Let the Child Shine: Teaching to the Brilliance in a Young Child

What Educators are Saying About Let the Child Shine!

The past ten of my thirteen years of teaching have been with preschoolers in the Ferguson-Florissant School District in Ferguson, Missouri. In Let the Child Shine, Dr. Scott lays out a pedagogy that affirms my practice of understanding, respecting, and teaching the whole child. What I value most about this book is the metaphorical mirror Dr. Scott put in front of my daily interaction with—and impact on—young children. This book is a wonderful guide to how children develop their treasures at each life stage and how educators can help mine and shine (or dim and dull) those treasures. Let the Child Shine is a beautiful explanation and celebration of the young child and empowers teachers to do the immeasurably important job of cultivating young hearts and minds.

~Kara Grice

Pre-K Teacher

Ferguson, MO

As a teacher and grandmother, I found Dr. Scott’s second book, Let the Child Shine, offered me more great information and useful tools to help kids sparkle. Just like in her first book on the 7 Childhood Treasures (Just Be Your S.E.L.F., which is helpfully summarized in this new book), she makes child development and learning easy to understand, and I can implement practical strategies immediately. Her Cornerstone Strategies of the Seek Sparkle & Shine Plan for teaching have helped me slow down and tune in more to the children; to see them, not a mini-me, when I look at them; to see this unique child, in this unique moment; to be new and brave in my authenticity with children; and to stay sane, being my best self when I am around children. Dr. Scott’s writing is refreshing, enlightening, and inviting to any reader who also desires to treat children with best practices to replace past ineffective practices. She does not make one feel guilty, though, for having said and done things to dim a child’s light. I no longer need to call a child cute when what I see is their brilliance!

~Rebecca Nottingham

Special Education Teacher

Keystone Learning Services

Ozawkie, KS

Let the Child Shine lets readers reflect on how their own story contributes to the story they write about the children they care for. Dr. Scott lets us see how our childhood story can be both a contributor and an inhibitor to our work with young children. She allows us to gain a different perspective, seeing past the black-and-white movie ingrained within us. Instead, she offers her unique set of lenses to see children [and their work] in technicolor. Though she reminds us of the missteps we sometimes make when caring for young children, she also affirms that neither we nor the children need to be perfect. The fundamental work of teachers is to relish the moment with them!

~Amy Peterson-Roper

School Support Coach

ME Department of Education and Pre-K—4 Principal (retired)

Ellsworth Elementary Middle School

Ellsworth, ME

Let the Child Shine

Teaching to the Brilliance in a Young Child

Dr. L. Carol Scott, PhD

Big Dream Press

Published by Big Dream Press, St. Louis, MO

Copyright ©2019 Dr. L.Carol Scott, PhD

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the Publisher. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to Permissions Department, Big Dream Press at carol @lcarolscott.com

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Editors: Karen Tucker

Proofreader: Angela Houston

Cover and Interior design: Davis Creative, DavisCreative.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019916722

Author Dr. L. Carol Scott, PhD

Just Be Your S.E.L.F.: Your Guide to Improving Any Relationship 

ISBN: 978-1-7326452-2-6

ISBN: 978-1-7326452-3-3 (e-book)

Library of Congress subject headings:

1. SEL016000 SELF-HELP / Personal Growth / Happiness 2. SEL027000 SELF-HELP / Personal Growth / Success 3. SEL044000 SELF-HELP / Self-Management / General

2019

ATTENTION CORPORATIONS, UNIVERSITIES, COLLEGES, AND PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS: Quantity discounts are available on bulk purchases of this book for educational, gift purposes, or as premiums for increasing magazine subscriptions or renewals. Special books or book excerpts can also be created to fit specific needs. For information, please contact Big Dream Press, PO Box 1122, Maryland Heights, MO 63043; ph 866.665.5569.

For you, teacher. Just for you.

Acknowledgments

I thank my mother for her role model as a teacher with a passion for education. My love of teaching began with witnessing my mother’s love of teaching. Like she had, though, I fell into my career in education quite unintentionally. Also like Mom’s, my enthusiasm as an educator grew with each year of practice and learning. Thank you, Mom.

I am deeply grateful to the internationally respected University of Kansas faculty who exposed me to Froebel, Dewey, Montessori, Piaget, Vygotsky, Bruner, and other developmental theorists and researchers, as I earned a BA, MA, and PhD in the Department of Human Development and Family Life. My teachers from those years are too numerous to name.

To hundreds of children and their families, across three university-based children’s centers, I am forever indebted. During my years of university study and early career, I also taught and supervised in university preschools. To you parents, grands, enrolled children, and siblings, thank you for adding to my book learning with a daily, invaluable laboratory on how development prospers and is hindered.

For significant influence on my thinking about pedagogy, and on my understanding of good educational environments for young children, I am intellectually indebted to Sam Meisels, Judy Jablon, Cathy Fosnot, Constance Kamii, and Rheta DeVries, along with several colleagues who were also members of the national faculties for the Project Construct Curriculum Framework and the Work Sampling System.

