Boulder Journey School classroom teachers, mentors and interns, compose blog posts for the families in each classroom 3 – 5 times weekly. These blog posts offer reflections on daily experiences, question possibilities for future research, and form connections between home-life and school-life.
The following reflections are from a classroom blog post shared with families, composed by Cassie Sorrells, Boulder Journey School mentor teacher in a toddler classroom.
I had big plans for today, plans that I put in place almost a week ago when I filled out our Weekly Planning Document.
The planning document is a shared document that is filled out by all classroom teachers and directors. The document is printed and posted for families in the classroom. After the planned experiences, teachers reflect on the document and use their reflections to plan the following week’s experiences.
Today I planned to invite a group of friends to take pictures with an old digital camera. I was so excited to see the fine motor skills they used to manipulate the camera, to watch what objects they chose to photograph, and to see how they behaved socially when they viewed the photos together later. I was planning to project the images in the classroom, inviting my friends to revisit the experience.
But my friends didn’t want to explore the curriculum ideas that I had in mind for today.
They wanted to run outside, play, and enjoy the beautiful weather.
So I listened. I put away my agenda. And we had the most incredible day.
I’ll put the digital camera experience back on the planning document for a later date. It was a good idea – just not the best idea for today.
How often do we allow our adult agendas to take precedence over organic moments of learning?
How often do we honor our vulnerability and allow ourselves to reflect on moments that confused us, surprised us, shook us from our plans?
Resiliency and Humility are part of the professional qualities that we seek to support our graduate students in developing throughout their 12 month teaching and learning experience. The ability to recognize when our intended path must diverge, and to continue learning and growing with the new path is a quality that is useful in the classroom and beyond.
Boulder Journey School Teacher Education Program 