A Shared Vision: Positive Partnerships for Kindergarten Educators

The following post was created in conjunction with my teaching partner, Shelagh Saunders. Over the last school year we had the opportunity to facilitate workshops and presentations about our approach to teaching. So often, the topic of our own partnership was the main focus of questions we received from educators in the field. It certainly is a big topic, as a partnership can often make or break the experience. With this in mind, we prepared the following post that details our approach and beliefs regarding working as co-educators in a Kindergarten classroom.

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“The most valuable resource that all teachers have is each other. Without collaboration our growth is limited to our own perspectives.” – Robert John Meehan

A Kindergarten classroom, by nature, is a very busy place. In our classrooms we encounter curious and capable students who come to us with a wide variety of unique needs, interests, and personalities. As these students explore the classroom environment, they engage in intentional play and inquiry spurred by their interests. Their learning presents itself throughout the room in a variety of forms, which can then by captured and documented by educators and students alike. On any given day, in any given classroom, students are engaged in whole group, small group, and individualized learning. Along with facilitating and provoking this learning, educators also communicate with parents and families, document, assess, plan, implement, extend learning and provide a loving and safe environment for the students to thrive in. Given the magnitude of the aforementioned responsibilities, the need to function as a team of educators presents itself as crucial. Yes, Kindergarten is a busy place, but ensuring that both educators in the room are working together with a common goal in mind is a way to ensure that all areas of our program are being met. Nobody can do it alone.

This partnership can feel challenging at times and potentially be a roadblock to fully implementing a successful program. For us, we strongly believe that a Full Day Kindergarten program is strengthened by the fact that we have multiple educators in the room. Shifting towards this belief with an asset-based perspective at the core of what we do has helped us implement a program that allows each of us to share our vision for a learning community. Teaching as a team allows us to utilize each other’s knowledge, skills, and strengths and provides students with a program that is reflective of multiple philosophes and points of view. Even when we have differing views (and yes, it sometimes does happen!), we choose to look at these moments as chances to grow, learn, and broaden our own individual perspectives. If we present ourselves as a united team, we are more likely to be viewed that way by students, families, and co-workers.

We’ve identified four main aspects of our approach to team-teaching that we believe have been instrumental in establishing an ongoing positive working relationship:

-       Communication

-       Respect

-       Flexibilty/Trust

-       Sense of Humour

(Click image to enlarge)

Beyond our overarching philosophy on partnership, we’ve also identified some specific ways we’ve worked to establish a productive and positive working relationship:

n  treat partner with courtesy and kindness

n  encourage partner to express ideas and opinions

n  listen to what each other has to say before expressing your viewpoint

n  share each other’s strengths and use them in action

n  make time to get to know each other

n  share responsibilities 

n  consider your use of language (i.e. what message is being sent if partners are referred to as “assistants”? On the contrary, what message is being sent if we refer to ourselves as “co-educators”? Is it important to distinguish who is the ECE and who is the OCT, or can a common title be used?)

The critical importance of working as a team is explicitly referenced in The Kindergarten Program (2016, Ontario), which states:

(page 112)

      Approaching the monumental task of being a Kindergarten educator through the concept of maximizing the team approach and honouring each other’s unique knowledge and experience allows us to cover more bases in our classroom community. However, we know relationships can be tough. We ourselves have had moments of disagreement (as is normal in any partnership), but by maintaining communication, respect, flexibility, trust, and a sense of humour – we have been able to ensure that these potential obstacles became learning opportunities.

A word from Shelagh: From the start we sat down together and shared our strengths with each other. This allowed us to highlight our own areas for growth and where we could compliment each other in providing a well-rounded and rich Kindergarten program. We’ve worked hard to remove any pre-conceived notions of “who’s in charge” and that’s allowed us to come together and look at ourselves as partners who are open-minded about the skill sets and voice we each bring to the table. It’s a compliment when another educator comes into the room and they can’t distinguish between the OCT and the ECE because that to me is saying that we are truly a partnership.

A word from Joel: When partnership feels like a struggle, it’s so important to remember that being in a partnership simply makes your day easier! From sharing a story or a laugh, to sharing the task of setting up play based learning centres, this is a journey we share. Not only does working as a team lessen our individual loads with regards to facilitation, but it also honours the wealth of knowledge in childhood development that ECEs bring to the table. Our partners are not “assistants”. They are individuals who bring their own skills, knowledge, and passion to the classroom to enrich learning. Not only can students learn from them, but so can we.