I am grateful to Dr. Jim Caccamo, then of the Independence Missouri School District, and to the federal Office of Head Start for the opportunity to work in public schools with teachers, children, and families in K–3. This experience brought three powerful new additions to my teacher toolkit: Sylvia Chard and Lillian Katz’s Project Approach, Malaguzzi’s Reggio Emilia approach, and the strengths-based model for supporting children and families.

I am deeply grateful to the generosity of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and the leadership of Dr. Stacie Goffin for the funding of initiatives to bring national innovators to speak to early learning professionals in the Kansas City metropolitan area. During the boom of national press on early brain development in the late 1990s, I learned directly from Pediatric Neurologist Harry Chugani, author of the earliest PET scan studies. Long before our current understanding of the impacts of Adverse Childhood Experiences, thanks to Dr. Goffin’s forward thinking, I learned about early trauma from Dr. Bruce Perry. Now senior fellow at the Child Trauma Academy in Houston, Perry was speaking then on his analysis of trauma in the children of the Waco siege of 1993.

Many similar experiences and choice learning opportunities throughout my career have been integrated into my current understanding of how to support children’s development from birth through age seven. I am grateful for them all.

I am grateful for a lifestyle that allows me to sit for hours, fingers on keyboard, musing out what I know from a forty-year career that may be of value to teachers of children from birth through age seven. These past few years, I have been blessed by time to integrate all these learning opportunities of my career into my best advice on social and emotional development.

Once all the words were written, the next steps on the way to a book brought more openings for gratitude. For excellence in copy editing, I thank Karen Tucker, of Comma Queen Editing, who blessed me with exactly the level of tough love a writer like me needs and also many new bits and bobs of arcane punctuation and grammar knowledge. For inventive layout and cover design, and a beyond-comfortable partnership, I am grateful to Cathy and Jack Davis of Davis Creative. Angela Houston, of A.H. Joy Editing, helped ensure the correct final arrangements of letters and lines with her outstanding proofreading. As she focused like a laser on the final details, she also enjoyed the content. Such dual attention is a rare gift! Thank you to everyone who made this book a dream come true.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

What Do We Really Want for Children?

Are You Willing to See in a New Way?

Children Arrive with Sparkle!

How Do Kids Sparkle?

How Bright Can They Be?

How Do We Dull Their Shine?

Why Adults Aren’t Cute

The Anti-Sparkle Plan

Patronizing Passerby

Smooth Operator

Wild Child Tamer

Professor Fear

I Am the Boss of You

Don’t Feel Bad, Okay?

See Their Brilliance

Cornerstone Strategies of the Seek Sparkle & Shine Plan

#slowdowntunein – Slow Down, Tune In

#seethemnotyou – See Them, Not You

#thischildthismoment – This Child, This Moment

#benewbebrave – Be New, Be Brave

#staysanebeyourself – Stay Sane, Be Your S.E.L.F.

The Short Course

Your Little Red House and C.A.R.

Individuation: A Life Journey

The 7 Childhood Treasures

Treasure-Centered Teaching

The Dynamics of Mining Trust

Broken Tools

Basic Tools

Discovering the Boundaries of Independence

Broken Tools

Basic Tools

The Explosion of Faith

Broken Tools

Basic Tools

Negotiation by the Boxes

Broken Tools

Basic Tools

The Vision and the Plan

Broken Tools

Basic Tools

Release to Compromise

Broken Tools

Basic Tools

Persistence via Acceptance

Broken Tools

Basic Tools

Educating in the Little Red House

Conclusion

About the Author

Introduction

This Book is for Teachers. I have written this book expressly for the audience of teacher-caregivers for children from birth through seven years of age. No matter the environment in which you care for and educate a group of children, whether in a family child care home, Head Start or other preschool, child care center, public or private PK–3 or K–6 school, if your role is teacher, this book is for you. Thank you, from the depths of my heart, for the crucially important and highly impactful work you do!

I recognize that this audience is extremely diverse. It includes staff in child care programs who, in some states, have no training or education to prepare them for teaching young children. They may know little to nothing at all about child development. This readership also includes public school pre-K to second grade teachers, each of whom holds at least a baccalaureate degree, if not a master’s, in elementary or early childhood education. Even so, I recognize that schools of education have not traditionally infused their teacher training programs with information on child development, so even many of those readers have limited knowledge or understanding about early development.

I assume that the developmental range for this readership is as broad as that for a classroom full of young children, and each of you knows what THAT is like! Acknowledging this diversity, my goal was to write in a way that would work for everyone. My language and message have not been, I believe, diminished to create accessibility for those who come to this work without a high school diploma. (Missouri child care regulation, for example, only requires staff in licensed centers and preschools to be eighteen years old and free of tuberculosis, though individual programs may have higher standards for their hires.) I hope I have made my explanations using lay language suitable for these readers without oversimplifying for those with college education or substantial professional development on the subject of children’s emotional