Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/spontaneity-and-the-pursuit-of-beautiful-opportunities/5020140/
Sense of AdventureAre we at risk of losing our sense of adventure and creativity? Isn’t this what early childhood is all about and the reason that many of us became early childhood teachers? I, for one, loved that each day with children was a new adventure. I never knew what would take place within our classroom buzzing with the energy of young children. There were daily surprises and always a sense of discovery in the pursuit of rich learning about real questions. Some of my happiest memories from my teaching days were due to something that happened unexpectedly, and we stopped everything else to follow through on it. In many cases, it became a further study that the entire class participated in and eventually became a community event.
Making Time for Spontaneity
During the past few years, many teachers have shared with me their frustration with having to do paperwork associated with assessments of children and with having to follow schedules that keep them from being available to children in ways that matter most. I began to think about how the early childhood classroom and life with young children has changed and what it means to be so pressed by tasks ...