Small School, Big Hearts.

A few years ago I taught in a small school near the seashore. It was a diverse group of students. Some hung out with their dads on their fishing boats. Others had travelled halfway around the world. Because it was a small school and every young child in the surrounding communities came through my Primary door, I sometimes got to teach as many as three members of a family in as many years. I loved that! By the second child the family knew and trusted you, the third child would arrive already settled in and ready to lead. And then one year it got even better: enrollment dropped and instead of splitting classes to balance the number of students, my principal took the opportunity to give the incoming class the benefit of extra space and more teacher time.

It was an amazing year. The children who arrived were like any other class, but I was able to meet their needs like never before. The settling in period was much shorter, which soon left me with a significant number of students able to explore independently for a period of time each day while I gave extra attention to higher needs children. The higher needs children got the attention and experiences they needed and missed the low self-esteem period altogether. But most important was the fact that I got to focus on nurturing emotional and behavioural development in all my students.

I had previously come to understand that the actions of emotionally and behaviourally challenged children could negatively affect the learning climate, and the potential of many children in the class. It was heart-warming to watch childrens’ behavioural challenges dissolve, replaced by friendship and empathy. I wrote about the experience in my guide for parents, The First Five Years: Nurturing Your Child’s Ability to Learn:

Family feuds, which had been cultivated for generations, did not grow in that classroom; children developed their own perspectives rather than being biased by influences from the past. We were not without stresses, but more often than not I would hear a five-year-old counsel a classmate on how to solve a problem without having to come to me at all. Children became remarkably independent and motivated, allowing me to give more individual attention to those challenged in the area of academics.

We––the children, their parents who joyfully volunteered in the classroom, and myself––became a family of learners. By the end of that year, I knew without a doubt that when emotional needs are looked after, everything else can fall into place.

There were other significant outcomes of that experiment. One benefit of teaching in a small country school was that this class would stay together as a unit for seven years. Teachers who received this particular group of children would invariably comment on how kind and compassionate they were, and how dedicated to their learning. I now had anecdotal evidence that the benefits reaped by this small class would remain stable over time. It was rewarding to know that it was not only my heart that would be forever warmed by that special year.

       I owe that rich learning experience, which positively influenced my teaching throughout my career and helped write my book, to the creative small school with a very big heart. Community supported small schools are often the heartbeat of their communities. They remember and reflect the values Nova Scotia was built upon––we need them more than ever!