“This is my school,” one of the children in the class repeated during his first day as he went through all the parts of our schedule. “Yes, this is your school,” teachers would say to reassure him. As we embark on this new year, the question of “What is school?” looms large. We teachers believe that school is foremost a community. But what makes a community? Is it a concrete structure? Is it a mindset? The dictionary defines community as “a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals.” These past few years in particular, our communities have been ripped apart due to the global pandemic. Our world communities, our national communities, our cities, our neighborhoods, our schools, our friends, and families. And yet thankfully, life moves on.
In looking at the dictionary definition of community, it’s interesting to see how the idea is explained that one must share attitudes, interests, and goals. While we assume we, parents and teachers, probably all share some similar goals, children obviously don’t walk into the classroom with shared specific goals in mind. Or maybe they do! Surely children do not necessarily all share the exact same common interests or attitudes! In fact, we teachers from day one in the classroom work diligently to help children understand that we all can have different ideas, different likes and dislikes, different “attitudes” about so many things. And that this is OK! In fact, it’s beautiful. Children are often bewildered by the concept that not everyone loves chocolate ice cream the best, or that dinosaurs are not everyone's favorite, or that someone doesn’t even like the color pink. Children at this age are egocentric. No offense. It’s just the way it is. It is the stage of development that they naturally are in, and that they will be in for a while. One of our jobs as preschool teachers is to help children begin to “de-center,” take a look around, notice that others are nearby, and that they sometimes have similar ideas but sometimes they have different ideas. In school, it is our hope to share a common desire to care and to be a part of something. This is what we feel it means to be a part of a community. This is what it means to be part of a community at Park West. So welcome, we are so glad you’re here.