"It's Okay to be Different": Big Ideas in Kindergarten

There's no denying that a huge part of early years education is providing students a solid academic base that honours their emerging literacy and numeracy skills while preparing them for future grades. That being said, I've never felt that this is the primary focus of Kindergarten. While this "academic piece" is inarguably important - for me, it doesn't outweigh the other sort of learning that happens in our Kindergarten rooms. What other sort of learning do I mean? Not the student stuff, the human stuff. The resiliency. The confidence. The kindness. I was delighted to dig into the new Ontario Kindergarten Program and see that concepts such as well-being, self regulation, belonging, contributing, and problem solving are being given equal weight to literacy and numeracy. For me, more important part of Kindergarten has always been this - the big ideas. These take students just as far as the academics do, and I would argue that they actually assist in future academic learning by helping students become well rounded and well adjusted little people.



At the start of the year, a blank string of burlap bunting hung above our cubbies. I picked it up over the summer at Target, thinking it would fit into our classroom aesthetic and potentially be something the students could add their mark to. That being said, I really wanted something to emerge naturally and to let the students take the lead in how this bunting would be used in our physical space. A few months ago, at one of our daily community meetings, a student suggested we add some words to it - with a letter on each flag. I thought about this idea and challenged students to think about what sort of message we could put on it. I asked students "what are some of the big ideas in our room?" and "what do we want people who come into our community to know about us?".

If you haven't done this with your students yet, I can't recommend it enough. It was so eye-opening to see what big ideas students have really latched on to. Students suggested messages such as "Take a deep breath", "It's okay to make mistakes", "We respect everybody", "We are a community", and "It's okay to make mistakes". These are all some of the "big ideas" I talk about in early education and certainly things I have tried to pepper into our year together. Hearing it reflected back to me by the students in our community was really touching, and I am so glad these important ideas have taken root in our learning space. I remarked to my teaching parter that it was perhaps one of my proudest moments as a teacher.

Taking it to a vote, the students decided on the message "It's okay to be different". This, as you may know, comes to us by way of one of our all time favourite read alouds by Todd Parr. It's also a message that's been repeated daily, weekly, monthly in our classroom community as we learn to embrace and celebrate the differences within ourselves and others. We often talk about what a boring place our community would be if we were all exactly the same. We think about how friends who look different, come from different family types, speak different languages, etc., provide us with a chance to learn more about things we don't know. In so many ways this "big idea" is the mantra of our community this year.

Going about making the actual community banner was a process that brought us together. It turns out that there weren't enough letters for each student to do one on their own, but the students came up with the idea to pair up for some letters. We used several techniques we played with at our Art Studio throughout the year as a culmination of our learning (wire sculpture, sewing, collages with natural materials, finger painting, and drawing on hand made paper). It took us a while, but student energy and excitement for this "community banner" (as they started calling it) was high. When we eventually finished and hung it back on our classroom wall, the students cheered - and I had chills. What a powerful message to display in our space, and one that I hope students take with them as they move not only through school, but also through life. As a child who grew up feeling different, I only wish my own classrooms valued placing this big idea on the wall.

I've always said that I believe in starting the year with the physical space as a blank slate, to be filled with the work of our unique group of students that year. However, as I shared with the students after the banner went up, it's my hope that this remains on the wall year after year to share this "big idea" with future groups of Kindergarten students. To me, not only is it an important and vital message for everyone to hear, but it speaks volumes to not getting bogged down in only academics in school, but rather the "big ideas" that come along with living and learning. Yes, we teach reading, writing, and math, but we also teach acceptance, love, and care. To me, this is what it's all about.

What are the big ideas in your learning community?

Documenting our Documentation

Documentation, the act of making learning visible in an early childhood setting, is a crucial element of any play based learning program. It allows us as educators to highlight, analyze, and share moments of learning that occur through play. In many ways, I look at it as a form of advocacy for play based learning - showing naysayers the very real moments of learning that occur in what some may initially see as "just playing". It is for very good reason that the concept documentation is at the forefront of current educational discourse.

