Abstract:

Laura Reasoner Jones explains her toy policy for the developmentally challenged pre-schoolers she works with: No electronic voices, no commercial tie-in to a television show. "I find that I really have become a parenting instructor," Jones says of her job as a special-education teacher who does in-home visits.

Jones, L.R. (2004). Toy snob. Teacher Leaders Network diaries. Retrieved from the Teacher Leaders Network 11 Apr 2008. Link: http://www.teacherleaders.org/old_site/diaries04_05/LJ17_04_05.html 

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Toy Snob

I am a toy-buying snob, and the older I get, the harder it is to keep my opinions inside.

I refuse to buy or use or bring into my preschool students' homes any toy or book that is associated with a TV show or makes battery-generated noise. Need I say that I take very good care of the old toys and books I own, as I can rarely find anything new to buy? I have all of the old Fisher-Price sets and just about every Playmobil toy known to mankind. I have the old version of Candy Land. I also have boxes of generic blocks and Duplos and specially-purchased extra girl figures, as these sets never have equal numbers of boys and girls. Every session, my parents get to see that a toy doesn't have to make noise to be fun.

My biggest 'hot button' is with toy catalogs that call an electronic toy that makes noises "interactive." Parents buy those kinds of toys thinking that they are helping to stimulate their child's delayed language, the most common problem of the children we see. I have a news flash! 'Interactive' is not a little two-year-old pushing a button and getting a noise. 'Interactive' is a parent sitting on the floor with a child and pushing a car around making silly noises. Or building block towers and letting your child knock them down, saying, "Fall down."

My second biggest thing is teaching parents to avoid being sucked into the TV trap. I find nothing educationally sound about Bob the Builder that can't be accomplished by using generic construction figures, trucks and toys. When I use generic toys, I can add extra girls to the toy mix and let my girl students feel like they can really play rather than be relegated to being 'Wendy' who runs the office. I can add extra princesses to the Playmobil castle and make it a matriarchal society, if that's what my kids want. Non-commercial tie-in toys allow children to make up their own stories and not feel compelled to retell what they saw in a TV show. Where will we get the writers, artists and inventors of the future if we limit children's imaginations now?

Being a toy snob makes shopping for holidays and birthdays at home interesting, however. My husband's grandsons have been in a (we won't name it here) little wooden train phase for years. When we shop for their presents, I stand in the toy aisle and fume while he buys the latest and greatest engine model. I think, "When the time comes, my grandchildren will get beautiful books and wooden blocks and lots and lots of art supplies. I will become a legend among present-givers."

You might think in reading this that my two children had the perfect childhood, but, believe me, they had their share of commercial items: Barbie dolls, Strawberry Shortcake, and My Little Pony — all the things that would bring a fortune on eBay today if we had only saved them! It is only now that my girls are almost grown that I have become such a purist.

As a home-based teacher, however, it can be tricky. When parents ask me for present ideas, I give them a list of suggestions tailored to their child's needs. I also tell them directly why I think they should buy non-electronic toys. But they feel a great deal of pressure from peers and TV.

Many parents these days have to learn how to play with their kids, and sometimes it is just beyond them. So, that is one of my jobs every session, in addition to working on IEP goals. I find that I really have become a parenting instructor. God knows I wasn't the best of parents, but I did do a few things right. I read to my kids, I monitored and limited their television time, and I helped them learn to play imaginatively and appropriately.

And while I'm in full rant, let me say that I am really disgusted by the use of DVD players in vans. When are these children going to learn to converse with others, to listen to music or books on tape, or just plain look out the window and think? How will they ever be able to be comfortable with themselves if they never have a chance to spend quiet time alone?

OK, enough steam. But as a self-confessed toy snob, I do my best to make my little corner of the universe a better, more creative place through the use of really good toys.

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Abstract:

Laura Reasoner Jones corrects the common misconception that teachers have a paid day off on "work" days by explaining what a Teacher Work Day looks like for an home-visit special ed teacher.

Jones, L.R. The work in 'teacher work day.' Teacher Leaders Network diaries. Retrieved from the Teacher Leaders Network 11 Apr 2008. Link: http://www.teacherleaders.org/old_site/diaries04_05/LJ14_04_05.html 

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The Work in "Teacher Work Day"

One of my perennial hot buttons is that most people think teachers don't work on the Teacher Work Days.

