I have been thinking a lot about how my co- teacher and I say no to the things children do at school. An example is: Children want to wear slippers to the bathroom even though they could just wear their shoes. Another is, children wanting to change their shirt, even though they are not wet. I am starting to see more often there is learning behind almost everything children do, therefore, responding to everything with a limit and rule is suppressing "schemas" in a way. Of course we can respond to the above examples with, "Sorry I don't have time to help all ten of u change into a new shirt, and if you wear this shirt it will be more washing for jie jie, and it might get paint on it. If you can change shoes or clothes independently then fine." Haha, but I think as much as we can we should stop saying, noooo. Here is an excellent link to a blog on schemas.
http://thanetearlyyearsproject.blogspot.com/Schemas