That being said, there's more to documentation that simply "doing it". It's a delicate balancing act, especially given the large class sizes that we tend to see in the reality of our Full Day Kindergarten classrooms today. I've been a long time believer that as documenters, we each bring our own unique set of biases that directly impact our practice. These biases, while normal, need to be openly highlighted and confronted to allow us to document in a way that is more equitable for all of our unique students. My biggest fear is that I will have parents and families who feel like their child is not represented in our documentation and tweets (and the unspoken message that may send about what/who we value as educators). As I explained in a previous post (The Dangers of Documentation: Ensuring Equity in Your Work) there can be a very real possibility that we only tend to document the students who make their learning more obvious, typically those who are more advanced writers, readers, etc., when in fact our responsibility is to document the learning of ALL students who pass through our community, regardless of ability. Having this idea in the back of my head has informed my documentation practice, but I couldn't help but feel like I needed to make it more explicit so that I knew I was being as effective of a documenter as I could be. I was fascinated by the concept of tracking and uncovering not only who I was documenting, but what I was documenting, how I was documenting, and most importantly, WHY I was documenting - and collecting data to inform my future practice.

Which leads us to this...

The above image is a tracking sheet I developed to keep track of tweets sent out from our classroom - with specific focus on the students being documented in each tweet, what sort of learning was present, and the form the documentation took. I am so thankful for my teaching partner Shelagh who shares my beliefs about trying to be as equitable as possible in ensuring ALL students are present in our documentation. She wholeheartedly and excitedly jumped on board with this new tracking method as an indicator to see where we were currently at. 

Down one side of our tracking sheet are the student names, and across the top are different areas of our learning (Art, Writing, Fine Motor, Reading, Dramatic Play, Science, Gross Motor, Math, Self Regulation, and Building). We then developed our own legend to identify the form the documentation took: photograph, video clip, or student voice (either a scribed quote or student typing). We decided on a small time period to use for our first trial period of documenting our documentation. Shelagh and I agreed to not let this method change how we documented, as we wanted to truly uncover an authentic picture of who/what/how we documented to then be able to determine how we could improve our practice based on what we discovered. In many ways, this was a research project into our inherent biases and what we tend to favour as educators who document. Biases come naturally, and without recognizing them, they become impossible to move past. 

With each tweet sent out from our classroom by either Shelagh or myself during this time period, we put a tally in the appropriate column. Originally we only wanted to see who we were documenting more or less, but by adding the type of learning documented and the form it took, we were able to get a more three dimensional view of our documentation. When the time period ended, we sat down to analyze the data we collected. We are still in the process of working through what we uncovered and how that can impact us moving forward, but a few themes have already emerged. To my surprise (and relief!) we did a pretty good job of having all students receive some form of documented learning during this trial period of the tracking sheet. What was interesting is that students who tended to have less documented learning were English Language Learners, which has inspired me to look for ways to document that do not always involve verbal language (I've also been experimenting with using the Google Translate app to open up more channels of communication with these students). I wasn't surprised to see that Art and Science tended to be documented more than other areas as these are often areas of focus for me, and I hope to make an effort to supplement other areas as a I continue on my journey as a teacher who documents. I was pleased to see a fair balance between teacher voice and student voice, and hope to keep this up as well. I do think I can do more using video to provide a deeper look at learning.

Nobody in this field has everything figured out. There's a high value in being able to recognize this, look critically at your own practice, and identify areas for growth as a life long learner always seeking to do better.  Shelagh and I have agreed to continue documenting our documentation in this fashion as our year progresses in an effort to ensure we are thinking critically about who, what, how, and why we are documenting as learning in our community. I hope to share further glimpses of our journey as it unfolds, and to uncover more that can ensure I am being as equitable as I can be with my documentation. 

Teaching is a Journey

Over the last couple of weeks, various colleagues have all asked about one specific thing - which has led me to discussing it in this blog. In separate conversations, they all asked about a sign that hangs on our classroom door. They didn't specify why they asked about it, but my guess is that because it seems pretty out of place in the Reggio inspired space I've moved towards in recent years. The sign, which says "Kindergarten" is made with a random mish-mash of colourful letters, all upper case, and is held onto my classroom door haphazardly with uneven and crinkly clear tape. I agree - it is out of place given my current approach to teaching - so why is it still there? For good reason, actually.

This sign you see here was one of the very first things I ever did as a teacher. After an LTO in this very classroom, I was hired for a half time Kindergarten contract, and needless to say, I was over the moon. My year spent supply teaching and in the LTO taught me a lot of valuable lessons about teaching and learning, but I was eager for the consistency that came with a contract position. Plus, this was the job I always wanted...and here I was!

For some reason, the Joel from 5 years ago thought this was just the thing to slap on the door - and boy was I proud of it. Needless to say, the Joel I am now sees things a little differently. In fact, I actually dislike how it looks and the thinking (or lack thereof!) behind it.