My girls have been known to deliberately provoke me in public by saying mildly "Oh, good, next week is the teacher work day—you can take us to the mall—you won't have to work," or similar comments. They usually do this in front of unsuspecting strangers so that I will embarrass myself with my reaction, probably payback for all the times I embarrass them. My wonderful husband has to listen to me rant every year about parents who assume I get two days off during the fall conferences and Teacher Work Days scheduled by the county.

So why did we have this conversation on a recent lovely fall Sunday morning?

Wonderful Husband, sitting in the 78-degree sunshine in his recliner: "Are the schools open Tuesday?"

Me: " No, why?"

WH: '"Why do you have to work?"

Me: (as I slowly walk around the kitchen counter into the family room where he is in front of the open window throwing Washington Post Sunday edition ads on the floor, speaking through my gritted teeth): "We have been married for ten wonderful years and I love you very much. Now I have three words for you: Teacher Work Days."

This county is generous with paid Work Days. We get a week before school starts, two days in the fall, two at semester break in January, one in the spring, and one at the end of the year. These, of course, are related to report card quarters, and are used by the upper grades for grade entry and report card development. Elementary teachers are required to hold parent conferences during the November Work Day where they review report cards with families. Scheduling the Work Days over Election Day also prevents security problems in the schools during the elections. The middle and high school teachers meet with parents after the report cards have been sent home.

Generally two of the August and one of the January paired Work Days are required in-service days. Some years we preschool special ed teachers have a buffet of options; other years we all meet together for mass training. But most importantly, we get to stop running full speed ahead and take a long-needed breath.

Because we do parent conferences every week, my group of teachers spent the first of the two November Work Days revisiting High/Scope—sitting with all of the other 300 preschool special ed teachers discussing how we have changed our teaching practice since our September marathon training sessions. The second day was reserved for our own office work—preparation of lessons and materials, and completion of Progress Reports, our "report cards." But of course, life intervenes, and instead of a nine hour uninterrupted day of work and planning, I have two home visits, Local Screening Committee, an appointment with a teacher to improve her PowerPoint presentation, and an overwhelming need to clean out my desk and car.

Mentally, a Work Day is a chance to stop and regroup, to slow down temporarily and stop hurling myself forward into home visits. It is a chance to reflect as I write Progress Reports, to review IEP goals, and to initiate a formal discussion of progress with the parents. It is also a chance to correct the course, or re-emphasize the direction we are going in. I tend to work at least 10 straight hours on each of the Work Days to get everything done.

So, back to the Sunday morning conversation

After my terse comment about true love and teacher work days, my wonderful husband held up his hands and said, "I just meant, 'Why do you have two home visits scheduled? I thought it was a Work Day.'"

Oh. Sorry.

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Abstract:

"Working closely and successfully with community preschools and daycare
centers is a very important leadership role that I feel is sometimes
overlooked by the high administration," says Laura Reasoner Jones about the screening and resource center for developmentally-challenged pre-schoolers where she works.

Jones, L.R. (2004). Laura the Brobdingnagian: Leading the pre-school community. Teacher Leaders Network diaries. Retrieved from the Teacher Leaders Network 11 Apr 2008. Link: http://www.teacherleaders.org/old_site/diaries04_05/LJ12_04_05.html 

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Laura the Brobdingnagian:
Leading in the PreSchool Community

Every Wednesday morning I think, "Have I gotten taller this year?" There is something about visiting this particular community preschool that makes me feel very tall, like Alice in the Tenniel drawings. Maybe it's the fact that the preschool is in an old house with high ceilings and wavy wooden floors. Maybe it's because all of the teachers wear the traditional Muslim shawls and robes and seem to walk with peace while I feel like I buzz around. Maybe it is because we all sit in the smallest-sized chairs you can buy. I don't know. But every week I visit this preschool to work with one of my children and walk out feeling hunched over and huge at the same time.

I see children in four preschools and daycare centers this year, an expansion that reflects the changing demographics of our town. More moms are working full-time, and more children are spending all of their waking hours in commercial daycare. That is not necessarily a bad thing; it is just an observation.

