Right response training

We actually were having fun, though you wouldn't know it by the faces here :) but we had been there almost 2 hours by this time and needed a bit of a break. We had assembled, as we do every year at this time, for a training given by my school district to staff that might need to use a hands on approach to assisting a student to deescalate their behavior. We only use this in very rare cases, when the safety of the student is in jeopardy or another student's safety is being compromised. We learn and practice strategies to keep ourselves from increasing the student's anxiety by rushing in and intrusively attempting to help. And we are reminded throughout that we have a rather sacred charge as teachers. We are there to help children. Reminded that doesn't always happen on the schedule we had planned. That being ourselves is most important, that children recognize insincerity, that hands on is the LAST resort and only if safety is being seriously threatened.

I like my district's policy on this. I appreciate that they try to understand why I am sitting outside on the ground in the autumn drizzle holding my jacket over a prostrate student who is refusing to go inside with the rest of the class at the end of recess rather than my just picking him up and asserting my plan over his. I appreciate that they try to understand that the child's confusion is not going to abate because I carry him around as if he's there for my convenience, rather than listening to his words and non-words, to hear his wishes and honor those that I am able to. And I appreciate that they try to understand how important it is to me that the student's self respect, their belief in themselves as capable and worthy of care, is the most important concept I believe I can leave with them.

But I fear the tide is changing. I am asked to focus more on academics each year, as if a child is more developmentally ready now than they were when we were little. If a child does not practice empathy and perspective taking, if he does not find value in becoming a member of a community embodying integrity and by designing shared goals, if a child cannot do that in Preschool then when? When will that child learn to explore their beliefs and appreciate the viewpoint of others? When will they have fun and stretch themselves, learn to try again and again? When will they learn about the still small voice inside them?

I just don't know.