Byram Hills Central School District, New York 2022-2023 School Year, 12 Jan 2023

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From YouTube: Coman Hill: Principal's Coffee - January 12, 2023

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A

I really wanted to talk about just the function of letting children play right like for us. We need to think of kids playing. It's like our work than playing is working to them um and I'm going to get to something um because I think in terms of schools and home often we say our teachers here are their parents right, they're, their surrogate parents, while they're here so they're such a big Journey for our children, um who's parenting them right.

A

You can entertain so I'm going to go to the slides, but really guys um stop me because it's just the four of us and.

B

I want to get to some.

A

Fun stuff, I think that helps all of us teach better so play in its many forms teaches children what we want them to know about life at Large or whether we're in school or at home. That I, because that's where so many things develop and all the things that our district believes in at the on the back end in high school really has to be foundationally built here and the best way to do that really.

C

A

Through the downtime of play that time to apply everything that we're learning independently on their own, so you know some big rewards for play and you you would see all the big ideas for learning at the high school level. In this when we lay the proper Foundation at the primary level, you you don't even realize what you're developing but you're developing problem, solving skills, you're, developing language, you're, developing the regulation of emotions, you're developing that yin and yang experience between a risk and a reward.

A

You are developing the this feeling of being resilient or optimistic without even talking about those words. You're you're nurturing big thinking.

A

um You know when you see children playing house or when they're playing um in the car center or the big thoughts that are coming from there, that's being fostered there in a very safe playful environment um and then all the different core academics, whether it's math or literacy, as the two big ones. You see those being applied in just so many different modes and or the opportunities that the children are creating because of how the play is set up in the classroom and then the big.

A

Some of the biggest ones in terms of life skills, you see the creativity, the imagination, the negotiation, the collaboration, the empathy all happening in a place setting and if you do play well and you play right the structure time, you actually are more efficient with the structure time for learning at home.

A

um All of us recognize the importance of some real good old-fashioned games, and, if and if we haven't thought about these games, we should in our homes Candyland Connect Four parchesi I mean these are games that three and four-year-olds can start engaging in checkers and chess playing chess with a five-year-old. They will beat you once.

B

C

All of the moves.

A

C

A

um And you know, I can remember raising some of my boys. We've played chess on Friday nights for hours and hours and I would beat them until they started. Beating me and I would not want to play anymore because.

D

You let them win and they expect to win everything, and then you Crush thank.

A

You um cards, Battleship Life clothes, Scrabble, Boggle, twister Pictionary. There are so many good and old games. um I I know. Managing them in the home is hard because of the pieces, but putting that on your child.

B

A

Be responsible for that's all part of x, a classroom at herself organization, executive functioning. That's your job to put all the sorry pieces back together, not mine, and we give them that safe space to do that they might fail, but that's also all part of them. Learning I'm really not doing this for YouTube right now. I'm doing this, but again right.

C

A

C

Pieces- and you can't play it like the game that you want to.

A

Play exactly right.

C

A

Other things at home that we can do to Foster play and really the reason we're fostering play is to just continue to further enhance development of our growing children. um 21 Questions hide and go seek I drove a Red, Rover um charades car games. I know we drive our children all over the planet. There's such opportunities to not only listen to your children in the cars I think that's always a good opportunity, because you have them at your uh undivided control.

A

They can't go anywhere else, so they're you and them in the car, but that's an opportunity to play the license. Plate games, whether it's with letters colors shapes their name.

A

You can do shape hunts and letter hunts and word hunts Legos the range of what our children can do with Legos, the just playing with Legos to the actual books and building the Lego projects and hours that our children invest in building those projects, um puzzles Play-Doh, there's some real oldies but goodies having a box at home of just cutting supplies just nurturing those fine motor skills. Those are skills that our children need: coloring, drawing putting on glue sticks using glue, sticks, snapping and unsnapping unsnapping markers hard skill.

A

We take it for granted, it needs to be developed, buttoning, zip, bang.

B

A

Shoe tying all of that these are these are things that our children really want to do and we want to make sure we give them time. So, if you're packing up to leave the house, give yourself an extra five minutes to allow them that time to tie their shoe and learn how to do that. Often we rush these opportunities and we don't allow them to be experiences for our children who develop the confidence that they need and then, for you know, they're proud of that skill.

A

The dinner table the kitchen, the cooking, setting the table opening and closing containers, organizing cabinets, organizing the fridge dairy products go here. Fruit goes there. Cold cuts go here. All of that. Let them be part of that home experience. They'll feel like they're applying you.

B

Might get a little frustrated with them and get.

A

Having some control in your kitchen to guide them, allow them to kind of experience that um read: alouds story, books, children, love, read, alouds, our children also love doing story walks, letting them walk through the book on their own. If they're not yet reading, they will feel like they're reading and you will be building confidence in them inside the house on a Saturday or a Sunday, letting them outline the schedule for the day or if you know you have a lot on your plate outlining the schedule for their day, their teachers outline it every day.