As a Child Find/Preschool Home Resource Teacher, I have three major roles in my job: to screen children with suspected developmental delays, to teach identified children, and to consult with community preschools and daycare centers. This year, two of those roles are overlapping dramatically, a large oval on the Venn diagram. Working in the community preschool has benefits for everyone. I can be a resource to the staff about developmental or behavioral concerns they have about any of their children. They can be a resource to me so that I can always keep normal development foremost in my mind. And all of the children and parents benefit from our shared expertise.

Being a consultant and working in the preschool/daycare at the same time can be a tricky balance, however. When we teach our assigned children in their schools or daycare centers, we usually try to work in the child's classroom, the natural environment. That's what I do in the school with the tiny chairs. I am an extra pair of hands for part of the day, with the expressed goal of helping my assigned student make friends and become more accustomed to the school. This works well, as I can invite her to join my group at the craft table and observe her as she plays and works with the other children at the same time. I can also monitor her gross motor skills, her biggest area of need. I am pleased with this relationship I have built. This is this staff's first experience with Child Find, and I feel that we have all been open to developing a good collaborative system.

In another school, I can't stay in the assigned child's room. The child I see there has language goals, but is having significant difficulty attending during class and using his time wisely during center time. In non-teacher language, I mean he spends all of his time at the computer and will not play with blocks, read books, or play in the kitchen area. So, I take him out of the classroom and work on both language and planning.

This is where it gets tricky. If I were the teacher in that classroom, I would set up a different kind of schedule, using pictures and having the kids plan their center time. I would control computer time to insure equal access and I would bring the noise level down about 50 db. But I am not the teacher, and the teachers are not asking for that kind of help. They want me to fix this child, but they are not seeing that you can change the environment and fix everyone at once. I model the kind of behavior I want: I bring in examples of schedules and use one weekly with this child, but have made no headway with the teachers in the last three weeks. I suggest pictures or other changes directly and they flat out say they won't work. The good thing is that they feel free to complain to me about this child's behavior; the bad thing is that they don't seem to get the connection between his behavior and the classroom setup.

In the bigger picture of things, we had our second annual Preschool Partnerships meeting last week and the collaboration/integration vision is continuing to form and take shape. My preschool specialist (my boss) has had the vision for years that Child Find teachers could do more than just consult with community preschools and daycare centers. She has seen that we need to be a working part of the teaching team at each center in order to best serve all children. So, we have instituted meetings with all of the preschools and daycare center directors in our geographic areas to open up communication and develop relationships in a more global way.

We have come a long way in working with our community preschools and daycare centers. When I first started this job 16 years ago, centers were a little wary about our visits to teach or observe children. Many people thought we were there to spy or call the licensing agencies. Now, however, we are usually welcomed and put right to work. The word on the street is that the Child Find teachers can really help. And we are relatively unique in having this consultative/teaching role. The surrounding counties have little contact with their private preschools. I think that our system is exceptional and really serves children and families well.

Last week at our Partnerships meeting, we had representatives from private church preschools, commercial chain daycare centers, the Head Start programs, two of the private Montessori schools, and the very expensive and exclusive school for the gifted. I feel personally responsible for some of the attendance; I have spent years working on some of these relationships. Another of the Child Find teachers feels the same way about "her" centers. I think my boss is pleasantly surprised about the depth of the relationships we have built up; it was difficult to get the meeting started because we were all talking about our children and our personal lives.

We spent a few minutes reviewing the Child Find process, the original purpose of the meeting, and then moved on to general conversation about how to help parents and teachers understand how to refer to us without causing hurt feelings and fear of special education. The discussion was enlightening. The preschools/centers have more of a stake in referring tactfully than we do. The school system just offers services and steps back. If the preschools/centers broach the subject in the wrong way, a parent may get offended and pull the child out of the school, leaving a financial hole for the school. So we spent a long time discussing this and helping the directors to find words for referral. It was good.

The best thing that has happened as a result of these Preschool Partnerships meetings is that the directors themselves have decided to start a West County Preschool Director Breakfast Group. This came about after last year's meeting, and has now been finalized to start in January. They have plans for speakers and shared training, using Child Find and other community resources. This is so great! It looks like our efforts have truly made a visible permanent difference.

