Straw, Sticks, and Bricks: A Modern Tale About Building Strong Foundations for Young Children

Straw, Sticks, and Bricks: A Modern Tale About Building Strong Foundations for Young Children
By Dr. Don Monroe

Three pigs. Three houses. Straw, sticks and bricks.

In the straw house, the pig is in a bit of a frenzy looking out the window, wondering if the wolf is at the door. While the house was easy to build, the activity in it is governed by a sense of urgency imposed by the outside world. Perhaps sticks are more secure, but outside dangers blow through the porous wall. The contented pig is reading by his stone fireplace—free to create a life relatively free of real world urgency. As houses tumble and as this porcine trio gathers safely behind brick walls, they collaborate creatively and, before you know it, the wolf is the main ingredient in the stew rather than the menace at the door.

Oh, how we long for the comfort and security of uninterrupted time that enables us to assist young children to build a foundation of confidence, poise, self-knowledge, and competence that will guide their successful development! And, oh, how classrooms for young children too often move to the rhythm of a sense of urgency that can not be suspended in favor of the uninterrupted time needed to nurture healthy social and emotional development! Too often, the wolf is at the door of the schoolhouse.

1970s vs. 2007
In the mid-1970s to the early 1980s, I clearly recall conversations that went like this: “Don, my son’s first grade teacher this year was not so great—certainly not as good as Ms. Smith in kindergarten. He’ll survive this not very challenging year, but he needs a strong teacher next year. I think Ms. Jones is that teacher. I trust you to make a good placement, knowing this is an important year after a first grade slump.”

If we fast-forward to spring 2007, it would go something like this: “Hi, Don. I’m calling today to let you know that, so far, Justin has had a terrible day. His gym teacher did not encourage him or recognize his progress, and his classmates were not kind to him. I want you to meet with his teachers and make sure that, today and the rest of the week, they offer encouragement and recognize the progress he is making. This is vital for his success—I think you know that, Don!” It would not be unusual for this message to include some reference to remediation occurring in “real time,” which I interpret as now!

Such conversations would often be delivered in a rational, practiced, and appropriate manner—and each conversation would have a ring of truth to it. Without question, the 2007 conversation had a much stronger sense of urgency and a short-term focus to it.

One family recognized, and—with some hesitation, accepted—the so-so first grade year and was willing to suspend concern and place it in a larger context of time in school, and in a context of confidence that the child’s development would move along positively. Justin’s mom, on the other hand, was not willing to accept a not-so-good Monday and was seeking an immediate remedy—as if Justin’s positive development couldn’t accept a bump in the road.

In 2007, we live in a world where we are constantly connected—where immediate information and immediate response are available and expected. Once, when I asked a parent how she knew about the events of a lunch period that just ended, she told me that her son called her on his cell phone from the boys’ room.

During my phone conversation with the mother, she patched me into her husband’s office phone and I got a double dose of real time concern and advice. What a powerful child it is who can call one parent and, in a few minutes, have both parents wagging a collective finger at the school.

Slowing things down for children
I wish we could apply this real time sense of urgency to the vital importance of slowing things down for young children, and taking the time to lay down the kind of healthy social and emotional brick-by-brick foundation that will lead to an adulthood characterized by balance, confidence, responsible citizenship, and a positive and constructive social and emotional life. In 2007, it is, to say the least, counter-culture to place an urgency on slowing things down. Yet—there is nothing more important or necessary for the long-term success of the child and of the adult she will become than a consistent and generous investment of time into healthy social and emotional growth.