A

They love that schedule and they would probably find um a lot of fun in listening to Mom or Dad talk about.

B

The schedule on a Saturday.

A

um Playing in the house or outside the house learning how to ride a bike if your child hasn't learned to ride a bike yet put that on top of one of your priorities this summer or the spring, get them out there ride a bike, ride a scooter again the gains of accomplishment that they get from that trickles over into the academic learning environment and developing the whole child.

C

If I could just piggyback on that, also the realizing that, in that learning process, it's going to take effort, it's going to take time that they may not get it the first time, but with with sticking with it.

C

The perseverance which we've been talking about with the kids, especially this month, is something that they learn from trying something like riding a bike and that, if they're making a mistake that they can learn from that mistake and eventually that they've set this goal for themselves and how it feels to be able to do something after they've said that goal for themselves and that we talk a lot about how everything is hard until it's easy, so that when things don't come easy to them, it doesn't freeze them.

C

It doesn't make them stop and and feel like I'm, not going to do that and feel in adverse effect. Instead, they know we here at school can relate back to learning, how to do something and how it took them time to do it and at first it wasn't easy and eventually, when they kept with it. That became more reason for them. So it's a good way for us to also continue kind of connect from what you're doing with them at home. To what we're doing here.

A

So here's a little parenting Manifesto I'm.

C

Going to read it.

A

A

When we were bringing our four Sons home from the hospital first, when my husband was like they're just gonna, let us take him I'm.

B

Like that's what they do and then when we brought the fourth.

A

One how my husband was like: we should help that couple right there and bring.

C

A

um So I recently came across this and I also for myself as a mother I wish someone had shared this with me when my children were three four and five, not 18 19 20, but it still apply so I'm gonna, give it to you guys and then I'm gonna read it out loud, because I think it speaks volumes to what we're trying to to raise um in our community and we're all in it together. So a parenting, Manifesto, Above, All Else else, I want you to know that you are loved and lovable.

A

You will learn this from my words and actions, the lessons on lava and how I treat you and how I treat myself I want you to engage with the world from a place of worthiness. You will learn that you are worthy of Love belonging in joy. Every time you see me practice self-compassion and embrace my own imperfections.

A

We will practice courage in our family by showing up letting ourselves be seen and honoring vulnerability. We will share our stories of struggle and strength. There will always be room in our home, for both I could apply this to our school too. It's interchangeable, parenting, teaching homeschool. We will teach you compassion by practicing compassion with ourselves. First than with each other, we will set and respect boundaries. We will honor hard work, hope and perseverance.

A

Rest and play will be family values, as well as family practices. You will learn accountability and respect by watching me, make mistakes and make amends and by watching how I ask for what I need and talk about how I feel I want you to know Joy. So, together we will practice gratitude. I want you to feel Joy. So together we will learn how to be vulnerable.

A

When uncertainty and scarcity visit, you will be able to draw from the spirit that is part of our everyday life. Together we will cry and face fear and grief. I will want to take away your pain, but instead I will sit with you and teach you how to feel it. We will laugh and sing and dance and create. We will have permission.

A

You will always have permission to be ourselves with each other, no matter what you will always belong here. As you begin, your wholehearted journey, the greatest gift that I can give to you- is to live and love with my whole heart and to dare greatly I will not teach or love or show you anything perfectly. But I will. Let you see me and I will always hold. The sacred I will always hold sacred, the gift of seeing you truly deeply seeing you I, think Coleman hell and Byram Health.

A

That's our work for our children and I think our partnership with all our families. That's your work with our children and when you think about raising children, our job is to raise the wholehearted child. We want children to be happy. We want children to be confident.

A

There will be trials and tribulations along the way and they come at us fast and Furious. It's not our job to push them off to the side. It's our job to embrace them and help our children experience. What those feelings feel like so that the next time they experience or encounter a challenge just like Janine said they can draw upon the experience from the last time. We should be feeling those challenges as.

B

Much as we feel those triumphs.

A

That's part of living, so um questions.

D

How did you get through this without crying.

A

So I've read it quite a.

D

Few times, there's something in my eyes: yeah.

A

I've read it quite a few times: I've I've, actually I only came across this over the holiday vacation and I said to myself. I need to do this as a parent I need to do this as a principal I should have done this. As a teacher. This is really something so beautiful and brene brown is an incredible researcher on human emotions and when I think about raising children and how fast that journey is, and now I speak as a mother in the blink of an eye it went by.

A

But my work is not done as a parent, it will never be done and we have your children for 30 months here at Coleman, Hill and I hope that the foundation we give them and you propels them as they go to Wampus HCC in the high school, because as children get bigger, problems get bigger. So right now I mean you know, I used to say this to parents all the time when.

