My Advice For People That Want To Work With Children

Posted on October 22, 2015 by Jennifer Wolfe

I must warn you that if you are thinking about working with children, it’s not for everyone. Whether you are planning to be a teacher, nanny, PSA or even set up a creche, you’ll be faced with many challenges. I think the biggest problem here is that many people believe if you’re a mom, you’ll automatically be good at working with children. To work with kids I think you need to be patient, understand the difficulties and know how to be a figure of authority. With that in mind here are my tips for those hoping to work with today’s youth.

Your first step is deciding on the path you’re going to take to work with kids. For instance, if you want to work in a school and you have a degree you can sign up for a one-year teaching course. After that, you’ll start gaining experience, first hand in the classroom. If you are thinking about being a teaching assistant or preschool teacher, you will require less training. But, you will need to understand the responsibility you’re taking on. Teaching assistants often work with children who have special needs such as ADD and on some days may face bigger challenges than the teacher. If you want to be a nanny, you still need qualifications. You will have to take one of the early childhood courses available in your area. By doing this, you’ll gain all the information you need to work with kids. The experience will come later.

Understand Modern Challenges

The world has changed, not always for the better. Teachers, parents and anyone else whose life revolves around children are facing new difficulties. Self harm has doubled in the last year in children under 16. Researchers believe the number could be as high as seventy percent of all children will self-harm at some point in their life. Bullying is also on the rise but now takes place outside of the classroom, online. If you’re working with children you can’t underestimate the effects these issues can have. Bullying victims can believe suicide is their only option if the issue is not dealt with. Children don’t self harm for no reason and there will be an underlying cause. If you take on a duty of care, it’s your responsibility to notice the signs and help the child in need.

Know Who You Have To Be

If you’re working with children, it’s important you know what and who you have to be. As much as you may want to, if you are working in a school, you shouldn’t strive to be the child’s friend. Instead, you should be someone they can look up to and that they can trust. Perhaps most importantly, you should be someone they respect. You must be careful when walking the line between being a child’s friend and an authoritative figure.

I hope you find this information valuable. Remember, when you start working with children, you will be a part of what shapes who they are and who they become.

Jennifer Wolfe

Jennifer Wolfe, a writer-teacher-mom, is dedicated to finding the extraordinary in the ordinary moments of life by thinking deeply, loving fiercely, and teaching audaciously. Jennifer is a Google Certified Educator, Hyperdoc fanatic, and a voracious reader. Read her stories on her blog, mamawolfe, and grab free copies of her teaching and parenting resources.

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Honoring Our Boundaries: “No” Is A Complete Sentence

Posted on October 19, 2015 by Jennifer Wolfe

“No” is a complete sentence.”
― Anne Lamott

That sentence used to drive me crazy when my kids were little. Remember those days when every request, every plea, every last ounce of your mommy-breath received a “No”? Do you remember their determined little faces, squeezed into such ferociousness, fists in the air?

And now I realize my toddlers had a point.

The last few weeks were a doozy. Nothing particularly earth-shattering or heart-breaking happened, just weeks when I said ‘yes’ more than ‘no’ and let my boundaries get far too loose. Weeks when I had to dig deep for courage, weeks when I was tired, hungry, and felt like I didn’t give myself a moment to catch my breath.

And I did it to myself. I have no one to blame. I didn’t say “No.” Not once.

That old adage about putting on our own oxygen mask first is absolutely true.

I’m spending the weekend trying to re-center and re-capture the fleeting muse of Persistence – sometimes is the only way I make it out of bed in the morning. Does this happen to you? When did you agree to do one more thing, schedule one more meeting, help one more person when what you really needed to do was stop, breathe, and help yourself? What did you say “Yes” to when you really wish you had screamed “No!”

What happened?

“When we fail to set boundaries and hold people accountable, we feel used and mistreated. This is why we sometimes attack who they are, which is far more hurtful than addressing a behavior or a choice.”
― Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

I didn’t set good boundaries. I let other people put me in places that made me feel resentful and frankly, worn out. I forgot to hold myself accountable for my own happiness. I lost my center.

Being a teacher mom is a delicate balance, especially at stressful times of the school year – like the beginning and ending. And grading periods. The anxiety and busyness families feel at the start of the school year is definitely felt at my house, too. I still have to get my family back on a routine, make sure that my kid is ready for classes and homework and studying and sports. I have to get myself out of summer mode and suddenly, after 8 weeks of being mostly at home, I’m gone all day long. And sometimes into the night, too.

Teacher moms get the double back-to-school whammy. We get the sometimes unexpected bliss of watching our own children walk out the door and into new adventures alongside sometimes expected unhappiness of watching our life go back to bells and grading and teaching routines and behaviors and meetings and meetings more meetings.

We’re trying to make everyone else’s school year start off smoothly, and oftentimes around mid-September, we crash.

