Super Chunk

A few days’ breathing room (and Adam’s realization that if HE couldn’t read what he’d written, then maybe he should try it another way) has given me a little perspective on the rainforest research project.  Namely:

• I would have run it differently, knowing what I know now.  As a librarian, I would have done some specific stuff at the front end; I might have taken some different steps as a teacher (i.e. as a teacher in the field prior to library school), or I might not.
• I do not teach kindergarten, and I am glad.
• The people who teach my children in kindergarten are GREAT.  They are not me; we are different teachers and doubtless we parent differently as well, but one reason I send my children to kindergarten in the first place is to expose them to a variety of significant adult perspectives.  To reiterate: these people are GREAT and my kids are in EXCELLENT hands.
• It is totally appropriate and okay for the teachers and me to have different angles on these things.  Different teachers do things in different ways.  (Sometimes kids need reminders about that kind of thing; sometimes I do too.)

Now.  I have some strong opinions about this project, yes.  I’m actually having a little trouble keeping myself from blurting out in class here.  But it is not my place to offer those opinions in this setting, in public, on the Internet of all things.  It’s not productive, it’s not kind (the #2 rule in my house!) (#1 is “be safe” and #3 is “be respectful,” and that is the extent of the house rules — all else is procedural), and it’s not fair.  That is not the kind of person I want to be, not the kind of thing I want to do or the kind of reputation I want to have.

The end result is this: Adam and Becky each made a Finished Thing with minimal handholding.  They both did it the way they thought was appropriate — Adam ended up typing his text and coloring it in, and Becky painted the whole thing over with tempera paints — and it was fine.  I don’t know if they learned anything, but they wouldn’t necessarily be able to tell me that.  At this stage, a project like this is an introduction to school projects and an opportunity to speak to the class as much as anything else.  It was successful for that (and, I suspect, more than that).  And that’s all I intend to say about it here.