What did your child learn in the month of September?

September 28, 2012 | Posted in: Class Updates

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With the first month of school now in the history books, you may be wondering “What did my child learn in fourth grade so far?”  That’s a great question (of course) and is one that I hope you’ll ask your son or daughter.  Some kids will list off new things they have learned, but I have no doubt that many students would reply “Nothing” or “I just don’t know.”  Your first reaction might be to pick up the phone, call Ms. D-H, and ask what in the world we’re doing in fourth grade!  Before you do, consider this:

I think we all (myself included) have a tendency to look at “learning” as fact-based: What new KNOWLEDGE do we (or our kids) have?  What do we know that we didn’t know before?  I think it’s important to remember that lots of learning happens entirely without the person realizing that they are, in fact, learning something new.  I asked my (nearly) 3 year old son today what he learned in school, and he responded (in true toddler form) “Nothing.”  Given that a toddler cannot reflect on their own learning the way a fourth grader can, it was a pretty useless question to begin with.  Still, he doesn’t realize all the learning that he’s doing at pre-school.  In his toddler class, he learned lots of social skills that are (appropriately) his primary curriculum. Now that he’s in the preschool class, he comes home knowing more letters, more ideas, and able to do more things.  Yet if asked, he reports that he has learned nothing.

Now, you may be considering picking up the phone to call Ms. D-H to ask if I’m running a pre-school.  Don’t worry, I’m not.  (I never could have the patience to work with toddlers and have tremendous respect for anyone who can!)  But I think the idea is the same:  In the first month of school, my priorities (and those of my colleagues and administrators at PGS) are to enter our curricular work while also working to build a positive classroom community.  In order for really successful learning to happen, kids need to be comfortable in class.  They need to feel like they’re in a safe environment where they can share their ideas without fear of judgment, mockery, or penalty – where academic risk-taking is something that’s ok and even encouraged, and where everyone can learn from everyone else.

Here’s an example:  As the year goes on, we’ll focus on writing detailed short-answer responses to higher-level reading questions.  (Such as “How did [character] change throughout the story?  Cite evidence from the text to support your answer.”)  One of my favorite ways to teach is to have kids share their answers using our document camera.  The kids will learn that when volunteering to share their answer, they’re willing to accept whatever CONSTRUCTIVE, kind feedback I or their peers may choose to share.  (I have whole lessons about how to provide helpful, polite feedback.)  When these responses are on the SMART Board for all to see, we look at what is good about the response and what the student could do to improve the response.  (Notice that I didn’t mention what’s bad about the response.  Focusing on improvement gives that positive spin.)  For any student to volunteer to share their responses under these circumstances, they need to know that it’s “safe” to do so.  That’s why class climate is such a KEY issue for me in the first month of school.  (By the way – it’s great to see that many different kids enjoy sharing their work with the class; both those who are confident in their strong responses and those who recognize that their responses may need significant improvement.  We learn by doing!)

So, in coming back to the first question, “What did my child learn in fourth grade so far?”, I can tell you that your son or daughter has learned about me, my expectations, our class routines, how we handle different situations around the school, and (hopefully) how to have a comfortable day in room 209 (and a successful year).  He or she has learned about his/her peers, who they are, what different talents and interests some of them may have, and (hopefully) he or she has formed some strong connections with some of the kids in our class.  And yes, we’re also wrapping up our first math unit and are in the thick of Readers’ Workshop.  More on those two in a future message.  Have a great weekend!