Journal #3

Interview with Dossie Katz

In my interview with Dossie Katz, a fellow toddler teacher at Manhattan Day School, she said to me that, "Patience is the most important skill to exercise when working in early childhood education." We discussed how children tend to exhibit many challenging behaviors in the classroom however the key to maintaining order and calm is to practice exercising the skill of patience. As an educator Dossie feels that it is extremely important to promote happiness and encouragement for all of her students. 

We also discussed how ignorant people will often make comments about how early childhood education is "just babysitting," and how irritated this comment makes us! Dossie explained that she feels that her responsibility as a toddler teacher is to impart many life skill lessons to her students. She teaches them how to conduct themselves within a classroom and among their peers. Furthermore, she feels that she gives her students a foundation in math, literacy, and creative expression that sets the stage for their future educational experiences. 

Dossie's curriculum is heavily based on the Jewish weekly Torah portions and holidays. She makes an effort to always include sensory, math, literacy and art elements in a creative way into her weekly lesson plans. However, Dossie does find that she often needs to make modifications in her lesson plans for some of the children. For example, one student this year is almost a full year older than other students and Dossie finds that she often has to come up with additional enrichment activities for the student. Additionally, Dossie has two students this year who are receiving speech therapy and in working with their therapists, Dossie is learning to use additional visual aids to assist these students.

Dossie is a very dedicated teacher, always putting the needs of her students first. I greatly enjoyed interviewing her and I feel that there is a lot I can learn from such a thoughtful and creative teacher.