This past summer I worked at a daycare which enrolled ages 6 weeks to 5 years. Though I am an Adolescent/Young Adult Education major and plan to teach at the high school level, I decided that working with children of any age would be more productive and useful for my future career than working at McDonald’s. Turns out – I was right. While working this summer with toddlers, I realized some very useful things – some of them very obvious, but still good to emphasize – to put into practice with my teenagers. Here are eight things that I learned about working with toddlers that apply just the same to teenagers.
1. Make lessons interesting.
At the daycare at which I worked, the teachers planned out specific lesson plans and goals for the students to accomplish every week, instead of just letting them run free and play. Because we were teaching groups of 3, 4, and 5 year olds, it was necessary to makes these lessons short and interesting to keep their attention. If we droned on and on and on with nothing exciting happening, they would start rolling around the floor, or take off their shoes, or play with a paperclip they found on the floor, which is obviously not conducive to their learning. The same thing goes for teenagers. If your lesson is too boring for too long, it is likely that your students will stop paying attention, thus defeating the very purpose.
2. Mix routine with variety.
Because the children at the daycare were so young, the structure of the day was very important. Every day we followed the same schedule to the same classrooms around the building, had snack and lunch, and did circle time. Every day. BUT, we also threw in some parties here and there, a field trip or two, and fun new activities each day to keep them interested and excited. This differentiation helped their days, though routine, not be boring. Similarly, it is easy to have a couple routine activities in the high school classroom, like doing an AP problem every Monday or having a vocab quiz every Friday. However, if every day is the same grind of notes, homework, notes, homework, some students are going to be bored and will tend to zone out during lessons and will not be fully processing the information.
3. Connect to their world.
Connecting information to a student’s world makes the info more personal and relatable, and can completely change the impact of a lesson.For instance, I was once able to get a 3-year old to eat his salad by reminding him that Arlo, the Good Dinosaur, loves salad, and didn’t he want to grow up big and strong like Arlo?This kid loves dinosaurs, and immediately began eating his salad – mission accomplished.Making references to popular culture will help students of any age connect to the lesson and actually remember it.It also answers their constant questions of “When will we use this in real life?”
4. Always plan out more time than necessary.
With small children, even just walking down the hall can take up to five minutes.They get distracted by everything – not joking.A small paint chip on the wall is the Mona Lisa, a bug could just as easily be a bomb.Their minds are constantly spinning and processing new information, and when they remember something they just have to tell you about it immediately – even if it is in the middle of a lesson.For this reason, it is always good to schedule out more time than you think is necessary for a lesson.The same goes for high school classrooms, because you never know what kind of tangents you’ll want to go on, or which direction discussions are going to take, or what information the students are going to have trouble processing and will need to spend more time on.You never want to have to rush a lesson and cut off important questions or developments for the students, so it’s always a good idea to plan out at least 10 minutes of every lesson for the unpredictable.
5. Remember that they’re smarter than we give them credit for.
If you’ve never worked with a group of 3, 4, or 5-year olds, you probably don’t realize just how smart they really are. I know I didn’t before this summer. I used to talk to small children in my soft baby voice, treating them like infants. This was completely wrong however, and can actually cause difficulties in development if children are consistently being spoken to as if they aren’t real people yet, which they absolutely are. One of my 3-year olds can tell you the name of every single dinosaur in our box, some of which I couldn’t even tell you. Another knows just how cute he is and uses it to his advantage – and he’s only 3 and a half. While teenagers are frequently treated more as real people than toddlers are, many teachers still think aren’t as smart or as aware as they really are. Never underestimate your students, because they will surprise you time and time again with how much they actually know.
6. Give them choices.
When working with the kids, it was always better to give them options to choose from, rather than make them do just one thing or give them free reign to do whatever they wanted.For instance, if another class was napping nearby, I would tell my kids they could color, look at a book, or play with a puzzle.This kept them entertained and quiet, but they were still able to choose what they wanted to do, instead of making everyone look at books.Students also need the ability to make this choice sometimes.Students will be much more invested in their learning if they actually have a say in it, such as asking them if they want one more review day or just take the test, or even give them the choice of two or three different books to read.Letting them make their own decisions also gives them a little bit of the independence most adolescents crave.
7. Try to be as inclusive as possible in your lessons.
One of the main ways we have to be inclusive at the daycare is making sure we remember that each child comes from a different background.Instead of referring to their parents all the time, we have to remember that some children live with their grandparents, or only one parent, or aunts and uncles.Especially at such a young age, it is important for these children to feel included.This also goes for different learning styles and levels as well.Some children were more advanced than others, but the lessons needed to reach all of the kids, wherever they were at.Most high schoolers will likely be around the same level, but as teachers, we need to ensure that every student is understanding the lesson, even if they need to get extra help.Additionally, they will all have different learning styles, and catering towards all of those will be a necessity.