Few phone calls come in urging schools to slow things down so that children have the opportunity to make choices, to develop interests, to come to understand strengths, to encounter natural and contrived circumstances where a child’s sense of values or a child’s moral sense can be tried out in a safe environment. It is difficult to find the time for uninterrupted classroom activity that will foster pursuit, poise, a sense of consequences, and an understanding of the dicey interaction of individual self-interest and the welfare of the group. And, if we can find this time needed, are teachers and parents willing to suspend anxiety or urgency about the need for a display of early academic accomplishments? Can we muster the confidence in the notion that a strong foundation of social and emotional development will provide the engine for an earnest pursuit of learning interests and for academic achievement and for the development of a long-term disposition to continue learning? An excellent school wants to turn out students disposed to continue learning, disposed to act on behalf of healthy self-interest, and disposed to act on behalf of the community. That is a tall order in a 2007 fast-track adult personal, professional and social world, where stakes are high and where room for error seems to be shrinking. That sense of life-at-the-top invades our classrooms with a sense of urgency accompanied by a fear that nothing can be missed on the road toward adult accomplishment.

We adults, from time-to-time, seek quiet time and space so that we can be more clear about our lives—and whether or not our lives bear any resemblance to who we are and who we want to be. In doing so, it is hard to work through the layers of noise, pressure, or uncertainty, let alone the trappings of our daily lives.

For children, this search for self-understanding and comfort with self can be more available and is crucial. In spite of this, we take it away from them and crowd their lives with contrived activity that inhibits the need for exploration, for exercising choice, for making and understanding moral decisions, for understanding and respecting another person through conversation, play, and observation. Children need time to discover interests and competence—time to learn how to navigate an environment, how to tap into its resources in order to resolve the challenges it presents. We want children who can understand the context of their lives and feel competent in relation to it. Time is essential for the teacher to observe and understand the developing child—to see life themes that emerge clearly in the day-to-day life of the classroom.

Time is required to measure when to introduce an early piece of academic learning for the individual, for a group of kids, or for the whole class. Time is needed to know when and how cooperatively or assertively to partner with parents over social, emotional, or learning issues.

Because our sense of urgency signals a concern that our children will miss something in this generative and humane classroom, we crowd it with topics and prescribed activity—show and tell, student of the week, arts and crafts, movement, visitors, nutrition, snack time, foreign language, field trips. These wonderful activities connect to future learning and connect the child to the world—but all conspire to create a staccato classroom that seems to prepare a child more for interruptions and for transitions than it does for self-understanding or self-confidence. Have you noticed how much conversation there is about a child’s ability to make smooth transitions? We create a patchwork quilt whose seams are too obvious and whose colors and motifs are too busy and unregulated.

Uninterrupted engagement
The challenge for the best and most creative teachers is to smooth out the transitions and to create a rational wholeness, in which the teacher can control her schedule and the circumstances of the classroom in order to create a coherence of activity and purpose, and to promote the authentic and uninterrupted engagement of young children in the vital and active life of a classroom. In this classroom, more opportunity exists to observe and know children and to create the activities and challenges that are responsive to a growing understanding of individuals and the group. In this class, children make choices, create understanding of their environments, and have an opportunity to demonstrate their new academic, social, and emotional competence. Such a classroom has great potential to ease the way from preschool to pre-teen to teen to adult. In the absences of a good foundation, this can be a rocky road.

For a lesser teacher, this staccato day provides a way of managing and planning classroom activity. One’s day, one’s week, and one’s year is pretty well laid out in the schedule. The schedule runs the teacher and organizes the teacher’s work life. Work can become routine. There should be no room for routine work when the task is so vital to the well-being of the child and the community.

We all, from time to time, feel the wolf at the door and react with some urgency. One of the wolves at the school’s door is a fast-forwarded childhood and an erosion of classroom time that is dedicated to the uninterrupted, healthy development of the social, emotional, and moral lives of children. We should worry less about how the minutes were spent on Monday and worry more about ways in which families and schools can agree on the urgent importance of investing hours, days, and years to lay down the kind of strong foundation on which a secure and balanced life can be built.

During his distinguished career, Dr. Don Monroe has served as superintendent of the Kenilworth and Winnetka Public Schools, as well as headmaster of the Francis Parker School in Chicago. He spoke at the Alliance’s Networking Dinner in January, 2007. Dr. Monroe is a founder of the Winnetka Alliance for Early Childhood. This article was published in Early Childhood in the Spring/Summer 2007 issue.