Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
(kids playing)
EMILY ***: Mather is the first public elementary school
in North America, founded in 1639 in Boston.
Good morning, Mather!
Today is Tuesday.
We are over 600 children.
Good morning to the sunshine!
I teach a group of 20 four and five year olds.
***: About 30% are Vietnamese, 25% Cape Verdean.
Hispanic, African-American, Haitian, Jamaican,
some Caucasian.
TEACHER: Good morning.
KIDS: Good morning, Miss Settles!
KARLA SETTLES: Jackie, do you want to do the calendar?
Yes.
***: This is considered a pretty high trauma location.
SETTLES: Good job!
***: A little over 80% qualify for free and reduced lunch.
About 20% of our children
qualify for special education services.
JASON SACHS: The notion that the public schools
would provide a universal preschool program
is sort of new in this country.
Traditionally, public schools really start
in kindergarten to 12th grade.
There was a fair amount of research
at looking at the interaction
between the quality of preschool and long-term outcomes,
and basically, it's the investment
in high-quality preschool that made a difference.
You need a strong curriculum.
Strong math and literacy, thematic content is critical.
I really think content matters.
I want you to get ready for story,
get to where you can see.
The Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza!
The Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza
is a fantastic text for children.
"Does anybody have a pizza pan?"
ALL: "'Not I,' said the duck."
SETTLES: It allows for a lot of exploration
into many math skills,
science skills and literacy skills.
"You have to start with the dough.
"She put her flour into a big mixing bowl.
She'd stir and stir with me."
It's very interactive.
There is real pizza dough on the table
for you to play with and see what it feels like
and see what kind of pizza you might be able to make.
And it allows for a lot of activities.
MARINA BONI: It's really clear to me
that kids' work is really play.
And a cup of tea.
BONI: It's through play
that they're learning all kinds of different things.
This one's warm, this one's cool.
This one's cool?
Yeah, it is a little cooler than this one, you're right.
Why don't you go on this side, Jackie?
There you go.
BONI: I think about the role of the teacher all the time.
Diana, what did you notice?
There's a heart on it.
BONI: The role is to be engaged and present,
it is to build relationships with kids,
listen to the kids, observe the kids,
be ready to ask just the right question in the right moment.
It's about being a reflective practitioner.
So this is the big castle and this is your house?
Inside is the house,
and that's why I have to keep building.
BONI: Coaching plays a critical role in supporting teachers
to really think reflectively about their practice.
Raise a quiet hand if you would like to say
what you saw in Rameka's work.
Joseph?
I love it.
BONI: By observing them, gathering notes,
noticing the practice that they're doing well in,
things that they're struggling with
and giving them feedback on this process
so they're really able to reflect.
I think that there's a lot of materials here
that reaffirms what you're doing
and also some places where you can really stretch
and go deeper with some of the things
that you're facilitating with the kids.
SACHS: You have to think about
what are the supports and structures
that help you support teachers?
We use something called the National Association
for the Education of Young Children
accreditation system.
That is a pretty comprehensive approach
to looking at what good early care and education quality
should look like.
We have 80 schools that we have access to, and teachers,
and we can do professional development
in a much more quality way.
BONI: You feel like you're using lots of different variety
of responses and approaches?
When you're mentoring, you're actually using criteria
from NAEYC that is very in depth.
SACHS: We hired community-based coaches.
The coach really is there
to help facilitate the teacher's thinking,
and we do two hour trainings once a month with teachers.
MARGARET HENNESSY: All right, who remembers
something that we've read from the salmon book?
STUDENT: Billy!
So when we sit in a group,
how does it work if you want to say something?
BONI: The hand-raising strategy that you're using
is to remind them
because they're very excited to share ideas.
It's not that effective, though.
Okay.
If you all talk at once,
I cannot hear you, I cannot understand you.
BONI: Something else that you could do
that I observed in another classroom,
a teacher used a visual.
She had just a little picture of a person raising their hand,
and kids notice it
and they immediately respond and raise their hand.
We can really have a huge impact
on what's going to happen for our kids later on.
They're very bright, yes, even the youngest ones.
Eyes are watching, ears are listening...
Finally, early childhood is being recognized
and people understand that
this is a critical point in childhood development,
and so we should be accountable.
I think that's great.
(laughs)