Qualities of Good Teachers

1.      Knowledge of subject

2.      Ability to organize

3.      Ability to communicate

4.       Empathy and understanding

What would you add?

Conflict Resolution I

            One of the major goals of preschool teachers and parents alike is that children enter Kindergarten with good social skills.  An area of particular concern is conflict and conflict resolution.  Preschool is often the first environment where children learn to get along with others, with the exception of siblings or perhaps a few friends.  For the first time they learn, practice, and invent ways to negotiate disagreements with other children (Lokon, 1995; Sheldon, 1996; O’Brien, Roy, Jacobs, Macaluso, and Peyton, 1999).  Most disputes among children benefit their development, though some parents and educators perceive conflicts as something to be prevented, avoided, or squelched.   Researchers have found that conflicts are essential for the development and socialization of young children (Periolat and Nager, 1988; Rende and Killen, 1992; Wheeler, 1994; Lokon, 1995; Sims, Hutchins and Taylor, 1997).   While not all conflicts are necessarily constructive, they all help foster empathy or a better understanding of others, which is essential to healthy emotional development, not to mention that their resolution is a necessary social skill at school and throughout life.

            Children begin to develop gender identification and separation around the third year of life (Sims, Hutchins, and Taylor, 1998).  Literature on conflict indicates that females are generally found to use more conciliatory verbal strategies such as negotiation and males tend to use more competitive and aggressive resolution strategies such as hitting or verbal insults (Wilson, 1988; Laursen and Hartup, 1989; Sheldon, 1992; Wheeler, 1994; Sims, Hutchins, and Taylor, 1998).  Vespo, Pedersen and Hay (1995) indicate that gender is not a factor.  There is also indication that competitive and aggressive strategies are more prevalent with younger preschoolers, and older preschoolers more often use conciliatory strategies (Laursen and Hartup, 1989; Wilson, 1992).  Rende and Killen (1992) report that events that precede conflict episodes (antecedent events) play a part in the choice of strategies chosen for resolution.

            Young children acquire gender identification and learn about the roles expected of them as representatives of their gender.  Gendered behavior is learned at a young age as children learn about the world around them and how to behave in that world.  Research on the development of gendered behavior indicates that gender segregation begins around the third year of age. While there seems to be no gender difference in the initiation of conflict, conflict management strategies and outcomes appear to be areas in which gendered behavior is apparent (Vespo et al, 1995; Sims et al, 1998).

Study Skills: The Secret to Everyday Success

To be a successful student you must learn to establish goals, and create and follow through on a plan to accomplish those goals. Reaching goals demands a set of skills and habits that can be learned.

Each day you are faced with a wide range of things you need or want to do for school, for work, for you family and friends, and for yourself. How do you decide what is important? First make a list of the things you are responsible for. These things are Must Dos, usually work and family. How many hours a week are you at work? Do you bring work home? How much time do you realistically spend on those tasks? If you are married or have children, how many hours a week do you work to meet their needs? How many hours of sleep do you need each night in order to function at your best? Put these on your calendar or day planner first.

How much time do you spend each week on Other Activities such as church, friends, and bubble baths? Where is being a student and studying on your priority list? What does that say to you about your expectations? How much time and energy will be left for school. The expectation is that for every hour you spend in class, you will need to allot two hours for study.  This can help you establish the amount of time you will have for study even how many courses you can handle at a time. Are there activities that need to be taken off your calendar so you have time to reach your education priority?

Goals should be straightforward and emphasize what you want to happen. Goals are your “plan to dos.” Specifics help focus efforts and clearly define what is going to be accomplished. It is important to decide what grade you want to make in any class you take. The course syllabi, learning activities or group and individual assignments should help you decide what you need to do to make that grade. Why is this important to do at this time? What do you want to ultimately accomplish? How are you going to do it?

The Right Study Environment is critical to getting the most out of the time you can allot for studying and completing assignments and projects. In a busy household, just finding a quiet place to read and do homework can be a real challenge. What are external obstacles to concentration? What are internal obstacles to concentration? Come up with smart solutions. Discovering the best approach is a personal process. When my children were preschoolers and toddlers, I put them to bed, cleaned the kitchen, and went to bed myself. Then I got up at 3:00 a.m. to study.

