Parents, teachers and caregivers were singing, clapping and dancing with Jill Gill, keynote speaker/singer at Saturday’s 11th annual symposium sponsored by Oak Park’s Collaboration for Early Childhood Care and Education.
More than 400 adults were able to speak with professionals on how to be more interactive in the classroom during the event held at Oak Park’s Percy Julian Middle School.
Gill, 44, led the hour-long presentation on how important it is for teachers to be more active with their class through song and play in order to teach them more than just shapes and colors. This year’s event was co-sponsored by District 97, the Oak Park-River Forest Community Foundation Communityworks Partnership, the Oak Park Public Library and Whole Foods.
Gill demonstrated songs and games that adults can take back to the classroom, including his famous “soup opera” in addition to renditions of classical works that teach body parts.
For 30 years, Gill has been preaching through performing that it’s important for kids to first see adults engage in play before they participate.
“The question I’ve been asked by people is what are you teaching them,” he said, “but the real question should be, ‘How are you helping children learn?'”
Gill graduated from the Erikson Institute in Chicago with a master’s in child development and has won five awards from the American Library Association. When kids engage in play, he said, they continue to be excited about learning.
“When I was leading play groups in college, music was the way to get adults and kids to play together.”
As for that child who doesn’t participate with the rest of the group, Gill insists on not forcing the child.
“Never make anyone do what they don’t want to do. There is not only one way to play. Kids get obstinate when you make them do something specific,” he said, advising parents to be more active with their children and not to let them watch TV to learn their shapes and numbers. “TV only teaches more TV,” he said.
Books and games and participation from adults are all essential for school success.
“In early childhood, you can’t separate the curriculum from us,” he said. “We are the curriculum.