If I were to create a sign for the door now, I'd think a lot more about the aesthetic - specifically taking more care to display it in a neater fashion, and also giving a little more thought into the colour choices. I'd also make more of a point to represent lower case letters, which is something I've learned about in my career since then. And most of all, I wouldn't be the one making the sign myself - but rather, I'd include the students in the process of making a sign for our shared space so that they were reflected in the final product.

So, given that this sign no longer represents my beliefs as an educator, you're likely wondering "Why is it still there?".

All these years later, I keep this sign on my door as a reminder that our job, teaching, is a journey. 

At any given time, we as teachers are simply doing what we think is best. This sign is a constant reminder to me about never becoming complacent when we think we've got it all figured out, but rather continuing to seek more knowledge, to grow and to learn, and to challenge our once held beliefs along the way. This "Kindergarten" sign the first thing I see every morning when I arrive in the space, and the last thing I see when I leave. It forces me to reflect on where I am on my journey, where I've been, and where I'm going. 

I'm not at all ashamed to have visitors in the space see this sign. I am proud of the educator I once was, the educator I am now, and the educator I will be in the future. I had good intentions in making that sign at the time, but simply didn't look at classroom space the way I do now. And who knows? Perhaps in another 5 years my views will have further evolved and I'll have a whole new approach! For me, that's part of the excitement of being a teacher on a learning journey. Like this sign, there may be entries in this very blog that one day I'll look back on and wonder "what was I thinking?". But for now, I embrace them and honour where I am on my personal journey. I'm eager to learn more about this wonderful job I'm lucky to have, and to continue to gain inspiration from educational approaches far and wide. Something I've always said is that our classroom doors say a lot, literally and figuratively, about what lies within. Throughout the multiple quotes, photos, and documentation I've placed on our classroom door, this sign has always been part of it - and for a very purposeful reason: do what you think it best as an educator, but never stop - always seek more information. Teaching is a journey!

"Paper, books! Coffee!": Who sets the rules in classrooms?

"Hands on top!"

"That means stop!"

For the past few years of my teaching career, this has been my go-to call and answer for when someone in our classroom community has a message that needs to be heard by others. It's always worked, and the students really latched on to it - often using it independently to announce their own messages (which I love - it's not just up to the teachers to speak and be heard, this is something that we foster in the students as well!). Say "Hands on top" to anyone who's passed through Room 109 in the last few years, and they'll know what it means...

...that is, until this year.

Within the first two weeks of this new school year, my teaching partner and I reflected on how we'd noticed this little trick didn't seem to work in the way it used to. Some students wouldn't respond at all, while some others would mindlessly reply "That means stop!", while not stopping at all, but continuing on with their own independent tasks. I'm a firm believer in reflecting on every element of your practice to ensure everything works and nothing is ever done just because "this is how we've always done it". With that in mind, we set out to see what we could do about this.

As blog readers may know, our major focus is always community building in our classroom - as I believe that it creates a solid and crucial foundation for all other learning to stem from. That being said, I wasn't about to spend any of my own time Googling "ways to get students' attention" - instead, I opened it up to the capable and clever students in our community. At one of our morning meetings I shared my feelings about how this method wasn't working in the same way it used to. Not surprisingly, most students agreed. We decided together that perhaps we needed to try something different - that we had just gotten so used to this chant that it seemed to lose it's actual meaning. Believing what I believe about who's in charge of classrooms (all of us - never just teachers), I asked our class for suggestions, which led us to the following five options:

- keeping "Hands on top...that means stop"
- "Stop, look, and listen! Ok!"
- clapping a pattern and having the others repeat it back
- "Paper, books! Coffee!"
- "Listen, look here! Bubblegum!"

In taking student suggestions, I was adamant to honour all contributions. While I felt that "Hands on top" was no longer effective, some students wanted to keep it so we included that in the list of ideas. As well, it was easy for me as an adult to think that options such as "Paper, books! Coffee!" and "Bubblegum!" probably wouldn't work at all, but I truly wanted to honour these ideas from students and allow them to come to their own conclusions about their effectiveness. With that in mind, we committed to trying these five options over a course of a week, one a day, before voting at the end to decide which one we wanted to use this year. I asked students to be open to trying each idea and to keep the following lens in mind:

- Is it effective? (i.e. does it work at getting our attention?)
- Is it easy to remember? (i.e. short, catchy, and does it remind us what we need to do?)
- Does it make us feel good? (i.e. being mutually respect instead of rules, yelling, and "teachers being in charge")

This became our quasi success criteria for the experiment, which was important as I wanted the students to select the one that they truly felt worked the best for them. As a teacher, I have no interest in coming into a classroom and setting my own arbitrary rules - I think it's significantly richer and meaningful to give students a role in creating our community's expectations and routines. By sharing this responsibility it not only practices what we preach about our classroom belonging to all of us, it also encourages students to follow those routines because they had a hand in creating them.

