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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]"The Reggio Emilia-inspired program is offered in pre-school and pre-kindergarten at Ludlow-Taylor, Miner, School-within-a-school at Peabody, Takoma, and Walker-Jones."

http://www.dc.gov/DCPS/In+the+Classroom/Academic+Offerings

I'm a DCPS early childhood teacher who uses the Tools of the Mind curriculum. I enjoy the program and believes in benefits my students, but as previous posters have said, it typically depends on the child.

One of the primary focuses of TOTM is for children to develop self-regulation (e.g. the ability to control one's own behaviors and inhibit certain undesirable actions, as well as delay gratification; "I really want that toy and want to snatch it from this student, but I'm going to control that emotional response and wait until it is my turn.").

I think the program works well in meeting the needs of diverse learners. For example, one of the components of our day is "Play Planning", where children "write" out a plan for what they want to do when they go to Centers. Their plans could include what they're going to play, with whom they want to play, what roles they will assume, or even what props they will use. I have some students in my PS/PK class who are using developmental spelling to sound out the words in their message (e.g. "I am going to bake the cake in the oven" looks like "I m gng to bk the ck in the ovn"), some students are writing lines to represent the separation of words in their message, while others are still focusing on making pictoral representations. All of the activities that we do during the day allow for this same type of scaffolding so that I can meet the needs of all of my students.

What I like most about the program is that it allows kids to learn through playing. Aside from Make Believe Play/Centers, all of our small group activities are never longer than 15 minutes, and we have plenty of time for movement. Throughout the year, the kids are able to build up their self-regulation so that we can move on to more challenging activities, which change about four times a year.

While this program may not seem academic, this depends on the quality of your teacher. While we do not explicitly teach content in lessons (e.g. "Today we are learning how to rhyme; Today we are going to do a guided reading lesson), we embed the skills kids need to learn throughout the day (e.g. In the Bakery Center, we just made a shopping list for what the students needed to buy at the store; students helped to developmentally spell each item on their list). The effectiveness of this style of teaching largely depends on the teacher. If you have a great teacher, they can do this well. If the teacher isn't as great, it doesn't work as well.

In my opinion, though, one of the greatest things about the program is the relationships that the students are able to build with one another, and with their teachers. Students are allowed to be themselves, and are given the opportunity to play, which is what young children should be doing at this age. Their learning should be paced to where they are developmentally, and I think TOTM allows for this. I also know that I'm a great teacher (sorry, not trying to be pretentious) and I work well with TOTM, so understand my bias in evaluating the program.

I don't have experience in other models except for charter. I will say that if your charter does not have a curriculum or writes their own, PLEASE DO NOT SEND YOUR CHILD HERE. I worked in this type environment before coming to DCPS, and it was terrible for students and teachers. We were overworked, and had nothing cohesive to teach the students because the admin did not know how to support a non-existent curriculum. The exception might be Apple Tree. They have written their own curriculum, I've observed it in action, and it seems to work well for the students.

Oh, one more thing! Yes, TOTM was originally developed with low-income students in mind. This is most likely because of the correlation with low-SES status and low-levels of self-regulation. I believe that DCPS chose to use this curriculum in schools because about 75% of all DCPS schools are Title I schools (having 60% or more students below the poverty line). But this doesn't mean it doesn't benefit all children.

Here is the official website: http://www.toolsofthemind.org/

Also, I'm not proofreading, so sorry for any errors. :) 
[/quote]

This is so helpful, thank you![/quote]

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