Honoring your students' developmental timeline.
I feel incredibly fortunate that I came to teaching when I did and that I had some incredible mentors who empowered me to trust my judgement and focus on meaningful priorities. We teach CHILDREN we cover curriculum. Children, when given access to content and materials that ignite their passion and fuel their wonder have the tendency to grow and develop just as they should. When pushed to do too much too soon, however, we can unwittingly create behavior and learning issues. Likewise, when underestimated and under-stimulated, kiddos can grow restless or loose interest in learning. I was also fortunate to have the trust of my community. They supported my efforts to teach the children rather than simply cover the curriculum and a funny thing happened. My students tended to actually end up performing pretty well. Though they usually entered school with (collectively) the "lowest scores" in my district they usually left with the highest. Not every teacher has the luxury of that trust from their community or administration, but WE trust you! We trust that you want to do the best you can do for your students. We trust that if you really observe them, you'll see what they need. We trust that you'll know that when your kindergarten kiddos are too squirmy to sit through a whole livestream in the fall that it's ok to shut it off. Or that if your second graders need more you'll dig deeper.
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Meet Beth and Curtis!Presidential Award-Winning teacher and hula hoop fanatic, Beth loves bringing real world science to kids! Beth is fascinated by engineering challenges, technology, and outdoor learning spaces. After 25 years teaching kindergarten, she’s excited to share her passion and experience on-line with classrooms from around the world! Archives
May 2021
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