So, I know what you may be thinking - what happened next?

Well, here we are, mid November, and the call and answer method selected by students after sharing their own ideas and trying each one out is "Stop, look, and listen! Ok!"...and does it ever work! As predicted, students felt was effective, was easy to remember, and made them feel respected. They did agree that while the options about coffee and bubblegum were fun to say, they didn't achieve the intended goal. I could have shot down those ideas as soon as they were given, but I don't feel that's respectful, nor would it have allowed them to construct their own learning and opinions through actual experiences (and that's what it's all about!).

If you don't already, have a look at your own classroom routines and ask yourself - does it all work the way it needs to? - and if not, don't be afraid to turn things over to the students to come up with a solution. Time and time again, I see they are capable, helpful, and insightful. For that reason, and more, I believe in involving them in the process of establishing classroom routines. To me, having the teacher select all of the rules, routines, and expectations sends an unspoken message that I'm defintely not ok with.

Classroom as a Garden: How Setup Evolves Throughout the Year

Anyone who knows me knows that I love a good analogy, and my favourite one to speak about with regards to early childhood education is the idea of a classroom as a garden. I love to speak about that idea with my colleagues, and have been wanting to blog about it for a while now to share my thoughts.

Like many educators, I posted photos online in early September of our classroom setup. I did this for a variety of reasons - sharing ideas with other teachers, hearing their feedback, and of course, a general sense of pride in our hard work in transforming the space for a new year. However, I'm a firm believer that the idea of "classroom setup" is not a September singularly concept, but rather an ongoing and transforming idea as the school year progresses.

In so many ways, I like to approach classroom setup as I would a garden. But what do I mean by that?

Like a garden, classrooms need weeding. My ongoing professional goal over the past few years has been to streamline and de-clutter our learning environment. I've found, like gardening, the weeding process is ongoing (and sometimes never ending!), but really so worth it. By clearing out the weeds (classroom clutter) it allows the blooms (or the purposeful and meaningful learning) to not only be seen, but appreciated in their full glory. In fact, many plants (or students!) grow better in these sort of spaces - spaces that are pruned and tended to with love and care.

Like a garden, classrooms have different seasons, months, weeks. Just like certain seeds to be planted at certain times in a garden, certain ideas or learning provocations may be more successful when they are presented at the right time for your unique students. For me, this speaks volumes to the idea that while there are huge benefits of sharing ideas online, we need to be mindful that we're not simply plunking down ideas in our rooms that seem nice, but rather thinking critically if they work for our students at this time. Perhaps some concepts or learning areas would be more successful if we waited, like gardening, until the "right season" for that growth. Like in a garden, we try to plant seeds and sometimes they take, and sometimes they don't. We're not against letting some go, and revisiting (or trying again with those seeds) when the time/season is right.

Like a garden, our classrooms need to be sufficiently supplied with what they need to grow - and this may not be the same for every plant, or centre. Learning Centres should change as your students grow and develop. We like to start sparse, allowing students to master the intended learning in our classroom without being overwhelmed, but as our year progresses and students show such remarkable mastery, growth, and development as Kindergartens do, our Learning Centres change with them. By adding additional materials and learning materials at the right time, we contribute to the success we see. But just how some plants need full shade and some need part sun, not all Learning Centres will need the same thing. Some may be more open ended/student directed while others need a specific teacher supplied provocation or prompt. My teaching partner and I always laugh because whenever we're done tending to a specific Learning Centre and giving it what it needs to be used successfully by our students, we turn around and see that other Learning Centres are now in need of the same thought and attention. And thus the gardening process continues! Like I said before, the idea of classroom setup has never been just a start of year thing to me, as I believe it's never ending - just like gardening, it's a year long process.

I'm now going to share some photos here of our space in September, knowing that several of my upcoming blog posts are going to detail specifically how the space has evolved and changed the more we get to know the unique students in our community this year - we've weeded and weeded and weeded, and while many seeds have taken and bloomed, some didn't take - and thus we reflected on what we neglected to consider, and several centres have been tended to and even changed so that they can be successful.

To me, our classroom is like a garden - not only for the reasons listed above, but also in the sense of being full of beautiful blooming minds demonstrating ongoing growth. Feel free to comment your thoughts on this analogy, and how you've seen it interpreted in your space.