Acknowledging What Children Do or Say

43 children felt uncomfortable in the class. One day, when the other children had left the school, Torey came to Sheila and asked her to have a beauty session. Torey kept a comb and brush in her cupboard. She also bought a little package of hair clips. “They’re for you, sweetheart. I thought we could comb your hair out nice and put clips in it. Like I’ve got in mine.” I showed her my hair p. 87. On the next afternoon, Torey came to the class and she brought towels, a bar of soap, shampoo, and a bottle of baby lotion. She prepared the sink of water in the back of the classroom, since the class lacked of shower facilities. Sheila saw it and came trotting over. “That was the fastest I had seen her move toward me since she had come” p. 92. Torey showed to Sheila how to wash her hair and her body, pulled the lotion to her body, and brushed her teeth. Torey also gave some clothes to Sheila because Sheila never changed her T-shirt and pants. “... But first we’re going to give you the full beauty-shop routine. We’re going to wash you top to bottom. ... I found some clothes for you to wear. Then Whitney can take your overalls over to the Laundromat when she comes this afternoon” p. 92. Sheila did not stink so much anymore. All in all, she became a beautiful cleaned up child. She accustomed to clean her up every morning before the class was started. Each morning before school Sheila and I worked on hygiene. ... Most days Sheila was willing to wash and brush her teeth, if I would fix her hair. She delighted in the hair clips. ... Each morning she went through them, counting them and deciding which ones she would wear. Each evening she took them out of her hair, laying them carefully in the folds of the towel p. 99. 44

5. Creating or Adding Challenge

Teachers create or add challenge so that a task goes a bit beyond what the children can already do. In other cases, teachers reduce challenge to meet children where they are. Sheila never did any task that was given by Torey. Whereas, the other children were excited when they were given a task or did math. Torey tried to have math test for Sheila. They sat down on the floor and spilled out the blocks. Sheila showed that she was capable in doing the math. Torey tried to increase the number. Surprisingly, Sheila did it well. ... “Show me three blocks.” Cautiously she picked out three. “Show me ten.” Again ten cubes were lined up on the rug before me. ... “I’m going to make it harder. Count me out twenty-seven.” Within seconds twenty-seven blocks appeared p. 70. Torey could not tell if she actually knew the answers or was solving them as she went along. She continued the test and switched it to subtraction. Sheila showed her smile to the others that almost never appeared before. Sheila increased her capability and her confidence to do the task given by Torey.

6. Asking Questions that Provoke Children Thinking

The class began with morning discussion. The discussion was based on the “topic” of the day. Usually the topic explored feelings, such as talking about things that made someone happy, or topic was a roundtable for solving problems, such as what would one do if he saw someone else hurt himself. At first, Torey gave a topic to the children to be explored. After a few months, the topic