Taking a Step Back

Looking back on my experience with Jumpstart, it’s hard to believe it is almost over and how much I have seen the kids learn in the past year. However, what is even more astounding how much I learned from them! One of the most important things I learned from Jumpstart is child-led learning. When I began my term with Jumpstart, I had worked with children before, but I was used to carefully directing activities and play. I was too caught up in trying to micromanage toddlers, always trying to teach them what I thought was important rather than letting them explore on their own.  A few months into Jumpstart, our site manager pointed out the importance of child-led play during center time activities.
For a while, it was difficult for me to step back, but recently, I have really seen the benefits of child-led play. Two weeks ago, I was engaging with a child in a circle time puzzle activity. It involved putting together a very tall, tropical rainforest puzzle as part of our “The World of Color” unit. The child was more interested in talking about the different colors and animals in the puzzle than physically placing the pieces together. Although we did not complete the activity, we had an excellent conversation, and we were able to integrate many ideas about colors from the week’s story book. I even got to find out about his recent trip to the zoo! This was a week when our site manager came in to observe our classroom interactions, and after the session, I expressed my concern that my child did not seem interested in completing the puzzle. She pointed out that the conversation reflected the child’s understanding of major themes. It also encouraged his self-expression and increased his enjoyment of the activity. The important thing was that our students learned, and if the learning did not strictly adhere to my predetermined vision of how a center should look, then that was fine. It was an eye-opening moment.
Another benefit of child-led learning is that provides insights on each individual child’s interests and strengths, and this allows corps members to provide more individualized communication, motivation, and engagement for our students.  After embracing child-led interaction, I began to ask my three reading buddies to show me their favorite parts of the core story books. After a few weeks, I noticed that one child was most interested in the illustrations, another preferred humorous plot details, and the third child liked moments in the story that he could relate back to his own life. This allowed me to ask each child individualized questions to engage them in future readings.
Jumpstart has been a wonderful experience, and it has reaffirmed my interest in work that involves children and education. After Jumpstart, I plan to go to become an elementary school teacher, and as I exit the program, I do so with the hope of implementing child-led learning in future classrooms.

~Kaitlyn Fitton
Corps member
Team Learning 1