You should have received information about the topics below and reviewed them with a mentor or member of the administration already. The following material is intended to help clarify what you have already talked about. Read through the following and watch the videos that explain or demonstrate the practices we use.
1. Overview
Johnny Otto, our director, gives a parent orientation every year. This video can give you a good overview of some of Small Faces’ practices such as Enterprise talk, Risky Play, and Positive Discipline. Sorry, this video is in progress and is not yet available.
2. Enterprise Talk:
Enterprise Talk, as coined by Tom Drummond, is a measurable, practical guide for talking to children in times of difficulty and responding with effective positives. By creating relationships with children based on integrity and authenticity, Enterprise Talk works to transform behavior management from externally motivated (based on the power structure of adults over students) to inner motivation (based on the child’s own judgment of what is valuable, kind, fair and good).
Enterprise Talk involves giving few or no directions, asking journalistic questions (who, what, where, why when), and giving appreciative praise rather than evaluative praise (appreciating what a child has done, and reflecting their own feelings of pride and value in their work).
Using Enterprise Talk consistently helps make a confident child who does what is expected of them without having to ask or direct. When applied in full, Enterprise Talk results in children gaining confidence and self-guidance.
Guides to effective communication when using Enterprise Talk:
- Using Descriptions
- Using Narrations
- Using Subjective-Talk
- Using Non-Verbal Recognition
- Appreciative Praise
- Paraphrasing
- Journalistic questions
Video Example of Classroom Practice: Descriptions
3. Basics of Positive Discipline
Research tells us that children are hardwired from birth to connect with others, and that children who feel a sense of connection to their community, family, and school are less likely to misbehave.
You should have been given a copy of the book “Positive Discipline” by Jane Nelson. You will also be given a copy of a mistaken goals table in your new hire packet. You can refer to that table in the second video.
Related videos:
Basics of Positive Discipline with Jane Nelson
More about mistaken Goals (the women in the video will talk about work sheets – the video is still valuable without them)
4. Problem Solving/Conflict Resolution
Sometimes teachers think they must avoid conflict for children to get along. However, if we remove all conflict from the classroom, how will children learn to resolve problems between each other. Try to think of conflicts as an opportunity to teach children how to solve problems. At Small Faces, instead of separating children when they are arguing, or solving the problem FOR them, we teach them a four step process to solve their problems.
- Help children calm down
- Say the problem
- Think of ideas
- Try one out (repeat steps 3-4 as needed)
Why teach children conflict resolution?
A great book about conflict resolution is “You Can’t Come to My Birthday Party” by Betsy Evans. It’s available for check out in the office.
Video Example of Classroom Practice:
This (really short) video shows all the problem-solving steps very clearly. Watch it if you work with Preschool Children
How this might look with School agers
5. Classroom Environment/Emergent Curriculum/Project Approach
We like to think of the environment as part of the curriculum. How you set up your classroom makes a BIG difference in what mood the children in, what they play with, and how they interact with each other. You can read more about this and see some slides of beautiful spaces in this article: Environment as a Third Teacher – Classrooms in a Reggio Emilia approach
We use an “emergent” curriculum day to day. You can see a planning cycle EmergentCurriculum.docx. Within an emergent curriculum, we also use the Project Approach.
A Project is not what happens every day, and is not the same as a theme. Typically, when using a theme curriculum, teachers fill the classroom with toys, books, and games around a given topic, whether or not that topic provides any information to a child.
A Project, on the other hand, is an ongoing investigation. It has a beginning (typically the “spark” and the gathering of information about what children already know and want to know), a middle (in which children and teachers investigate the project and document new information, and an end (typically showing the wider community what the class now knows about the topic.
Video Example of Classroom Practice:
You can find more information and many examples of projects here:
Project Approach Tips and Guides – Illinois Early Learning (from illinoisearlylearning.org)
The following are books we have at Small Faces about setting up environments and planning curriculum:
Working the Reggio Way by Julianne Wurm
More Working the Reggio Way by Julianne Wurm
Learning Together with Young Children by Deb Curtis and Margie Carter
Picturing the Project Approach by Sylvia Chard
6. Emotion Coaching
Based on the work of John Gottman, Julie Schwartz Gottman and the Gottman Institute
Emotion Coaching is an approach to behavior management that works to build a child’s emotional intelligence
5 Steps to emotion coaching
- Be aware of children’s emotions (as well as your own)
- Recognize emotions as opportunities to connect
- Help children verbally label emotions
- Communicate empathy and understanding
- Set limits and problem solve
Videos Examples of Practice:
If you work with school age, watch this overview of Emotion Coaching
If you work with preschoolers, you can watch this video Emotion Coaching (the video will start where you should begin watching)