Development

A major theme in our training is early child development. Each piece of movement that we re-learn is designed to take us back through our own development. We started with our mouths on day one, then moved on to our eyes, our head, our hands, rolling, rolling to sitting, etc. That makes teaching preschool while being in training really fun. It means I get to watch bored kids on their mats still awake during nap time doing EXACTLY the same things we do in class. For example, a very common bored-on-your-mat trick is to get on your hands and knees, put the top of your head on the floor, and straighten your knees, which looks suspiciously like our lessons on headstands. The difference is that instead of being taught it, they're just experimenting and playing with it.

Yesterday I got a really interesting lesson in development. (It's not physical development, so not directly related to Feldenkrais, but interesting anyway.) I was at work on a Saturday evening, providing child care for parents who wanted to attend the school's annual no-kids-allowed fundraiser auction. We had a much larger age range of kids than usual. Normal age range is 2.5-5, but we had a few 6 year olds and a 9 year old to add to the mix. We were all playing outside, and a kid got pushed, fell down, and started crying.

Normal preschool situation that would follow: A teacher comes over to find out what happened and make sure everyone's okay. If a teacher doesn't notice right away, a child who saw it happen will come and tell a teacher that so-and-so is crying or got hurt. If the child who's crying was hurt by someone else, a teacher will ask that child to "check in" and make sure their friend is okay.

Yesterday's bigger age range situation: I went over to see what happened and find out why he was crying. A kindergartener saw me, came over, and asked the boy who was crying if he was okay. As I was talking to the boy, two more kindergarteners came over and asked if he was okay, saw that he was, helped him up off the ground, and got him involved in their game.

I was totally delighted to see that happen, because we never see it in our age group. The lesson I learned - empathy develops between ages 5 and 6, at least according to what I saw.