How much time do we give to our jobs versus our families? It’s why I’ve never become an administrator. I cherish the eight weeks of summer, the weekends and evenings when I don’t have to technically be responsible. I get to choose.

During this school year, I’ve been choosing to work late Friday nights. It’s quiet time for me – time when I can think, breathe, spread out and center. It’s my way of setting my weekend boundaries; if I leave it school ready to go for Monday, my brain spins much less over the weekend. I give up a few more hours on Friday to allow myself to get more space to choose.

One of my ‘extra’ jobs is training new teachers; this year, I’m working with two adults who chose teaching as their second career. All three of us have families and responsibilities at home. I’m reminding myself to walk my talk – teaching them to set personal and professional boundaries is so important as they begin their careers. I want them to learn not to promise too much – it just ends up disappointing everyone.

“If your boundary training consists only of words, you are wasting your breath. But if you ‘do’ boundaries with your kids, they internalize the experiences, remember them, digest them, and make them part of how they see reality.”
― Henry Cloud

Ultimately, it swings back to me. How do I teach my children to live their life within their own boundaries? How do I model for them a life that balances work and home? How do I show my kids how to follow their passion and not lose the trail back home?

I think it goes back to Anne Lamott – I think I’ll teach them that “No” is a complete sentence.

Podcast: Brene Brown on getting past setbacks

Jennifer Wolfe

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Something Cool From My Classroom: Students Creating Utopias

Posted on October 15, 2015 by Jennifer Wolfe

Honestly, I don’t think we give teenagers enough credit.

They really have some cool ideas about the world. They recognize what’s messed up, what’s good, and what needs to be changed. They really do.

I’ve spent the better part of the last 25 years around teenagers every day. Many, many people think I’m crazy. They constantly ask me how I do it, why I do it and end by saying something like, “You’re a saint. I wouldn’t have the patience.”

And they’re right – about the patience part. Teaching 12 and 13-year-olds does require patience. And flexibility, consistency, a sense of humor, and enough humbleness to accept that I don’t know everything. Nothing has brought this home more strongly than the advent of using technology in our classrooms.

I’m a digital immigrant. I grew up with a typewriter and a phone that plugs into the wall. It was a big deal to get a typewriter with a correcting tape for my 18th birthday, and my first cell phone was as big a box as my son’s last pair of Nikes. I never imagined teaching English and relying on a keyboard and a screen to let imaginations soar.

But I’m open-minded, curious, and willing to be vulnerable in my classroom. I want my students to know that I value what they’re thinking and how they communicate.

This year, like most, we started off by reading Lois Lowry’s 1994 dystopian novel, The Giver. It’s always a crowd pleaser – I love the idea that it makes kids think about their communities, their families, and the danger of both sameness and ostracizing the ‘other’.

Before they read a single page, however, I have them create their own version of Utopia. With just a few simple guidelines and some directed work time, 105 8th graders solved problems of our government, created clean environments, manufactured jobs and equality in economics, developed responsibilities, educational systems and diversity in their societies using Google Slideshow.

Their vision of the future, creativity of their communities and the honesty in their presentations made me cry.

These innocent teenagers are full of ideas. They’re brimming with innovation, passion and problem-solving.

If you’d like to see more of their Utopias, click over to The Educator’s Room, where my post ‘Creating Utopia: How Kids See The World’ is featured this week.

Or better yet, ask the kids in your life how they see Utopia – and make sure you sit back and listen when they stun you with their imaginations.

Jennifer Wolfe

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Arming Teachers Isn’t The Answer

Posted on October 12, 2015 by Jennifer Wolfe

I’ve been deeply, deeply rattled by the most recent mass shooting in Oregon. Not just because I’m a mom, and I mourn the inconceivable loss of the children. Not just because I’m a writer, and mourn the loss of the creative writing teacher. And not just because I’m a human, and mourn the violence and tragedy of anyone killed at the hands of another.

I’m utterly devastated because I’m a classroom teacher, and I’m tired of worrying if this will happen to me. I’m a junior high school teacher, concentrating on serving students with the best education I can. I’m focused on watching developing minds bloom, and creating lessons to capture their attention and engage their minds. I’m intent on offering the very best of me every single minute of my work day. My intention is to help make the world a better place by teaching kids to be confident, kind, and compassionate humans.

I’m not focused on protecting them from a mass shooter – but now, I feel like I need to start paying attention.

I’ve made it no secret how I feel about guns and violence. I’ve written about every mass shooting in schools since I started this blog. I’ve shared my fears and my anger over and over, both here and on social media.

I’ve likely lost some friends because of it, too. My voice becomes too loud for some when they have a fundamental disagreement with what its saying.

I’m sorry it has to end that way, but honestly, I’m OK with it.

