Kids and Violence

Over Spring Break I had to read a book for my Education class called Under Deadman's Skin by Jane Katch. The book was written by a kindergarten teacher with lots of experience. The book discusses why kids have become so violent and why kids even like violence. However, Katch makes this discussion very practical by using her own kindergarten class. She talks about several students in her class, and one boy in particular, who has an obsession with violence. One of the main reasons why this boy has an obsession with violence is because he watches so many violent movies and TV shows. Katch explains that kids do not understand the difference between fantasy and reality and so do not know how to deal with what they see. She wants to promote an environment in the classroom that does not support violence towards others. I thought it was cool that Katch cared so much about her students that she was willing to struggle to learn from them and and help them learn about violence. During class we discussed this book and talked about violence and our reactions to this book and violence itself. I found this book really interesting because I had never known how powerful violence is in a child's mind. This book will be an important reminder when I raise my own kids to be careful about what they watch.

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Celebrating the birthday of Dr. Seuss

I really enjoyed my visit to the kindergarten classroom today. Because it is Dr. Seuss' birthday, the class decided to celebrate by reading Dr. Seuss books and eating green eggs and ham. I remembered doing the same thing when I was in elementary school. While the teacher cooked the egges, I read The Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham to the kids. They found the stories entertaining, especially those who had never read Dr. Seuss before. After we had read the books, the teacher passed out green eggs and ham to everyone. Every student decided to try it, although several students said they didn't like it. The food coloring made the food look very green, and I understood why the kids were hestitant to try them at first. Then the kids colored an egg green and put it on a poster the teacher had made. One side of the poster was for those who liked the food, the other side was for those who didn't. It turns out that there was actually more kids who didn't like it than did. However, I think all the kids enjoyed seeing green eggs and ham like those in the story. They wrote a sentence about what happened when they tried green eggs and ham and then drew a picture by their sentence. Most drew scenes from the book. I enjoyed spending time reading to the kids and helping the class, especially doing a lot of fun activities. I appreciated the change of routine and I know the kids did too.
The green eggs in the photo (found with permission to reuse) look the same as the ones the kids ate in class!