The classroom environment I would like

This week is about classroom environments. Bill Ayers talks about the things he has in his classrooms to encourage exploration and learning. As I read his descriptions of some of his classrooms, I thought of my childrens' preschool. My three youngest went to a co operative preschool, and I was very involved and loved it. I actually thought about going into early education because I did love it so much, and loved the children so much. I think that is why I would like to teach kindergarten.

He talks about having a paint easle out, and an art area, a sensory area, a cozy book corner with lots of pillows, an area with blocks and other building materials, a dress up/imaginative play area, and a sand or water table. He talks about displaying the childrens' art work. He talks about cooking in the classroom. These are all things that perfectly describe the preschool environment. I think it is because of these things that I loved preschoolers and thought about teaching them. I have never really seen a classroom set up like that for elementary students, and yet he talks about continuing this basic set up, with adjustments, through high school.

In the preschool my kids went to we emphasized learning through play. We didn't have the worksheets and flashcards that some preschools do. We didn't focus on the academic that many parents want today. When I took parents on tours I had to constantly explain to them why we did things this way, and how they translated into academic success in later years. I would tell them that children are only young once, they have playful spirits and learn best at their own pace. That hands on learning sticks longer than rote learning and flashcards or worksheets. Not every child is going to be reading when they enter kindergarten, and that's ok. We had many parents who chose other options because they were conditioned to want a "strong academic" preschool for their child's future success.

Now my children are all past preschool age, and I look at their classrooms, and even the kindergarten classroom is a bare echo of this environment. Sure there are kids' artwork in the hall. Yes, they have a shelf with books on it. There are some math manipulative blocks in the tubs below the window. They pull out the art stuff once a week-- and the older kids sometimes less than that. Many schools have parents who volunteer to be Art Docents and come in to teach a lesson once a month, and for some classes, that is all the art they get.

Cooking in the classroom? They don't even allow homemade treats anymore. They have to be storebought in a sealed package. And with so many allergies, even that is sometimes discouraged. The preschoolers loved cooking. We made all sorts of stuff tied into what we were doing at the time. When we read The Gingerbread Baby we made gingerbread cookies, when we read Stone Soup, we made soup. We had pancake breakfasts, fruit salad, gorp, and muffins. While I think it would be wonderful, I can see the school saying no, for safety reasons, for health reasons, for allergy reasons, for sanitary reasons. It is hard in today's environment to do things like this because people are so afraid of the worst case senario. " What if someone gets food poisoning?" Sad, but true. And cooking is such a great way to tackle math - especially fractions, and culture, and science, and reading, and .. well the list could go on.

I would love to have a classroom environment like the one that Ayers described, like the preschool environment. I just don't know if it is possible today. With so many schools going towards set curriculum -- as Perlstein wrote in Tested -- even a bank teller could teach some of these lessons. I look at my children's classrooms over the years, and think about how they have changed. They have gotten more sterile. When I was young, and even when my daughter was younger, the teachers would change the decorations for each upcoming holiday. No more. More and more holidays are getting transferred to the do not celebrate in school list. There was talk this year at my kids school about Halloween and Thanksgiving celebrations being eliminated. Even day to day classroom decorations have been limited. One of the teachers said it was considered to be a fire hazard to have too much paper on the walls, so they had to limit the amount of posters, art, letters, charts, maps, etc. on their walls to comply with fire safety guidelines.


I like the idea of projects for kids to work on. I think they are wonderful and engaging, and capture the kids natural enthusiasm. I hope to include lots of projects in my curriculum when I am a teacher. I have watched my own kids, and other groups of kids I have worked with get so involved and excited about projects. When I was a Girl Scout Leader, I had a wide variety of girls in my troop; some very book smart, some who struggled in special ed. Every year we would do a project for Thinking Day. This is a special celebration the Girl Scouts have where the girls learn about the world, have special get togethers, and each troop usually does a project to share with the other troops. They each have a country and research food, traditions, geography, dances or songs. The girls all worked together, and did really well, regardless of where they were placed in school.


I hope that I can make a welcoming environment for my students. I had in my head that the things Ayers described were for preschool. Period. After reading that he carried these things through his classrooms, all the way up to college, I would really like to include more of these things in my own classroom.