Lessons from a Master Teacher

“Pretty soon, you will see their masterpieces,” said Yvonne Smith, master teacher of 30 years, whose reputation as a “child whisperer” had led me, more than a decade ago, to her classroom in New York’s East Harlem neighborhood. We stood looking at the freshly wet paintings, the first creations of the year by her four- and five-year-old students. I stared in disbelief at the sheets of mucky brown blobs and retorted, “These kids are a long way from making masterpieces.”

I was wrong.

In less than a month, every child in Yvonne’s classroom produced sophisticated works of artistic integrity. Children I thought were incapable of even cleaning their own brushes were rendering brilliant figurative and abstract expressions of landscapes, people, and experiences. They mixed colors with care, thought and vision, generating their own palettes to express the rich imagery of their thoughts.

How did Yvonne extract such talent from these tots? With modeling and coaching. She began by gathering the children in a circle the day after the “brown blobs” had been hung. She did not say a word. She sat cross-legged on the floor, her imposing figure, salt-and-pepper dreadlocks, and billowing bohemian skirt making her look like Mother Earth herself.

She laid in front of her the tools of the art process: brushes, water, sponge, mixing tray, containers of paint in primary colors. The children huddled in quiet expectation. Yvonne moved slowly and methodically as she placed her paints on her mixing tray. She held up her brush. She dipped it in yellow. She placed the yellow on her tray. She held up her brush again. The children tittered with nervous excitement but dared not move.

Yvonne dipped her brush in the water and swished it about. This water play captivated her students, and their excitement mounted, but still no one budged. Yvonne dried her brush and repeated the process with other colors, pausing for long moments to allow her students to absorb the lesson. As her yellow turned green, and then chartreuse, the children marveled. Yvonne was modeling.

Yvonne repeated this lesson several times in the following days, each time expanding it with increasingly advanced painting procedures. As children attempted her techniques, she encouraged them to take chances and to think for themselves. Yvonne was coaching.

By month’s end, the children not only cleaned their own brushes, but maintained the entire art center, its stock, order and use. Children who could not yet spell “art” exhibited a maturity of participation in this system that shocked me. This was not a gifted classroom. These were ordinary children from a range of socio-economic backgrounds.

And that is not all. By the end of the year, the children were managing their own classroom—a large, materials-rich series of learning centers focusing on math, science, reading, sculpture, craft, architecture and role-play. These young children managed it all, and even managed their own movements in and out of the classroom. All of this was a result of Yvonne’s modeling and coaching. She rarely spoke. She never raised her voice. And her classroom was the epitome of harmony and collaboration.

The experience in Ms. Yvonne’s classroom prompted me to devote the past decade to exploring the behaviors of children and the relationships they have with adults. I came to know and work with hundreds of children and families from every walk of life, and observed some universal patterns in child behavior and in the way parents respond to that behavior. Inspired by the practices of some visionary parents, I discovered a host of simple, straightforward strategies for achieving harmony in the parent-child relationship. It is the excitement of these discoveries and the promise of their untapped potential that has led me to share my findings with you.