Lessons from the Field: Interview with ‘Elbows, Knees, Dreams’

This post is part of the Teachers Certification Map’s “lessons from the field”, a series of posts featuring passionate, inspiring educators from across the country discussing some of the lessons that they have learned over the years that would help young teachers as they embark on their careers.

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Kiri, the author of the blog Elbows, Knees, Dreams, is a teacher of fifteen years who teaches preschool in a public school in the Midwest.

Below is our interview:

What inspired you to teach?

My mother was a teacher, and I started teaching when I was a high school student, teaching Sunday School. I taught English to Japanese students when I was in Japan my junior year of college, and taught Japanese to American kids when I returned to the States.

But I didn’t figure out that I wanted to be a teacher until I had been out of college for two years, and was moaning about my job to my best friend. “What should I be when I grow up?” I asked her. “Why don’t you be a teacher?” she replied. The proverbial lightbulb went on over my head, and I knew in that moment that being a teacher was exactly right for me.

What classroom methods are most helpful in pushing students towards their goals?

I think that being really organized and having really strong classroom management skills are the first steps. I use regular assessment to monitor achievement, and I use a rich curriculum to meet our goals.

What is the one thing you wish you’d known when you started in the classroom?

That small children thrive on routine. Establish strong routines for everything and your classroom will just flow.  For example, I teach my children to line up alphabetically by first names, and they can do it without help within the first two weeks of school.  After that, they know where they belong in the line, and I never have to deal with squabbles about who budged in front of whom.  I have assigned seating on the carpet for morning meeting, so everyone knows where to sit, and I never have a problem of children crowding each other at the front or pushing each other to get at a favorite spot.  I always give a ten minute warning, and then a five minute warning before clean up time, so that the children can prepare themselves to finish what they are doing, and get ready for the transition.

What did your training teach you that was most helpful in preparing you to enjoy and thrive in a classroom today?

I was lucky and had one great professor who ran a lab preschool. I student taught in the lab preschool, and my professor would watch me from behind a one-way mirror, and take copious notes on every detail of everything I did. She taught me the basics of being in a classroom that I never got from any other class.

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