From the Field: Visuals
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Teacher: Everybody has their own way of saying goodbye, huh? Do you need a tissue for your nose? Remember, the tissues are right here. And you can follow these steps. Are you going to go wave out the waving window, Parker?
Debra Walter: Children don't have the same sense of time that we have. They're very much in the now, and then there's what just happened and what's going to happen next. That's their clock.
Teacher: You're so funny.
Debra: My name's Debra Walter, and I've been doing in-home licensed child care since about 1990, when my son was first born, and I wanted to stay home with him. When I set up the room and set up the environment, I'm thinking about what's going to help every child be successful. But some of the things that I do, not every child's going to need those. An example would be the visual schedule. It's partly how our brains learn is we start out needing pictures before we have all the language, before we've built all the pathways, right? I have a child who has a high stress threshold, I would say, and separation has been a challenge for her. One of the things she finds comfort in is that visual schedule. And I noticed the other day that I wasn't really drawing much attention to it anymore. Most of the kids just – we all know what's happening. And I realized that this child really takes comfort in that schedule and will personally go over and move the clothespin when we transition from one time of day to the next.
And so, it's just great to know that that is there for her. You know, it's not like something that everybody has to do. It's just another tool in the class, and it's there. And some children may just need to look at it sometimes. But for that child, actually moving it has been such a great comfort to her. The routine's important, but I think that the ownership or the agency that the children feel about the routine has been really helpful this year. I feel like I am this tour guide, but, really, they're teaching me as much as I'm teaching them, and we're kind of on this adventure to learn about the world together. It's just the best job in the world, I think.
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In this segment of From the Field, we get to see inside the program of educator Debra Walter as she discusses and shows the use of visuals to support behavior. This video is part of the Positive Behavior Support module, one of several EarlyEdU Alliance Higher Education Learning Modules.
