Teachers' House

Date: March 4, 2010

Gender: 4 1/2 year old little boy

Locale: Brown Room

Alias:  A

Many of our kiddos come to us with some pretty significant language delays.  When conversing with our little people, the teachers in our program ask as many open-ended, "wh" questions as we can (who, what, when, where, why, how).  Open ended questions require a thoughtful answer and most often generate more than a one word response; as opposed to closed questions, which typically generate yes/no answers or simple, rote, regurgitated responses.

This past Thursday, the SLP pulled a little guy out of the red room in order to work on his language goals.  They were sitting at the table and she was working on "wh" questions with him, i.e., "What is your name?"  "How did you get to school?"  

For the "where" question, she asked him, "Where do you go to school 'A'?"  His response:  "At the Teachers' House!"

I loved this response.  Fellow teachers will likely appreciate this sentiment more than others, as we all know that our students think we "live" at school.  It is beyond their comprehension that we have families, lives, and homes outside of the school building; hence the confused, "What in the Holy Crap are you doing HERE?" expression we get from our kiddos when we run into one at the grocery store, Wal-Mart, or local fast food joint.