Last spring, I wrote about what a school lockdown really feels like. My first-person narrative has been reprinted in the Huffington Post, on Bonbon Break, and many other websites. It has been shared hundreds of times, and on September 1, even turned into a podcast interview for Ten too Twenty Parenting.

And then last week, fifteen minutes before I was instructed to huddle once again on the floor of my classroom, I saw the news alert about the Umpqua Community College. My shoulders slumped, my jaw dropped, and I felt the tears coming. Not again. NOT AGAIN!

The bell rang and my students tumbled into the classroom. We did the safety drill. We talked about why we were doing it. We discussed the reality of the world, and how scary it was that people with guns were coming to schools to hurt students and teachers.

No teacher wants to have those conversations with their students. No parent wants to know their child is in lockdown.

Out of the wake of any tragedy, the media frenzy commences. The people begin talking, politicians begin sharing, and tempers flare. One side says this, the other that. Friends realize how different they might be. Families realize they don’t agree.

Once again, before the crime scene tape has been renewed, the media headlines begin, shouting out solutions. Over and over again, my temper rises as the default solution escapes from the lips of those who don’t set foot in classrooms: Arm the teachers. Teach them to kill.

As my anger escalates, the words escape me – it is that unimaginable to ask me, a mother, wife and 25-year teaching veteran, to arm myself before I walk into the classroom to serve my students.

There has got to be a more sensible solution.

I’m sharing this with you to start a dialogue. Gun violence is a multi-faceted issue, of that I am sure. I know we all want the same outcome: we want the killing to stop. But arming teachers isn’t the answer. It shouldn’t even be on the table.

I’d love for you to read my weekly post for The Educator’s Room – I’m talking about Gun Violence: An Educator’s New Normal? If you don’t understand my stand against arming teachers, listen to their conversations. Talk to your child’s school administration. Think about your favorite teacher from the past – is it really their job to be the first responder to an armed shooter? Shouldn’t we, couldn’t we, come up with a better answer?

One thing I know for sure – arming teachers isn’t the right one.

I welcome your comments that enable a discussion about solutions – if you have hate and vitriol to spew, do it somewhere else.

Remember, I’m a teacher.

p.s. – In the time since I wrote this and it was published, there have been TWO more school shootings – one in Arizona, and one in Texas. This teacher mom demands ACTION!
photo credit: Blackstar Arms via photopin (license)
photo credit: Caution: School Crossing via photopin (license)

Jennifer Wolfe

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What If Books Were A Magic Potion?

Posted on October 6, 2015 by Jennifer Wolfe

What if books were a magic potion? What if you could walk into a room, and just sense the book that you needed to pull off the shelf? What if, when you were standing there, gazing at the spines and judging the covers, you could just feel the book calling to you?

Just imagine the power – if suddenly we turned to books to solve our problems. No more scanning Facebook for reassurance that we were parenting our children correctly. No more tuning into reality TV or talk shows to hear the experts tell us we’re right – or wrong. Imagine the smugness that would wipe off of our faces if we realized that all those faces, all those voices streaming through the internet, were just empty.

And what if, when we were feeling particularly down, the perfect book would fly into our outstretched hands and land with a soft thud? What if we, upon gently perusing the cover, decided to open to the first page, inhale, and hold our breath until the page was ready to turn?

I can think of the magic that could happen if I could suddenly find the answers I’ve been looking for inside the pages of a musty, gold-edged leather bound book. I can feel the giddiness rising up inside me when the words pelt off the page and into my heart, filling it with everything it has been searching for. And I can imagine the tears, the sobs of sorrow when, upon turning the last page, I realize that sadly, the solution I had been searching for was missing.

Can’t you just imagine the glory to be found when your toddler, unknowingly, teethes her favorite board book to shreds and simultaneously ingests the knowledge for her future? The bits and pieces of cardboard and color and text, surging forward and transforming into the life lessons we so hopefully wish she will learn, digested and consumed.

And teenagers – imagine the power. Downing words from vampires and dystopias and the Civil War? The power of the written word, the image on paper, would supercede any texting or Snapchatting or technology. What if parents were able to secretly select books just to share the messages they treasure, creating an underground cult of language and stories and thought?

What if books were a magic potion? Do you think we’d take a second look at what we’re reading? Do you think that books, real paper and print and gloss-covered books, would ever die? Would you take a sip?

Disclosure: This post was inspired by the novel The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George, where Monsieur Perdu–a literary apothecary–finally searches for the woman who left him many years ago.. Join From Left to Write on October 8th as we discuss The Little Paris Bookshop. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes.
photo credit: Le Jour ni l’Heure 5709 : Paul Cézanne, 1839-1906, portrait de Gustave Geffroy, 1885-1886, dét., musée d’Orsay, Paris, jeudi 14 mai 2015, 20:43:36 via photopin (license)

Jennifer Wolfe

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