B

A

A problem here at school count your blessings because together we can come together with you and your child and hopefully that child can draw upon that when they're.

C

In third grade or fifth grade.

A

Or eighth grade or 12th grade those are our opportunities to help them, have the confidence to own their problems and not be embarrassed about their problems and say: I got through it, and my parents still love me and my school still loves me.

C

I think it's a safe place for them to have problems, to make mistakes, to learn how to cope and to learn how to find strategies.

C

How we use everything as a learning experience when we shelter kids from ever, making a mistake or ever feeling an emotion. They never learn the right tools or strategies or coping mechanisms to be able to handle that independently and while we want to teach them to be independent, really, the partnership between home in school, it's all working together is the safe way that they can learn how to do those things and feel supported and for us to work together to make them feel that way.

C

So, as Peggy said as they move through the years and through the schools and then out into the world, it's not the first time they're encountering those things learn some really good ways to take a deep breath to problem solve, to feel an emotion to recognize. An emotion in others and stake is a learning opportunity for them.

D

I think, as parents we tend to become fixers, so we want to fix the problem rather than help our children deal with the problem. And it's it's it's the easy route. It's it's convenient to immediately fix the problem or give the child the iPad or whatever to you know. You know, make it go away and I think that that we do damage where you can do that.

A

There's such discomfort sitting and watching our children go through something difficult so like we want. We want to solve that right.

B

A

A I think as a society. We don't talk enough about what it feels like to actually be in that discomfort right, so as parents and as teachers, we have to slow ourselves down to be able to be comfortable in that discomfort. When we see our children so uncomfortable right and.

B

We don't know that until we're in it, because it.

A

Doesn't happen every day.

D

Right and as as teachers, there there's such high expectations of getting through the curriculum and and that it's and.

B

D

Our lives are so busy that it's it's hard to stop and and deal with these types of things I mean I. Remember, the curriculum expectations are so high and teachers are under such pressure that it's sometimes hard to take a step back and deal with these types of things. If.

A

We could together say you know we. We have these full dinner plates right, whether we're in school or.

B

A

At home you hear it, we hear it every you know with every teacher we have so much to get through at home. We have so much to get through if we could start making our jobs each day to be more of a dessert plate, because.

B

Right, you can only fit some.

A

Yeah, you only put Less on the dessert plate right. Take it off, take it off our children's plates so that we can actually capitalize on those experiences and opportunities to also feel.

B

Emotions better.

D

Well, that's why I really appreciate what Coleman Hill does with the monthly.

D

Person it's it's really.

C

Symptoms, it's great that was really good.

A

um So the monthly meetings um you.

B

Know I thought about this yeah I thought about this for a long.

A

Time, I'm talking like a decade a long time since the Common Core came.

B

A

Do our children, home or at school I mean I I have a lot of young family members at home, so I can see it with cousins tend to a movie these days. You know an hour and 20 minutes, we'll be how many children can sit and tend to a movie because we're in a YouTube Society, a tick tock Society, these short videos.

A

The other day we played a short snippet from a Disney movie and Disney has such good lessons in there for and our children love it. The.

B

The clip was four minutes long.

A

You could have heard a pin drop.

B

A

No one was touching anything, there's a there's, a need. You can feel children. This need to be together, you can, you can feel it in the room. It's it's a powerful feeling that, after coming out of the pandemic, how much our kids really need to be.

B

A

They were young, you know this cohort of children, they were young, they want to be together.

A

The goal is going to be to play a movie one day this year, I think the children will just remember. Like wow, we came together we're building with salmon.

C

And we got to that point.

D

C

Watch a movie, our community meetings are getting a little bit longer each time right, like.

D

Reading 20 minutes a.

B

Day, yeah to be able to sit.

C

And I know he loves it. Okay,.

A

It's kind of nice yeah, it's like an old-fashioned tradition.

C

In a home- and we bring in you, know, assemblies a couple of times a year and you can see after a certain amount of time, yeah thank you, they're, just so not used to having to sit through something. That's in that way. So part.

A

Of our work and calming down their minds and their bodies right, we have our children going going like that act of.

C

Coming down hard.

A

To go, and so we're talking about um play and we're talking about um slowing down and allowing ourselves and our children to be comfortable in living in discomfort, especially like emotional discomfort. You tend to like just solve everything and rush through things, because life is busy right.

B

There and it gets it.

A

Gets busier and busier right, the five-year-old five years is one-fifth of their life right, but when they're 10 that one year in fifth grade is a tenth of their life when they're in high school that senior year is 1 18th of their life each year of raising children goes faster and faster when you're thinking about each passing year.

A

That's why it goes faster and faster and faster. The first year of life raising a baby.