Yup, summer for me is a bit of a void. I love spending time with my family, and having a slower pace, yet I miss the go go go of my classroom. I miss the thinking. I miss the kids. And my busy “A-type brain gotta think gotta get ready” mindset doesn’t take a holiday willingly.

So I usually throw myself into planning specifics, without a lot of thought to the philosophical underpinnings of what I want to teach. I want to change that this year. So I am forcing myself to think less about planning the details and more about the kind of learning community I want to build. It’s still planning, but it’s more thinking about planning, which seems apropos for relaxed summer reading.

I have been doing a great deal of reading both in Leadership and the Reggio approach, and it has greatly changed my classroom vision. Here is my latest list of classroom goals:

1. Lead from behind, not from out front. Dragging kids to the goal is not an option.
2. Provide provocations that naturally generate inquiry, not Topics to study.
3. Keep the room flexible, so we can shape it to student needs
4. Honour who my students are: skateboard parking lot, hat hangers, kid art, and an honour board where kids can post symbols and sayings and icons that represent them.

So these are my goals. This is my plan. Kid centred, theory-based. Now I just need to bring it to life. That’s the fun part for me 🙂

Like most teachers I love to plan the physical decor of my room. I like to show kids that I try hard to make a space welcoming to them. And lately I have become a little obsessed with the industrial chic design vibe. The essential elements of the industrial style are rough hewn wood, steel pipe-structures, bricks and open space — which is what you find in my older building. So rather than my usual ‘hide the old elements’ and make everything look new approach, I’m going to highlight them. It’s simple, yet rough around the edges. It invites building, creating, and seeing the pieces that go together to make the whole. It is the perfect aesthetic for the kind of learning environment that will celebrate kids’ learning.

So I have a plan to mash Urban Industrial Chic with Reggio-Inspired natural elements. My natural tone artist drawing boards will go up on the walls to make vertical spaces for collaboration. My steel Drip Pan awaits Quirky wooden hall passes and funky steel magnets. The Carson Delarosa Industrial Chic line has so many amazing printables and wall decor. And I really do believe the black and grey flexible seating I received last year will fit right in.

I think I have a philosophy to build on, and a plan for creating a re-invisioned learning environment. Time to go read another book,

MPJ