Teacher Margaret's "View From My Window" - September 19th

Dear Friends, 

“The capacity for listening and reciprocal expectation is an important quality enabling communication and dialogue and demands to be understood and supported.”¹

Today I overheard a teacher tell a student “You need to go back to our classroom door and walk to where we are now.” The student looked confused, the teacher explained “I know you heard me say that we were walking to Art. You need to walk to art”. Learning to listen and respond is part of what we help children learn to do. Listening at Westfield is never uni-directional. Teachers are listening to their students all the time. Adult listening models for students how to hear and respond with respect and empathy. Through their listening, teachers adapt lessons and choose topics. Through observation, modeling, direct instruction, and trial and error our students become better listeners. For example, two boys having lunch in my office listened to each other work through what each thought had happened to land them in my office.  They talked about what they had misheard while playing a game. Then they talked and listened and agreed on how to create a better situation for each other. For this amicable resolution, they had to stop talking over each other, stop anticipating their own answer, and so that they could hear what their peer was saying. This is a life skill. 

Thank you to everyone who came to our Back to School Nights. If you have any questions that weren’t answered, please reach out to your child’s teachers. 

If you don’t know, Trolls are invading Burlington County! I found Big Rusty by entering “Big Rusty Burlington County” into Google Maps. The rest of the trolls will be available after 9/28.   The trolls form the Troll Trek. Page 44 of the Fall Parks Program Guide has more information. If you and your family “find” a troll, send in a picture and I will add it to my bulletin board.

Warmly,

Margaret Haviland

 ¹The Hundred Languages of Children, edited by Carolyn Edwards, et al ABC-CLIO 2012, p. 237

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