What the Kids Said Today: Using Classroom Conversations to Become a Better Teacher

The great privelege of teaching is that you, the teacher, learn something new from the kids every day. “In fact,” writes author Dan Gartrell, “the freshness of life lessons that young children teach keeps many teachers rejuvenated, and committed to the field.” You can have years of experience, and you can own all of the latest textbooks. But you still need to keep your eyes and ears tuned to the greatest teachers of all—the children in your classroom.

Written for present and future early childhood teachers by present and future early childhood teachers, What the Kids Said Today looks directly and openly at how teachers and young children talk with each other in the classroom. A good teacher, Gartrell states, uses these conversations to build what he calls the encouraging classroom, a community where mutual acceptance is the priority and where children can learn the skills they’ll need in larger communities in the future. Skills that include acceptance and cooperation, creative and peaceful problem-solving, and ways to express emotions that are acceptable to all.

The author collected 160 stories from more than 60 adults at Head Starts, child care centers, family child care homes, and kindergarten classrooms—including anecdotes from beginning student teachers and from experienced directors. Each story includes an account of a teacher’s conversation with children, as well as reflections on how each conversation can help build the encouraging classroom. Discussion questions at the end of each chapter help foster further exploration of what kids say to their teacher and what a teacher says to them.

A past Head Start teacher and CDA field advisor, Daniel Gartrell has served as a faculty member at Bemidji State University in Minnesota since 1969. His work includes serving as the director of the Child Development Training Program and professor of Early Childhood and Elementary Education. He has also conducted over 100 workshops and training sessions on guidance, building an encouraging classroom, and developmentally appropriate practice. Dan is also the author of A Guidance Approach for the Encouraging Classroom (Delmar) and of several articles, including four that appeared in Young Children.