Working closely and successfully with community preschools and daycare centers is a very important leadership role that I feel is sometimes overlooked by the high administration. Our relationships exemplify Child Find in its purest form—and we truly are making a positive difference in the early childhood programs all over the county. With that inspiration in mind, I go forward to make the vision of authentic collaboration and team-building come true. Every Wednesday, I put on my thinnest clothing, my shortest shoes and hunch forth to become Laura the Brobdingnagian, helping preschoolers everywhere.

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Abstract:

Laura Reasoner Jones pays a tribute to public servants closely related to teachers--librarians.

Jones, L.R. (2004). Quiet competence. Teacher Leaders Network diaries. Retrieved from the Teacher Leaders Network 11 Apr 2008. Link: http://www.teacherleaders.org/old_site/diaries04_05/LJ10_04_05.html

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Quiet Competence

The 48 hours I spent in Indiana last weekend broke down this way:

    – 14 hours were spent sleeping

    – 8 hours were spent driving on little 2-lane red maple-lined country roads through the northern Indiana flatlands

    – 14 hours were spent eating, laughing, dancing and talking with my family

    – 15 minutes were spent listening to how Julie (who looks 14) and I (who looks like a teacher) should be the first mother-daughter team on "What Not to Wear"

    – and 12 hours were spent bent over papers and machines in specialized libraries

I am what we call in the business extremely "print-oriented," as compared to my two darling daughters who at best could be called "video-oriented," or at worst: "barely literate." To me, this means that they only read when they have to, or when they are captive audiences on airplanes and don't have magazines. For them, reading is what we in the business say "is not a perceived choice." It's something I worry about when my younger daughter talks about wanting to be an elementary school teacher. Teachers should like to read! I, on the other hand, am excessively fond of libraries, and by extension, librarians. After all, my two sisters are librarians, one in a large Southern university and one in a Midwestern secondary school. As a child, I rode my bike every Saturday to the local branch of the Indianapolis Public Library and filled the oversized basket with books and more books. I could usually fit 20-24 books in that basket, and I would finish them all by the next Saturday.
   

Now, I am one of the recognized patrons of our local library, and I am praised frequently for keeping their circulation numbers high, thus retaining the branch's weekend and evening hours. I do my part. I have been going there since we moved to this town when Christie was a newborn. I remember laying her down on the circulation counter in her Conehead snowsuit to check out books. I cried when she got her first library card. Now, three to four times a week, I walk up the curving staircase of this beautiful little building. If this were Cheers, they would call out my name as I pass through the theft detector. I always spend a few minutes discussing Purdue football with Ivan, the circulation manager, or trading mystery recommendations with the computer whiz Mary while we check out my Internet reserves.

This past weekend, my respect for librarians has grown even more, after meeting the specialty librarians—the gurus—of the Indiana State Library.
We teachers are pretty well-known public servants. We rank right up there with fire fighters and police when economists talk about people who can't afford to live where they work and serve. But the economists are overlooking a vast crowd of highly trained people who also serve the public quietly and competently. Generally, librarians also tend to serve less controversially than teachers, except during times of banned books and open Internet access discussions. Until I listened to my sisters, I had no idea that librarians were some of the most vocal guardians of free speech in this country. Last weekend, these specialized archivists patiently, and I mean patiently, offered assistance, guidance, and a great depth and breadth of knowledge. With their help, I waded through crumbling biography indices, Civil War Regiment lists, microfiche of tiny town Centennial booklets, and fascinating little county directories listing silo size and make of tractor for each farmer. I am trying to identify some of the 500+ ancient/historic pictures that have come down in the family. These librarians helped me to find two more of my "dead people," as my friend Mary so charmingly describes my search. There was payback, however. I'm sure that the little episode of the entire roll of microfilm spiraling off the reel onto the floor in a split second will be a lunchroom tale for weeks to come. I do my part here also.

As a public servant myself, I do catch a few breaks: an income tax credit of a few hundred dollars and the teacher discount programs. So I feel it is important to stop and speak up for people in any walk of life who know their jobs and do them very well without any fanfare or recognition. That's who I met this weekend—public servants who, like us teachers, police, and firefighters, go about their jobs with great expertise, competence and low state wages.

