Shift in Perception

12/05/2018

Poetry is emotion put into measure. The emotion must come by nature, but the measure can be acquired by art.
Thomas Hardy

Alfie Kohn, in an article in Psychology Today recounts a teacher’s description about a profound shift in thinking about education:

“Awhile back, someone—I forget who—suggested to me that, since I was lucky enough to have relatively small classes, I should start the term by having each student take a few minutes to introduce him- or herself. Why not, I thought; it won't take that long. So I asked everyone to say a little something about their personal background and also mention an experience or two relevant to the topic of the course.

What I didn't expect is that this tiny change would end up making such a difference in my perception of what was happening in class. You know, I'm very serious about the subject matter I teach. But learning a bit about each student on the first day turned them into flesh-and-blood people for me, and I realized with an unpleasant little start that for all these years I'd been so focused on what I was teaching that I was ignoring the students who were learning it. I had forgotten that what matters isn't so much the knowledge itself as the uses particular people make of that knowledge. It's not the ideas that count; it's the experience of the individuals who consider those ideas.”

Source: “Transformation by Degrees,” by Alfie Kohn, Psychology Today, September 26, 2017

Kohburg - Creating a Reggio Inspired Classroom

Oral Health America - Your Baby's Oral Health

For more information about Exchange's magazine, books, and other products pertaining to ECE, go to www.ccie.com.