Observation is a gift you can give your child if you wear the lens of a joyful observer. Its not an unusual suggestion to an adult to observe their child or student. Parents observe their newborns to look for cues of hunger, sleep etc. Teachers observe their students as they work, talk and play with each other. Our usual ways of observation have a possibility of unconscious bias. My child is average, he is not so great at math because I as a parent never really liked the subject anyway, my student consistently fails in all the language subjects, he might not be a hard worker I guess – its so easy to form these assumptions which then become a lens through which we permanently start viewing the child.
Maria Montessori says “The first step in becoming a teacher is to shed omnipotence and to become a joyous observer. If the teacher can really enter into the joy of seeing things being born and growing under his own eyes and clothe himself in the garment of humility, many delights are reserved for him that are denied to those who assume infallibility and authority in front of the class.” (To Educate the Human Potential, 85)
Observation has to be objective, meticulous and active. The parent or teacher has to let go of their judgements, fears even their dreams and desires in order to truly observe the child.
The following resources can be a keystone to your observation process in the classroom. Observing your own children or students as they move about the learning environment, solve problems, talk to their peers etc which would give you the required information to really “follow the child.”
Resources:
- The Art of Observation (10 min read)
- Faithful Observation (2 min read)
- Why Observe (2 min read)
- Observing the Elementary Child (15 min read)
“To be a good observer also takes humility, a humility that considers nothing too lowly to absorb our full attention and that desires that our children exceed us. Humility is the quality that replaces the pride of the
adult ego that thinks that we are the ones that form the child, that our world is the world the child must conform to rather than perhaps considering that we can learn from the child” – Mary Ellen Maunz