels of attention, emotion, and motivation. As children
develop, they learn that some activities require them to
pay attention more (that is, the activities require increased
attentional arousal
). For example, children need more
attentional arousal to watch a play than to chase a friend.
The same is true for motivational arousal. Children need to
“wake up” motivation more to stick with a challenging task
Self-regulation is clearly not an iso
-
lated skill. Children must translate
what they experience into infor
-
mation they can use to regulate
thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.
© Julia Luckenbill
48
Young Children
• July
2011
than to open a gift. Learning to persist in complex learning
tasks that stretch children’s skills is one of the most impor
-
tant outcomes of healthy self-regulation. To regulate vari
-
ous arousal levels, children must recognize when arousal is
not optimal and take steps to modify it. Children often do
this by squirming or looking away (such as out a window or
at other children’s activity)
to arouse fading attention,
or by withdrawing from oth
-
ers to reduce high physical
or emotional arousal.
How does self-
regulation develop?
As children develop, their
regulatory skills become
more sophisticated (Kopp
1982; Blair & Diamond
2008). Infants begin to
regulate arousal and
sensory-motor responses
even before birth. An infant
may suck her thumb after
hearing a loud sound, indicating that she is regulating her
responses to the environment. Toddlers start to inhibit
responses and comply with adult caregivers. By age 4, chil
-
dren begin to exhibit more complex forms of self-regulation,
such as anticipating appropriate responses and modifying
their responses when circumstances are subtly different.
For example, clapping is appropriate after someone speaks
during sharing time at school, but not while a teacher is
giving directions.
Self-regulation skills develop gradually, so it is important
that adults hold developmentally appropriate expectations
for children’s behavior. Vygotsky called the range of devel
-
opmentally appropriate expectations the zone of proximal
development (ZPD) (John-Steiner & Mahn 1996). The ZPD is
the “growing edge of competence” (Bronson 2000, 20) and
represents those skills a child is ready to learn. Expecting
children to demonstrate skills outside the ZPD is ineffective
and often detrimental. Punishing young children when they
fail to sustain attention longer than a few minutes or fail to
calm themselves quickly when frustrated does nothing to
help them learn self-regulation. Likewise, failing to provide
challenging opportunities for children to advance their
skills can hinder their growth.
As they develop, most children begin to use self-regula
-
tion skills without prompting or assistance. They develop
strategies to manage incoming information, choose appro
-
priate responses, and maintain levels of arousal that allow
them to actively participate in learning. When children
routinely self-regulate without adult assistance, they have
internalized self-regulation (Bronson 2000). Vygotsky
([1934]1986) described internalization as a process in
which children progress from co-regulating behavior with
an adult to doing so independently. Thus, to develop self-
regulation skills, children need many opportunities to expe
-
rience and practice with adults and capable peers.
Supporting self-regulation in a
kindergarten classroom
In the following vignette, I describe an
interaction I observed between Melissa, a
kindergarten teacher, and two children, Lucy
and Tricia, as they explored the science cen
-
ter. Melissa used this everyday interaction
to help the children practice and strengthen
self-regulation skills.
I sit quietly in a corner, observing Lucy, a
kindergartner with a moderate speech and
language delay. The children experiment with
clay and rocks, water and blocks, and dirt and
seeds. Their teacher, Melissa, moves among
them, using her presence, words, and actions
to direct the children’s attention and help
them stay motivated and engaged. Melissa makes her way
to the water table where 5-year-old Tricia constructs intri
-
cate waterways with plastic blocks. Lucy leans on the table,
watching silently.
“What are you doing, Tricia?” Melissa says as she pulls up
a chair and sits next to the table.
Tricia focuses intently as she repositions a block then straight
-
ens and looks at Melissa, “I’m making the water go fast!”
Putting her hand in the water, Melissa smiles, “Wow, it is
moving fast! May I play?”
“Sure!” Tricia nods.
Melissa turns to Lucy, “Want to play with us?” Lucy nods
and Melissa hands her a block, “Where do you want to put
it?” Lucy looks down and shrugs.
“Lucy, try putting it here.” Tricia points to the next hole in
the path.
Lucy hesitates but takes the block. She tries putting the
block in an empty space, but it doesn’t fit. Lucy rests the
block on the side of the water table and looks down. Gently
rubbing Lucy’s back, Melissa asks, “Do you need help?”
Lucy nods. Melissa leans in and whispers, “Tricia’s been
doing this a lot; why don’t you ask her how to do it? I bet she
could show you.”
Lucy looks up at Tricia, “Can you help me?”
“Sure!” Tricia takes Lucy’s hand and positions it over the
next space in the path. “Okay, push hard.” Lucy leans on the
block, pushing, but it does not go in. Tricia moves closer to
Lucy. “Push really, really hard. You can do it!” Lucy, lips tight
and determined, pushes the block hard into the hole. Water
swirls around it as a smile spreads across her face.
Self-regulation skills
develop gradually,
so it is important that
adults hold develop
-
mentally appropriate
expectations for chil
-
dren’s behavior.
Behaviors That
Still
Challenge Children and Adults
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