Help Me Do it Myself
Updated: Oct 5
I remember one moment from my preschool classroom experience that has stayed with me.
One morning, just before we went outside to the playground, a three-year-old boy looked at me and said firmly,
“Mr. Kinota, you need to put my jacket on.”
I remember thinking, Why because you can do it yourself.
I said, to him “No. I’m going to teach you how to put your jacket on by yourself.”
He looked at me for a moment.
“That’s your job and my mommy also does that for me.”
Apparently, he had already decided what my job description was.
Someone had always done it for him.
BUT.... That was exactly the problem.
He was capable of learning how to put on his own jacket.
But if I kept doing it for him, I was taking away the opportunity for him to learn to do something for himself.
Help me do it myself.
That is at the heart of how I work with children.
When I work with a family, I am not looking for ways to keep a child dependent on tutoring/learning support. I am looking for what is getting in the child's way and helping them learn how to manage it themselves.
That might mean teaching a strategy for approaching math, helping a child figure out how to get started on their work, or giving them tools to become more organized and independent.
Help me do it myself.
Kinota Braithwaite - Learning & Assessment Specialist
More Than Just Tutoring Tokyo
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