Quiet experts in any field can go unpraised and unnoticed, as all of us public servants know. The only thing I could do for praise or recognition was to complete the comment cards. I hope that my praise and thanks will find their way back to the Indiana's finest librarians. Thanks, all of you.

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Abstract:

Laura Reasoner Jones describes her community's homecoming parade, and the experience of living close within the community where she works as a teacher.

Jones, L.R. (2004). Following the cow home. Teacher Leaders Network diaries. Retrieved from the Teacher Leaders Network 11 Apr 2008. Link: http://www.teacherleaders.org/old_site/diaries04_05/LJ08_04_05.html 

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Following the Cow Home

Each October, one Saturday morning is very special to me. I make sure I am finished with my grocery shopping by 8:45 a.m., and I schedule nothing else until after 11:00. This is the Saturday morning when my whole professional career passes before me in the procession known as the High School Homecoming Parade. You see, I am one of those lucky teachers who lives where she works.

Many teachers in my program make a concerted effort not to be placed in the neighborhood or elementary school district where they live. They say it is too big of a hassle, or that they don't like seeing the families they work with on the weekends. I feel differently, and I guess that I have never been sorry for my decision. To the contrary, I think it works to everyone's benefit.

I live in a small town of four square miles within the most crowded county in both the Commonwealth of Virginia and the Washington DC metropolitan area. In the 25 years I have lived here, my little town has changed dramatically from a sleepy little farm village to the area with the highest proportion of foreign-born residents in the suburbs. Just about every non-protected farm or field has been built over with "McMansions," and we have three Starbucks within the four square miles. But thank goodness, some things haven't changed.

I have been attending the Homecoming Parade for 23 years, since my older daughter Christiana was old enough to watch from her stroller. There are always politicians in convertibles, Homecoming Princesses in suits, and high school students throwing candy from floats. Unfortunately, marching bands, fire engines and large honking town recycling trucks don't mix well with a little girl with sensory issues. We quickly learned to stand very far away from the street and warn Christie when the band was coming.

As she grew, we watched her march in the parade as a Brownie, as a "Just Say No" kid, and as a freshman on the class float. By then, her younger sister Julie was marching too, as a Brownie, an Optimist Club cheerleader, and then as an ROTC cadet. And that's when I began to learn how truly wonderful it is to work where you live.

I started this job when Julie was in preschool. That year she and I sat in our lawn chairs to watch the parade from our traditional place under a beautiful maple tree on the main street sidewalk. As the Cub Scouts went by, I heard my name being called from the marchers. It was one of my families marching as a family with their 7 year old. My student was waving madly to me, probably glad to see a familiar face. This happened twice more that year with the Brownies and the Town Councilwoman's grandson. (Small town, remember?) The next year it happened more frequently, as my former students went to kindergarten and began marching with their own Daisy troops or soccer teams. And then it was time to put Julie in the parade and be a parent marcher with her Brownie troop. That was hilarious, as I was waving to more people than she was, probably because all of her friends were marching.

The best years were when she was older. The year she was the drum major for the middle school marching band, I had prepped all 16 of my families to scream out her name as the band marched by. And then, the one year she was in ROTC, several families managed to distract her from "Eyes front" by calling to her as the unit marched by. Ah, the joys of embarrassing your child!

Now, these wonderful October Saturdays are marked by reunions with numerous "old families." The moms or dads point me out on the sidelines and we all wave at each other like mad, or we meet after the parade at the Great Harvest bakery for the free bread slices and hot coffee. We have joyful conversation after conversation. We catch up on each others' lives and commiserate with shared concerns. We promise to do lunch, although we rarely do, and we all leave smiling.

This year's parade was special for the high school seniors. Two of their four years have been seriously disrupted, first by 9/11, impacting many children whose parents work at the Pentagon, and the next year by the Washington area snipers, when the football games were moved as much as 50 miles away to fields out of town and everyone walked looking over their shoulders. The best float this year was by the sophomores, who built a replica of the town train depot accompanied by lots of kids dressed up as cows cheering for their class. I spent the time with a former parent; we dissected the new elementary school principal, medications for ADD, and the differences in raising sons and daughters.

And as the parade ended, and the kids dispersed to reconvene on the football field for the afternoon game, I followed a sophomore cow home down the bike trail. It's a vanishing way of life, but I love it.

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