I once had a student in preschool whom I will call Jimmy. Jimmy was tall taller than all the other students that were in class and he was very shy. All the teachers tried to get Jimmy to come into the room, but he started to cry and refused to come into the room. They sent me outside to see if I could help get him to come in the room. I went outside and saw his eyes filled with tears and he had a tight grip on his grandmother who was dropping him off. I introduced myself to him by saying hi. I then began to talk to his grandmother. Her and I had a great conversation about him. I thought that if he sees the way that his grandmother interacts with me, that would help his interaction with me. After a few days of talking with the grandmother Jimmy decided to come in. He was looking around and frighten. I understood why because this was the first time he was being left in school. His grandmother began to roll a ball to him and he rolled it back to her. I stood next to the grandmother and I rolled the ball to him and he rolled it back. The next day when he came into the class he rolled the ball to me more until he just rolled it to me and not his grandmother. He was still shy and afraid to play with the other children, but he was comfortable with me.
The next day he came in the class and came straight to me and left his grand mother at the door. He still would not participate with the other children in activities. So I said to him ” let’s play”. He came with me and we began to roll the ball to each other. I called another student over to me and asked him to stand by me. Jimmy was looking, but he kept rolling to ball me. He rolled it to me and I asked the other student to roll it back to him. After about five times of him rolling it back to him I asked Jimmy to roll it to the other student and he did. After that they began to roll the ball go each other while I was standing by. Jimmy began to sit at the table to eat during lunch with the other students. He would usually sit with me only, but now he sat with his classmates. As the days went by his shyness went away and he began to play with his class mates more and we found out that he had a love for coloring and that is one thing that brought his closer together to the rest of his class. He never experienced being away from people he was familiar with and that was stopping him from coming into the class room to learn. A few weeks went by and he was able to come in to the room by himself and play and interact with his teachers and classmates. When Jimmy become comfortable he was able to learn and we as teachers were able to find his interest in things he liked to do.
