TEACHER'S CORNER: TEACHER KEEPS STUDENTS' HANDS BUSY

JACKSON -- The busier the little hands are in Janice Friedrich's second-grade classroom, the happier she is.

Friedrich is a first year teacher at Immaculate Conception School. She believes busy hands lead to enriched minds for students.

"I feel that it is important for the children to explore and make discoveries on their own," she said. "All too often we tell our children what to do, think and say."

By allowing this to happen, she added, people fail in their responsibility to teach children how to reason and make decisions.

Children must be able to reason and practice making responsible choices if they are to develop socially and academically, said Friedrich. She helps her students develop these skills by selecting how they will use their free time and what to write about in their personal journals. She also uses a math program that allows students to explore several different math functions.

"This allows them to think and discover on their own," she said. "It is truly amazing to see what the children come up with."

To assist students in social development, Friedrich's students have King and Queen for the Day. This program, which uplifts self-esteem by singling a student out for attention, also furthers educational concepts.

For example, students have to unscramble the child's name and talk about the letters and sounds they make. They interview the selected child about favorite color, food, pet, etc., and later sing a song called "Do You Know This Friend of Mine?".

"Afterwards, each child writes and illustrates a page that is put together into a book that the king or queen gets to keep in honor of their special day," Friedrich said.

More than any other goal, Friedrich said she hopes she is giving students positive reinforcement on a daily basis. As a student, she said she often was told what she wasn't good at, but received little encouragement towards setting and reaching goals.

"At the conclusion of each day I have a sense of fulfillment that comes with an awareness that I have made use of another opportunity to reach out in a positive manner," she said. "In that way, I'm contributing to the inner development and self-confidence of the young children in my care."

Friedrich is married and has a daughter who is a first-grader. She is certified to teach grades one through six, learning disabled and behavior disordered children in grades one through 12, and will soon achieve certification in early childhood special education.