It was amazing to see my two-and-a-half-year-old son sing along with his imaginary friend, tapping his feet and enjoying the happy tunes. He learned something new every day watching the show and I never had to worry about him being bored. It got me thinking. What makes Barney a special teacher?
I started with the dress up. I checked my wardrobe. Not many interesting clothes I would say. As I scanned the stacked-up layers, my eyes fell on the ‘silly’ patched up gypsy dress that I had worn to class while celebrating ‘Magic’ as the Literacy Club theme. Children had come in dressed up as witches and wizards, but what took their breath away was to find their teacher dressed up as the gypsy woman with her crystal ball. We turned off the lights, closed the blinds on the windows and with the beam of a small torch in hand, we created the magic of storytelling, which ended up in a wild chase as I ran after them playing catch. There was fun and laughter and yes, lots and lots of learning. I realized the effort that had gone into creating that moment and decided a fortnight dress up was possible.
The next challenge was singing songs. Not a very comfortable space for many. I mean I do not want to sound raucous and become the ‘joke.’ But then there is no denying the power of music and songs on learning. And really, have you heard Barney sing? He is a disaster, yet children are mesmerized, and the songs say so much about friendship, love, empathy and working together. Lessons learned for life. So clearly, we don’t need to be a Britney Spears, and the children are not really looking for one either. When we come in with our lesson plans to teach them something new, why can’t we try something new ourselves? We teach them about not being ashamed of mistakes and failures, yet we dare not take the plunge ourselves. And so, if Barney can sing, so can we.
Another important learning outcome that comes through Barney as a teacher is that he generates point of views through ‘make-belief’ situations and stories. I remember in one of my literacy lessons, I was teaching my Year 3’s about perspectives. And to help them understand the idea of viewpoints better, I made up a story to share with them. “Once when I was your age, my mom dropped me at the hairdresser for a hair-cut. She had to run some errands, so she described the details to the lady and left to come back in some time. As soon as she left, the hairdresser asked me to sit and wait. I saw her attend other clients who walked in after me. I knew she was doing something wrong, but I didn’t say anything.” The story instigated many different responses. “Why didn’t you tell her that she should cut your hair first?” “She was being unfair!” Another sided with me saying, “It’s hard to be alone in a situation like that when everyone is older than you and you can be afraid.” To counter her, “But if we stay quiet, our mom will come back and be upset. She will fight with the lady.” All these points of views were a result of a made-up story that they could relate to and attach their emotions with.
Barney is also a great Mr. Fix-It. He can turn the children’s mood around, teaching them right from wrong. This skill requires a lot of observation on part of the teachers. Children carry their own energies to the classroom, and they have their individual needs. A fix-it teacher is sensitive to any silent cries for help. Sometimes a small thing, like being unable to answer a question can become a heavy burden to carry through the day for the child, and a good teacher will quickly respond by creating an opportunity for the child to come through successful. This saves the mind from shutting down for the day. My eldest son always forgot his stationery at school, and I used to struggle with his forgetfulness, to a point it became the most important question and task of the day. And then walked in this fabulous teacher who read his anxieties and struggle with organization and took the initiative to label every piece of stationery he had, allotted special spaces for him to place his materials and gave him reassurance that it was not him, but his struggling skills that could be improved through planning. She fixed it for him ensuring the learning continued.
Moving on, Barney can also be admired for his engagement with the children through the entire learning process. From setting up the learning space to planning what needs to be learned. Whether it is arranging the furniture, designing displays, or creating props, the children have the right to voice their opinions in each and every matter related to the learning process without it being a cumbersome task. Progressive teachers invite their students to participate in decision making debates. I experimented with this idea by taking on the responsibility for my Year 3’s to plan the Earth Day. I will say we initiated the process two months in advance because when you engage children in the planning, you need to keep a safe margin to work with. The children decided on the stations to set up, recyclables to collect, games to play, dances to prepare and instruments to construct! The event was organized with great enthusiasm but quite honestly, the running of the programme offered them so many challenges. The beauty of these problems was that they gave birth to solutions. For example, the decision to replace paint brushes with simple finger painting due to miscalculation in number of children visiting the station taught them an important life skill. We had some teachers complain about the children being disorganized or the experience being less than perfect, but the amount of learning that came through finding solutions and taking spot on decisions was invaluable.
Last but not the least, Barney loves to role-play. Role-play is actually a great tool to understand children and their desires. While teaching my students about ‘adjectives’ I asked them to role-play their favorite jungle animal. A quiet, petite and shy girl in my class surprised everyone when she roared like a lion and pounced on her classmates. They identified the lion in her, being ferocious, powerful and kingly! A simple role-play act ignited the fire in a child to prove that people can be superficial in their opinions and looking beyond the obvious is really important.
And so, to conclude, the qualities I listed for Barney as a teacher represent a time and era teachers were supreme. They made decisions for their children. They were leaders and took complete responsibility for their actions. They were not driven by deadlines, definite structures, and unrealistic expectations. They were the ones who guided the decision making and policy building in the school. Today, it has become increasingly difficult to be a better teacher, because we have started to burden the teachers with clerical procedures and fancy records to fill in. We have taken away from them, the joy of discovering the learning alongside their children. There is no time to reflect on what we implement today, yet we keep training them for the future.
Sometimes an imaginary dinosaur is all you need to understand that education isn’t necessarily about the right curriculum, the definite indicators or the infinite documentation, but rather an unforgettable human experience.
