Why Barney’s a better teacher...

Barney has a colourful costume…
Barney loves to sing songs…
Barney creates so many stories…
Barney enjoys playing with the children…
Barney is a great Mr. Fix it…
Barney plans with the children…
Barney loves to role play…

These are but a few factors that attract our children to the magical character of ‘Barney’. It’s amazing to see my two and a half year old son sing all his songs and move his head side to side enjoying the capturing tunes. It got me to think…

If we have a character that has the power to spread love and educate with such ease, why can’t we just adopt his ways and manners to teach our children in our classrooms?

We can begin with our wardrobes. Are we wearing interesting clothes that might gain us the attention of the children at school? The first success in a lesson taught, comes from gathering your children’s focus. I have tried that myself occasionally. I was following a “magic” theme in my class for a week and to wrap up the activity, I had allowed them to come dressed for the theme at the end of the week. They came in as witches and wizards. But what took their breath away was to find me in the classroom, dressed as a gypsy woman with her crystal ball! We turned off the lights, closed the blinds on the windows and I ran after them with a small torch, playing a dark room game. There was fun and laughter and lots and lots of learning. Therefore,  if you can’t do it everyday, make an effort to have a dress-up every fortnight.

If Barney can sing with his flat voice, so can you! Songs have an intense impact on the learning graph. Once a child picks up the rhythm to ABC, he remembers it for his entire lifetime. The first time I sang in front of my children, I thought I would look silly. I didn’t know, how they would react, but they were mesmerized. They were not expecting me to do that and my confidence transferred beautifully onto them. Now I am no Britney Spears but who said they are looking for her in you? You are someone who comes in everyday with a lesson plan to teach them new things. Then why should you be afraid to try new things yourself? You want them to try and not feel ashamed at not succeeding. Then why does your heartbeat increase at the thought of failure?  Why do you think that you would look silly? If you want a bunch of un-inhibited students in class, become a strong role model who can sing for them and with them.

During one of my Literacy classes, I was teaching my children in Year 3 the importance of having a ‘Point of View’. To help them understand the concept better, I sat with them and made up a story about myself. “Once when I was your age, my mum dropped me off at the hair-dresser for a hair-cut. She had to buy some groceries and asked the hair-stylist to go ahead with the hair-cut. As soon as she left, the lady in the salon asked me to sit and wait. She started attending other ladies who had come in after me. I knew she was doing something wrong, but I didn’t say anything.” There was an immediate response and effect arising from deep love and feelings for their teacher, “Why didn’t you tell her that she should cut your hair first? She was being unfair!” Another one exclaimed, “Maybe she didn’t say anything because they were all older than her. She was afraid to say anything.” And she held my hand, feeling the fear of being alone. “But, if we don’t say anything then we would sit there the whole time and when our mum will come to pick us up, she will be angry with us and fight with the lady!” The various ‘point of views’ were the result of a made up story that they could relate to and attach their  emotions with. And that is what Barney does very well.

Games are integral to learning processes. Being aware of what games the children in your class enjoy, is an added advantage to you. The most dreadful concepts can be translated in a few minutes through an interesting game. At the beginning of each term, I asked the children to write the names of their favourite games on paper chits and collected them. One by one each child would explain the working and purpose of their chosen games. The most popular ones were placed in my ‘Magic Box’ and every other day, I planned a lesson around one of those games. The ‘memory game’ was a great tool to teach them about nouns, ‘treasure hunt’ made the concepts in history quite interesting to explore and ‘hold hands’ was a fun activity to learn about odd and even numbers. Children love being close to you. They enjoy the child inside of you. And where else do you think you would be able to pour out the childish giggles and hearty laughter? It’s the best way to know your children well.

Barney is a great Mr. Fix it! Indeed you often see him turning moods around and teaching children right from wrong. Again, that requires a lot of observation on your part. Teachers who are sensitive to the individual needs of their students, mostly succeed in this genre. If you read my blog on “the survival kit”, it was a FIX IT action. Sometimes, a small thing as being unable to answer the question can be a daunting burden to carry through the day. A good teacher, quickly replaces the question with a simpler answer to ensure that the mind does not shut off for the day. My eldest son often used to forget his pencil in the school and I was struggling with his carelessness. I cannot forget the pains his grade 1 teacher took to teach him to care for his belongings. She labelled each and every stationery item of his in class and he became so particular about placing them in the allotted spaces, that I never had to worry about it again. A teacher is no less than a magician who can identify positive and negative energies well in time to fix them so that the spirit of learning remains intact.

Every country endorses the need for schools to promote a secure and safe environment for the children to learn. It is an established fact that the mind absorbs information when it is engaged in a positive surrounding. Children have the right to exercise their views and voice their opinions in each and every matter related to the classroom. Whether it is arranging the furniture or displaying concepts on the walls. Mostly progressive teachers, invite their students to participate in decision making debates.  A few sadly, like to complete their tasks quickly and therefore, keep the diversity of ideas, out of the picture. Every year, Grade 3 held the ‘Earth Day’ in the school hall. I, along with the other two teachers would begin with the plans two months in advance. When you want to involve your students in event planning, it is a safe time margin to work with. They decided on the stations to set up, materials to collect, games to play, dances to prepare and so on. And quite honestly, each year, they would face many hiccups in the running of the programme. The beauty of these problems was that, they gave birth to solutions. Decisions to replace paint brushes with simple finger painting due to miscalculation in number of children visiting the station, is one such example of a life skill achieved. Teachers who believed in perfection actually complained about children being disorganized but little did they understand, that the amount of learning that comes from making corrections, is beyond comparison. So, that’s another Barney secret for you.

Last but not the least, he loves to role-play. I have many memories attached to this teaching tool. Role play is an amazing platform for a teacher to discover hidden desires and potential in children. I was teaching my students ‘adjectives’ and the topic had some animal pictures in it. I asked the children to decide on which animal they wanted to depict and each one came up with either a kangaroo, deer, or monkey etc. Now there was a quiet little girl in my class. She hardly ever spoke and mostly tried to avoid any active participation. This time however, she couldn’t escape her turn as I had promised them house points for the best act. When she came on stage, I asked her, “So, which animal have you chosen sweety?” The children blurted out before she could answer, “She must be a Rabbit!”  Actually, it was the most appropriate description that went with her personality. She looked a little annoyed and said, “No! I don’t want to be a rabbit. I want to be a ‘lion!” She completely took us all by surprise. She jumped at the boys standing around her roaring like a lion. She actually attacked everyone in the class literally unleashing the animal that she desired to become. She was expressing the need to break free and remove the label of being a rabbit. She had the potential to rule like the ‘Lion’ and wanted people to give that thought some recognition. A simple role-play, ignited the fire in a child to prove her worth and changed the opinions of people around her, to be able to look beyond the very obvious.

Therefore people, Barney is a much better teacher! And the next time you watch him on television, try to adopt the magic of this imaginary friend.