NEWS FROM THE CLASSROOM

From the Eyes of a Child

News from the Preschool classroom

May 15, 2022
Posted by Amythest Harmon

At Pacific Northern Academy, “We educate students to be exceptional learners and independent thinkers of vision, courage, and integrity.” I have attempted to capture this concept all year through photos of my students’ experiences at PNA. In an effort to get down to their level, I have resorted to kneeling, crawling on my belly, and sometimes lying flat on my back. The students love seeing photos of themselves and their accomplishments and will often ask me to show them the photos after I take them. Eventually, I became overwhelmed with the requests for documentation of their amazing inventions and began to teach them how to take their own photos. As I rather nervously handed over my phone, my primary instrument of photography, I prepared myself to see countless images of Legos, crayon-drawn pictures, and other such child interests.

What I received was both shocking and illuminating. Their greatest photograph subjects were not their toys or creations but rather each other. Not the cheesy smiley posed photos we adults often take but rather my camera was filled with in-the-moment, real-time action shots. As I thumbed through dozens of often blurry images of children dancing, jumping, kicking balls, or play-fighting, it became evident that my students found more enjoyment in the beauty of human movement than all the toys and physical items surrounding them. As they showed more interest in documenting their experiences themselves, I thought it might be nice to start photographing outside on the playground as well as in the classroom. I was curious to see the students’ experience when they were away from the teacher. Also, what does the world look like from their perspective?

I brought my virtually indestructible digital camera to school and taught my students how to point and shoot. Then I handed it over and sent it off into the world of PNA preschool. It was an eye-opening experience. To a four-year-old, the world is big. In the photos, teachers looked like giants, climbing equipment resembled towers, and the soccer playing field was a vast prairie. And yet, despite how big and intimidating everything seemed in these photos, one thing remained the same, their excitement and enjoyment of it all. My heart melted. How brave these children are to face such a big world every day, smile, and persevere.

                      

Not only is their world physically large around them, but so are their daily challenges. We ask so much of our students, who bravely but often eagerly step up to the plate and take on life’s challenges. Big emotions require big skills to navigate each day’s social and emotional obstacle courses. It is hard to master compromise, apologies, and sharing, but these students do it every day and have learned the value of friendship and community through this. Big ideas need big knowledge to communicate through language and writing, and yet, how awesome it is to watch and listen to these young, brave minds tackling abstract and non-tangible subjects such as the alphabet or letter sounds. A big world requires a big vocabulary and knowledge base to understand and make sense of it, and there my students are, taking it all in, eagerly soaking it up, and magnifying it to the level of their understanding. That is the PNA spirit, and that is what I saw documented in those precious photos taken by these brave, young, “exceptional learners and independent thinkers of vision, courage, and integrity.”

Disclaimer: All but three (first and last paragraphs) of these photos are student taken.

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