June 20, 2018
The classroom is always a fascinating place: there are many little people that come from many different kinds of communities and they establish a new community under the guidance of a teacher, who exerts major influence.
I was with another Kindergarten class today, and the question that kept coming to my mind was, “How do children bring each other down and how do they build each other up towards growth?” Our class received a new student (Jerry) some months ago, and it seems like he has still not fully integrated into the community: he does not adhere very well to the social norms in the class and, most of the time, does not follow the general code of conduct. I wonder to what extent is it the newness of his situation and to what extent is he experiencing challenges such as ADD or dissociation. An interesting thing to note is that he has an apparent tendency to copy another student (Bob) who is behaviourally challenged. I believe that part of this is because the child who was being copied received a lot of attention for his negative behaviour, and so the young newcomer perceived that this was the way to get attention and recognition… negative attention is better than no attention.
Both of these students get into trouble quite frequently, but my teacher has told me that Bob has made so much progress in his learning and social skills… but it seems like there has been a regression due to his interactions with Jerry. Why is it that instead of Bob pulling Jerry up towards success, the both of them are moving towards negative and disruptive behaviour? I think part of it is that Bob is reluctant to journey with Jerry.
Whenever Jerry is copying Bob, he reacts negatively and naggingly exclaims, “Jerry is copying me!” It seems that Bob is not ready to take any sort of leadership role, nor that of companion for another student’s growth. His own context is already a sufficiently large endeavour and anything else is overwhelming. To add to the complexity of the situation, sometimes Bob sees Jerry misbehaving or copying him and he threatens saying, “I’m telling on you!” In fact, he does not always tattles on him. The difficulty with this situation, where a student is integrating is that there are mixed messages, and a culture of “getting away with things” is established. What exactly is permissible and what is not?
I have tried diverting Bob’s attention and reservations about being copied towards positive behaviour as well, but it seems ineffective. “You know Bob, sometimes Jerry would like to copy you because you have done something well”….. “But he’s copying me!” (In my mind, I think, “Yes. Yes he is, child. That’s the point.” It is fascinating how Jerry, who was initially an outsider is trying to integrate himself into this community. I wonder what his previous school was like… I wonder why he entered the school with such a delay.
P.S. My pun identification experiments are still underway and without expecting them from youthful Kindergarteners… A girl asks her audience, while putting on a puppet show, “What do you call a pig that knows karate? A pork chop!” My findings are preliminary and immensely hopeful: the youngest grade at which one may a pun is….. Kindergarten.