I have almost finished reading Love and Logic. The book was a fascinating read. The concept is great. I went back to class on Monday thinking that I would use this approach more in my classroom this term. More empathy. More choices. More logical consequences that are coming from kids themselves. Helping kids change their behavior.
Luckily, our dean of culture plopped herself down in my classroom. She has a very different style than mine. And some of the kids respond to her. I always enjoy observing her and picking up some teaching moves.
I’ve been struggling in my own head with this love and logic/choices approach and a consequence system approach. I was painfully aware of this philosophical struggle with every word I spoke yesterday. And when I approached our dean of culture about this debate in my head, this is what she told me:
“Every child is different and needs different things. Choices may work for some of them, but for others it might not.”
That’s exactly what I needed to hear. Again, it’s not about my philosophy, but about me giving each child what he or she needs to learn. What has happened to Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences? In our race to the top, have we also standardized ways that kids must show knowledge and talent? And yet, if our world values a standardized test (such as test scores to get into colleges, get scholarships) then how do we expect our schools to value intelligence shown in ways beyond standardized tests?
And it’s not just about discipline/classroom management. My teaching, my tools, should change based on the children that I have. I worked in a school that valued important and beneficial ideas about teaching literacy, ideas that I believed in. But when these ideas translated into a script, or rather into an approach that we held so fast to, we did a disservice to the children at that school.
I feel liberated this year. Overjoyed to be a teacher where students are seen as children, each individual, and where instruction and discipline are based on what children need and how they learn.
