Understanding Children: Response to Vivian Paley’s Quote

Children are our greatest teachers. Each child presents us with another opportunity to learn more about ourselves as well as how to see the world through a child’s eyes. The conclusion Vivian Paley has come to is both very

accurate and profound. I can say that it is an accurate statement because my experiences have yielded similar conclusions. I feel that she has also made a profound statement because understanding how a child thinks is an important key to helping a child learn, and it takes time to realize this. As diverse as our community and world is becoming children everywhere all continue to stand on a level paying field, forever connected by the precious mind a child possesses.

Children everywhere are united by their thinking because of the innocence that they still approach situations with. Outside of a classroom setting I have had extensive experience watching and comparing children through my job as a nanny. I have seen children from different backgrounds and social classes grow, experience life and come out of situations with some of the same ideas and perspectives. I learned very quickly that children think very differently than adults and the importance of remembering that difference, in order to better adapt to my daily interactions with children. Having the background that I have had with children helped me to immediately understand and connect with Paley’s conclusion.

The experience I had within schools, both for observation and prior to this application process has further validated my conclusions about children that I have made outside of a classroom. During my observation I observed at a lower income school and even still there were many levels of income within that classroom. Every child had a different story but a very similar way of telling it. In a classroom each child is learning new things everyday, and the methods a child uses to learn something are very different than the methods an adult would use. Within the classroom the learning process is the number one priority and while you can not lose sight of a child’s individuality, it is important to understand the important concepts illustrated in Vivian Paley’s quote.

Prior to observation, I also experienced first hand how interlocked all the minds of children are. I taught pre-school Spanish in a very wealthy area. Every child was very well-off, but again different degrees of wealth. Each child brought different backgrounds in our classroom just like my observation experience. I even had Spanish speaking children in my class and thought that they would move much faster than the other students. However, once again in this situation Paley’s quote rang true. These children still learned at the pace of the rest of the class, when it came to information that was new to them. I thought that this was very interesting. Today, combining all my experiences I can really understand why the children virtually performed equally in that class.

All in all I feel that my life experiences combined with the preparation and the education that The University of Illinois at Chicago will provide me, I am prepared, ready and eager to teach. Being a teacher has always been a goal of mine since childhood. I have picked jobs through high school and college that can bring me closer to children and help me understand the mind of a child even better. A teacher is a very special person, but a great teacher is unforgettable. I know that all my experiences with children will help me in the future to become a great teacher.