Running Head: TEACHER

Book Review: Teacher

Dewi Blanco
Pacific Oaks College
HD 445: Writing Our Stories: Reflections on Literacy Development

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Book Review: Teacher

Teacher is a story told by Sylvia Ashton-Warner, it is her personal story of teaching

reading in a Maori school. She describes the way she connected with the children, and how she
helped them learn how to read and write by allowing and encouraging them to write their own
stories. She did this in an organic way, using the words that they wanted to use to tell their own
stories. Sprinkled in the lines of this book we also hear her opinions on violence, creativity and
consumerism. All these topics deeply reflected my own feelings about teaching and learning with
young children.
I appreciate the way that she explained teaching key vocabulary. She writes in detail
about the process she uses in connecting with the children and their own stories. I have used this
method in the past with children from 3 to 5 years of age. My last group of children, I had one
child who always dictated stories about an excavator, this became his first word, whenever he
drew a picture of an excavator, which was often, I would encourage him to write the title of it
himself, soon it became a word he owned. There was much pride in writing it for this 4 year old.
The way I use this method of key vocabulary is different in many ways from the way she used it,
my children are much younger, but the idea is the same. Reach them with the stories that they
want to read and write. Learn to speak and understand their language.
There were some deeper topics she wrote about that were very interesting to me. Violent
play is a type of play that we experience in classrooms often. Sylvia says in the book I have
always been more afraid of the weapon unspoken than of the one on a blackboard. (AshtonWarner, 1963, p. 94) In different schools that I have worked in the policy is different. I have
been at a place where we would say we dont play with guns at school, however even though
the idea was not to have guns at school, guns and swords would still come up in their play. We

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were just not talking about it, we just tried to shut it down. Where I work now we give the
children the space to play these violent games, to tell their spooky stories, but we also open up
the space to conversation about them. We ask questions to maintain safety while they play.
What happens in this game? Who will do the chasing? Who will be chased? What happens if this
person gets caught? If a person doesnt want to get killed, what can they do? Does someone have
to get killed in this game? How will you know if everyone is safe in real life while playing this
pretend game? We also ask them to plan out their game, who is in each character, what will
happen next, even encourage them to illustrate their ideas and perhaps turn them into a book.
Sylvia said this in reference to the child who writes violent books, He can create bombs if he
likes or draw my house in flame, but it is the creative vent that is widening all the time and the
destructive one atrophying (Ashton-Warner, 1963, p. 94).
In speaking about the choice of books and about choosing to use their own books as
reading material, the question of content comes up. The books that they are writing are a
reflection of their lives, with fighting and kissing. She says The distance between the content of
their minds, however, and the content of our reading books is nothing less than frightening [] I
see the respectable happy reading book placed like a lid upon all this ignoring, hiding and
suppressing it (Ashton-Warner, 1963, p. 69) These self-written books for them are the way to
process the information that is coming their way in their lives. Later on when addressing
creativity she says To write peaceful reading books and put them in an infant room is not the
way to peace [] There is only one answer to destructiveness and that is creativity. (AshtonWarner, 1963, p. 96) In connection to this I had a conversation with one of my coworkers about
the books that we are reading regularly in the classrooms. He said that all our books end in a
solution to the problem, everyone ends up happy together, and mentioned what about when the

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solutions dont come as easily. This is something to think about, we are reading books that are
written by adults, these books might not reflect the experiences the children are having.
I was a bit bothered by the easy expression of how she smoked and all the children and
people were aware of this, then I remembered this was the 1960s and the ideas were different
then. What I did understand was how the drinking and smoking brought them together, it is a
completely different idea from what I would expect now, but I love how she says when i teach
people I marry them [] to do what I wanted them to do they had a need to be like me [] They
had to be a part of me (Ashton-Warner, 1963, p. 209). She was talking about starting the
orchestra at this time, I do think that this is true in a relationship with students and families. We
have to be together as a unit in order to understand and want to learn from each other. My coteacher often says that there is no way to get a child to listen to you if they dont like or know
you, first we must establish a relationship in order to become a unit of learners.
There are many quotes about consumerism and how it ruins creativity. We are
bombarded to become the same. She mentions these toys that are shiny and new, and how there
is no need to try and create, The vast expanses of the mind that could have been alive with
creative activity are now no more than empty vaults (Ashton-Warner, 1963, p. 97) I can relate
to that in the times we are in now, how most of the children as they are coming in to preschool
already own an ipad and are used to sitting idly in a space keeping their minds busy. I wonder
how this continues to affect the childrens ability to use their creativity and think outside of the
information given to them and find solutions to their challenges.

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References

Ashton-Warner, S. (1963). Teacher. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, Inc.