What a Year It Was!

       Here we were, just coasting along, doing the things we normally would do, when, BAM, that stupid Coronavirus stopped us all dead in our tracks!  On Friday, March 13th, we had a meeting after school to discuss what changes we would be making in the coming week, to get us through until Spring Break.  My students were bringing in their leprechaun traps in the hope of catching that sly, little character. 

     By Sunday night, the 15th, we were informed that the buildings would not reopen for the week of the 16th. We had small, socially-distanced meetings to determine how we could best deliver instruction, moving forward. I am blessed to work with three other ROCKSTAR preschool teachers in our district! We came up with our plan and implemented it with very few hiccups. Our families were understanding and did their absolute best to work with their kids. (Honestly, I think we were all in shock.) We finished the year doing remote instruction.

     Late spring and summer provided me with TWO opportunities to go visit my parents on the family farm and stay for a week both times! After all that was the last quarter of the school year, it was an amazing opportunity to relax, reflect, and renew. I was also able to renew a friendship for high school.

     Also, this summer I was honored to be chosen to be a part of "Navigating Change," which is the state's plan for the reopening of schools this past fall. I met, and worked with people I may not have otherwise ever crossed paths with. It was hard work, but also valuable work.

     We were able to start school, later than intended, face-to-face and have remained in this mode of instructional delivery until now, even with the rapidly climbing numbers in our state and county.

     In November, our daughter, Abbey, was able to get married. Because you never know what the weather is going to be like in Kansas, she was able to get married in the courtyard and the reception was inside. There were roughly 45 people in attendance and Abbey and Alex provided custom designed masks for everyone! It was so much fun to have all three of our kids together again

     The week of Christmas, I received a call from Jacque, our oldest, asking if they could come up here for Christmas. They live in San Antonio. They had plans to go visit some of her husband's family in the Phoenix area, but some of the people there were exposed to the coronavirus. Of course I said, "YES!!"  All three kids back together, again. We ate lots of food, played lots of games, enjoyed each other's company, and laughed until our sides hurt.

     What I need to say is that in the midst of a catastrophic world event, such as this pandemic, there were silver linings everywhere I looked. There is still much to be thankful for!

     In 2021, we are looking forward to the marriage of our son, Luke, to his high school sweetheart. Again, so much to be thankful for!

Screen Time in Preschool

      Our district bought all four PreK classrooms iPads on a cart. There are twenty iPads on each cart, plus one for each teacher, equalling a total of eight-four iPads. None of the PreK teachers even expressed an interest in having classroom sets of iPads. I'm sure if you asked the others on the team, there would be something else we would have asked that money to be spent on. I am equally sure that the reason we got the iPads was due to the pandemic.

     Here's the thing, though. A couple of years ago, I heard the Kansas State commissioner of Education speak at a state conference. Here is a direct quote from a Q & A session with him: "I believe that every child under the age of eight, should have a play-based education." Does that include screen time? I can assure you it does not.

     A play-based classroom has the following:

• Play-based preschool classrooms are set up in sections, usually having a kitchen area, a reading area, a sensory table, a block area, an exploration area, and more. Much of the class time is made up of free-choice centers, where children go to one of these areas in the classroom and “play”.
• Teachers may incorporate academic skills through theme-based activities and may add thematic props to classroom learning centers.
• The main goal is to develop SEL skills by teacher modeling. Students cannot learn these skills from interacting with a screen.
• Students’ progress is monitored by their participation in hands-on activities and observational assessments, not by worksheets and drills.
• The teacher acts as a facilitator of learning rather than a lecturer of direct instruction.
• Play-based classrooms are more about the process of learning and are less concerned about the product. Teachers work hard to create an atmosphere of discovery, exploration and appropriate risk-taking. Screen time does not do this for students.
• Academics are taught by weaving literacy and math into all learning areas. 
• Play is the context in which children can most optimally learn, because it is the most efficient way for children to process information.
• Some experts now claim that one of the greatest predictors of life-long success is a child’s ability to control impulses (self-regulation), which is learned in social environments.  As previously mentioned, social environments are made available through play-based preschool programs.
• A worthwhile play-based program will have teachers engaging or adding on to children’s play, not dictating it.
• Rich language and math skills must be carefully thought-out. 

Here are a few of the concerns about screen time, especially with young children, and the list continues to grow:

• What we can hypothesize is that screens could inhibit certain aspects of a child’s development by narrowing their focus of interest and limiting their other means of exploration and learning,” says Dr. Jennifer Cross, attending pediatrician and a developmental and behavioral pediatrics expert at NewYork-Presbyterian Komansky Children’s Hospital. “If young children spend most of their time engaging with an iPad, smartphone, or the television, all of which are highly entertaining, it can be hard to get them engaged in non-electronic activities, such as playing with toys to foster imagination and creativity, exploring outdoors, and playing with other children to develop appropriate social skills.
•  Young children learn by exploring their environment and watching the adults in their lives and then imitating them. Excessive screen time may inhibit a child’s ability to observe and experience the typical everyday activities they need to engage with in order to learn about the world, leading to a kind of “tunnel vision,” which can be detrimental to overall development.
• Language development expands rapidly between 1½ to 3 years of age, and studies have shown that children learn language best when engaging and interacting with adults who are talking and playing with them. There is also some evidence that children who watch a lot of television during the early elementary school years perform less well on reading tests and may show deficits in attention.
• The blue light from screens inhibits melatonin, which can delay sleep. And watching TV or playing games also keeps our brains and bodies more alert and activated and less ready for sleep. (Tablets and smartphones will suppress the melatonin more than TVs because the screen, and that blue light, is closer to the face.)
• Keep bedtime, mealtime, and family time screen-free. Don’t use screens in the car except for long trips, and consider setting a curfew or an agreed-upon time when your family shuts off all screens. Balancing online and offline time is extremely important.
• Limit your own phone use. Kids will do what they see their parents doing. At a young age, their parent(s) is the most important person in their life, so they will model whatever behavior they are seeing. If they see that you’re behind a screen all day every day, then they’ll see that it’s acceptable and will want to do the same.     

     In addition, we've had these iPads for two months. TWO MONTHS!! Do we have any PreK-appropriate apps on them? We do not. This is in spite of creating and filling in a spreadsheet with the name of the app and the site to go to in order to load the apps onto our iPads. So, currently, these iPads, on the cart, are basically taking up space and are completely unusable by my students. FOR TWO MONTHS. In my very humble opinion, they are nothing more than an unwanted waste of money and space.