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Managing Early Learning With Minimal Tears

By John M. Holland

Pushing in line. Fighting over toys. Running for the playground—and falling. Distracted faces. Tears and frustration.

Many early-childhood teachers will witness such drama in the coming weeks—and may even share in the tears and frustration.

Not all children are ready to learn when they enter school. And sometimes we don't do enough to help them. It's not because we don't want to. Many novice teachers hope to create a child-centered, developmentally appropriate classroom for young students. However, new teachers sometimes lack the skills to manage children for learning. Even great child development theories—like those of Froebel , Montessori , or even Wiekart —won't help if teachers do not have effective management structures in place to help students succeed. I learned this through my own experiences as a pre-K teacher and understood it more deeply as I began to enter other teachers' learning studios as a Head Start child development...