Standards of Experience

05/12/2011

To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.
Eleanor Roosevelt, 1884-1962, Diplomat, First Lady, Activist

In her presentation at the 2011 World Forum in Honolulu last week, Lilian Katz observed that we need to think deliberately about the types of experiences children are having in our programs. She proposed that in each setting we develop our own Standards of Experience for children. She offered these suggestions as "experiences that all children should have much of the time:

Being intellectually engaged and challenged

Applying developing skills in purposeful ways

Developing confidence in their own intellectual powers

Extended conversations/interactions with adults and peers

Taking initiative/responsibility; making choices

Generating questions/predictions/hypotheses

Sustained involvement in investigations of worthwhile topics

Overcoming obstacles and set-backs

Helping others to find out about and understand things better

Making suggestions to others

Feeling a sense of belonging to a community in the school

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