Week 8 Overview

 In week eight we are going to discuss relationships and guidance. Your text refers to relationships as the foundations of child guidance. Each child brings to the classroom a unique combination of experiences, temperaments, and culture that impacts his or her behavior. Additionally, the children interact with one another and create a unique classroom culture. All of this is tied to the teacher. How he or she reacts to the children and their behavior dictates how the children will react.

For many years my favorite book about child guidance was " Teacher and Child: A Book for Parents and Teachers" Links to an external site. by Haim Ginott. It was given to me by a teacher who was retiring. I loved it and read it over and over. My favorite quote from the book was: 

“I’ve come to a frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It’s my personal approach that creates the climate. It’s my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or dehumanized.” 

I created a poster with that quote and left it where I put my purse and personal belongings each day so that I would see it and remember that as the teacher, I was the decisive element in the room. I never blamed or shamed parents or families for what happened in my class. In fact, I often told parents that I would not be telling them about what had happened during the day with their child. I would reserve those discussions for anything I could not handle on my own. We had consequences in place in the classroom for misbehavior and I saw no need to have children punished twice. 

Our role as teachers is to guide children so that they will make good choices when they leave us. What kind of guide do you want to be? Dumbledore was a guide for Harry. What kind of guide was he?  

via GIPHY Links to an external site.

Text on the image: "Soon we must all face the choices between what is right and what is easy."