Mr. R is HERE!!!
by Glenn Romano ~ August 30th, 2009
Re: Rule # 4: A vibrant city demands vibrant learning.
Author: Glenn Romano, Volunteer
There is nothing greater than hearing 25 children chanting “Mr. R.! Mr. R. is here!” when I arrive to teach at my public school in Bernal Heights. OK, so maybe I'm not the “real” teacher, but for 3 hours every Monday, I can be a teacher, a role model, and an active participating member of our community. Since February of 2009, I have been volunteering at two public schools in Bernal Heights in San Francisco. I read books every Monday to a third grade class and a kindergarten class for 90 minutes each.
Think about it this way: in the time that it takes to sit and watch a few sitcoms on the T.V., I'm helping kids grow right before my eyes. Their reading skills improve, their vocabulary expands, and they gain confidence by successfully reading out loud to me in my tutor groups. That’s what drives me and keeps me going back for more each week.
I feel proud that I am a positive male role model to children, and have seized the opportunity to fulfill a lifetime dream of teaching students. The satisfaction, excitement, motivation, and sense of achievement that I get by interacting with students every Monday is priceless.
Now it's your turn. What volunteering or mentoring opportunities are meaningful to you? What ideas do you have for getting involved in creating "vibrant learning" experiences for all kids?
September 1st, 2009 at 11:47 am
The Junior Great Books program is a great way to involve children in learning critical thinking skills through literature.
September 3rd, 2009 at 11:33 am
Six Tips for Grown-Ups on Making Recess More Fun
If you want your child to do well in life, the most important thing you can do as a parent may to be to play with them. As Stuart Brown notes in his recent book, Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul, play is essential to the physical, social and emotional development of kids and parents have a huge role in making sure that kids experience safe and healthy play.
When kids are old enough to go to school, it’s even more important to make sure that play is a part of their day. New research by Dr. Ramona Barros published in the journal Pediatrics found that kids who get more than 15 minutes of recess a day show better behavior in class than those who have little or none. The problem is that most grown-ups, even the ones who work in our schools, are often pretty clueless about how, exactly, to make recess fun and playful for kids. In most schools, recess is a free-for-all. Games break down before they get going. Inevitably arguments breakout because kids don’t know the rules. Meanwhile, most of the kids just stand around on the sidelines too intimidated to play.
Recess doesn’t have to be that way. As the founder and president of Playworks (www.playworks.org), I have seen countless schools turn around their recess and their schools by having a single trained adult on the playground. That’s why parents should grab a kickball and head out to the school playground as a volunteer coach.
Playworks (formerly Sports4Kids) is up and running at 16 SFUSD elementary schools this year, but for those of you at non-Playworks schools, here are six tips to help any grown-up make recess safe, healthy and a lot more fun.
Tip #1: Teach everyone the rock-paper-scissors game. Nine times out of 10, playground
conflicts are completely inconsequential and with rock-paper-scissors as an agreed-upon tool for problem-solving, you will be amazed by how much more smoothly things can go. One of the key things about making it work is to have everyone use it to solve all types of disagreements. Use it at home, encourage other families to use it at home and encourage the teachers to use it in the classroom. Also known as RoShamBo – the simple rules of rock-paper-scissors can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock-paper-scissors
Tip #2 : Map the Yard. Take a good look at the assets and liabilities of your play area by observing the current patterns of play: What games are the kids playing? What parts of the schoolyard are they using? How do students make the transitions from cafeteria to schoolyard and back inside? Where do kids who aren’t participating stand? What are the adults doing? Once you have a sense of what’s going on, imagine what you’d like to see. Take a piece of paper and draw a rough sketch of your schoolyard divided into five or six different areas. Create an area for the Game of the Week, for kids who don’t generally participate. Select a location for checking out equipment as children flow from the cafeteria to the yard. Once you have a plan for the yard, share it with anyone who will listen – classroom teachers, other parents, yard monitors, the kids themselves. Think about using cones to designate areas where kids can play basketball and soccer. You can use cones and sidewalk chalk to start, but once kids start to adopt the patterns of play, talk with your principal and custodian or facilities staff about painting lines for four square. The ultimate idea is to give the kids a chance to own the area and their activity – for jump ropers to own the jump rope area, for the kick ballers to own their area – once kids have a sense of ownership, they tend to take much better care of the games.
Tip #3: Teach the Rules of the Games. One thing that often surprises grown-ups is the extent to which kids don’t know the rules of various games. Sometimes it can be even more confusing because the kids pretend to know the rules. Establish an area for the Game of the Week and set it up so that the kids focus on one game for a whole week – whether it’s four square, kickball or Red Light-Green Light for the younger kids. It’s sometimes easier to work with smaller groups to teach the rules to games, but take the time to make sure that the kids know how to play safely and that there is agreement about school rules.
Tip #4: High 5’s and Nice Job. When teaching kids the rules to any game, make sure to add that saying “Good job” and giving out high 5’s to both one’s teammates and the loyal opposition during transitions is just one of the rules. Like the Buddhist concept of intentionality, it does not matter if the kids initially “mean” it. Going through the motions with the right intention creates an environment that is much more conducive to playing happily together, learning and generally getting along.
Tip #5: Put the kids in charge. At Playworks, we run a recess program called Junior Coaches in which the oldest students distribute and collect equipment, turn ropes for jumping rope, enforce high 5’s, resolve conflicts, and help split kids into teams. The junior coaches also can take on bigger jobs, such as organizing intramural tournaments and running the Game of the Week – especially helpful if you can’t be at the school to volunteer every day. You can give similar responsibilities to existing student leadership groups – conflict managers or student government groups if they exist. In our program, we also try to include some children who have a history of negative recess behavior. There’s a lot of natural leadership there, and it’s much easier if they’re on your side.
Tip #6: Play outside yourself. Get in a game and encourage other adults to do the same. There is no better way to engage kids who don’t usually participate. Children behave better and feel safer when there are grown-ups playing with them. I know it’s obvious, but when you’re playing with kids you should model good sporting behavior. Play hard, have fun, be supportive, and win or lose graciously.
Ultimately, we believe that the most effective way to make sure that recess is a constructive part of the school day is to place a trained adult on your playground. All of our coaches have experience in working with children and are trained in methods they can use to create a structured, safe, and inclusive playground environment. Recess may pale in importance when held up against the competing demands of boosting test scores and raising students’ academic achievement. But the research is out now, and these tips can help you make recess the tool Drs. Barros and Brown know that it can be.