Thursday, August 16, 2012

Still More Thoughts from Opening Minds

As brilliant bloggers shared about Opening Minds (while I was still rereading Choice Words) I noticed again and again a focus on the word yet. Even before reading the book that word was rolling around in my mind and I was discussing its power with other teachers and parents.

On page 27 Johnston gives a darn good explanation of the wonder of this word:

We want to inoculate the children against infection by fixed theories; we want them to say “I’m not good at this yet” and to take steps to change that. Indeed, yet is a key word that we should regularly encourage children to add to their narratives.
Not being able to do something yet shows a belief that you will be able to do it at some point in the future. Not being able to do something period does not show that same belief in the ability to learn and grow.

If you are interested in reading the thoughts of many wonderful teachers who read this book and wrote about it this summer, Jill Fisch's post will give you a place to begin.

3 comments:

Jill Fisch said...

Jenny,

I have been in school for two and a half weeks and a couple of those days were an overnight trip with my first graders. All this is to say that I was completely overwhelmed and behind on my blog reading.

I am finally catching up tonight and have all of your posts on Choice Words and Opening Minds. This is actually very helpful to me. It is bringing back all of the language and thinking that I had while reading the books. It will help me remember to use this language as we get back to a more normal schedule.

I am also catching up on all of the picture book posts and found that you and I have many favorites in common.

Thanks for sharing and especially for doing your sharing at a different time. Your posts really helped stimulate my memory.

Jill

Jenny said...

Jill, thank you for making me feel better about posting so much later than everyone else! I hadn't consider the positive side of that.

I have been amazed at all you have done in the first few weeks of school. Just reading your posts about it has made me tired! (Much less actually managing to write posts about it too.)

Jill Fisch said...

Well, sadly, I did wear myself out a little bit and got sick - just a cold but still not fun. I rarely get sick - only when I run myself ragged - like now. Good luck with the start of your year.