The Importance of Time Management cannot be overemphasized. Anything that can be delegated gives you extra time. Anything that can be made into a routine for yourself lessens the time needed to think it through each time you do it, saving both time and creative energy. Always leave yourself room to wiggle – the business standard is to leave 25% of your time and energy unplanned.  That way you have room for emergencies and anything unexpected. Look at your planner.  How does it reflect your priorities and goals? Find one thing at a time that you need to change about how you use your time.

Use “To-Do Lists.” Make a to-do list for each day. Write your list according to your priorities and goals. Use your day planner to schedule each task. If you have to carry tasks over too often, or can’t get to things that are important, go back to your priorities and MUST DO’s and see if there is a way to clear some of those off your calendar.

Resources:

Goodstein, Michele. (2004). Study Skills: Am Overhead Teaching Kit.  Scholastic.

www.childdevelopmentinfo.com/learning/studytips.shtmlparents/study.htm

http://www.goal-setting-guide.com/7goalsettingtips/7tips.html

www.nasponline.org/publications/cq266study.html

www.teachersandfamilies.com/open/parent/homework1.ctm

www.wa.nea.org/family/parents/study.htm

If you would like to use this as a handout for your students please add this statement to your printed page:

Used by permission. Jorja Davis. Study Skills: The Secret to Everyday Success. http://JorjaADavisTeachersFriend.blogspot.com June 13, 2012

Chaos to Calm: Living a More Tranquil Life: Living a More Tranquil Life: (or How to Survive the Last Weeks of School)

"There is nothing we cannot live down, rise above or overcome." - Ella Wheeler-Wilcox

Wayne Dyer, interviewed in the July 1, 2005 issue of BottomLine Personal, offered these tips on how to avoid stress and anxiety and live a more tranquil life . .

(The comments in parentheses, are all mine!)

Understand that you are the source of your stress. Stress and anxiety are choices that we make to process unpleasant events rather than entities that are waiting to invade our lives. If you blame outside forces for making your life stressful, you’ll only make stress more difficult to beat. When you admit that your own mind is the source, stress becomes manageable. You always have a choice – do I stay with the thoughts that produce stress within me or do I work to activate thoughts that make stress impossible? 

(I highly recommend the second course of action, you might recommend it to your students as well. After all, you cannot possibly be the cause of their stress since you are busy creating your own.)

Expel stressful thoughts. Stress feeds upon itself when left unchecked. Break the cycle of anxiety by banishing a stressful thought from your mind. Take a deep breath, visualize your self stamping “next” or “cancel” across the thought and pushing it out of your way. 

(I see myself in a silly clown costume complete with rainbow curls and a big red nose.I am wandering through a large crowd of students, past, present, and future. My stamps are the size of a piece of paper. After my thoughts are stamped, I put them in a large brown envelope. I think I will mail mine to the teacher who taught me to build my stressful cycle of anxiety! If I stamped them by doing something silly, but meaningful - of course, at the end of each class period....) 

Return to your happiest moment. Visualize a scene from your past that brings you joy. When you feel overwhelmed by stress, picture this happy image for several moments. Your mind naturally will return to the joyous mental state that you experienced originally.

(Watch out for mimes and clowns, dancers and puppeteers, and especially watch for actors, singers, and storytellers. They will all start creeping around behind you. You might even put a red rubber nose in your desk in case you need to create one of those moments for your students. Hmmm, shared moments of happiness, now there's a thought, how could you, or they, create one of those moments each day?)

Realize that you will never get it all done. There will always be something else to do or accomplish. Your desires, goals, hopes, and dreams will never be finished – ever. As soon as you realize one dream, another will most assuredly pop up. The secret is to live more fully in the moment.

(Cut up and throw up all your to do lists - lions, and tigers, and bears, oh my, that brings strange visions - well, at least the list you made the first day of school this year that never was completed.)


Meditate. Nothing relieves stress, anxiety, and depression like silence and meditation. The stillness of meditation relaxes the mind and gives us strength. Take time every day for moments of relaxation and quiet contemplation.

(I call this PRAYER! - not a bad place to begin  and end each day, now is it? Not even a bad idea to bathe the day in it - I call that PRAYER in a bubble bath, maybe even with a naturally carbonated drink)