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My Earliest Memory

September 3rd, 2010 Filed under: Life

Falling off my Bike

Falling off my Bike

One of my earliest memories is falling off my bike. It was a hot summer’s day, I was living in Calgary at the time so I must have been 4 or 5 years old. There was a little corner store down an ally out the back of my house. I was biking there to buy myself a Texas Donut and a pack of Transformers Sickers for my sticker book.

I remember trying to act cool becuase my friend was with me. I was biking erratically moving my handle bars left and right really fast. Well, during one of the movements I pushed a little to far and the front wheel jack knifed causing the bike to flip and for me to go flying over the handle bars and skid across the allyway on my tummy. My shirt had come up during the fall so my tummy was scrapping directly on the pavement. I got a huge graize. I remember running home to mum crying and and having to lay on my back in pain while she picked little pebbles out of my tummy.

Good times.


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My First Job – Chip Boy

September 3rd, 2010 Filed under: Life, Work

Fish and Chips

Fish and Chips

My first real job was working at a Fish and Chip shop with my best friend Kalama. It was really only a job for 1 person, but Kalama and I talked the guy into hiring us both. We were the chip boys, which meant we would peal and cut up all the potatoes to make the chips.

Machines did most of the work. We had to; carry 20 kg bags of potatoes from storage to the back room, tip the bags into a pealer, empty the pealer and cut off and crappy bits before shoving them into a chopper.

We got paid $1 per bag and we would do between 4 – 6 bags after school every day. It took about 40 mins every day.

The pay was bad. We always stunk of fish and lard. But I got to work with my best friend and get pretty much all the free fish and chips I wanted, so I remember it fondly.


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2010 NZ Budget Kills Quality Early Childhood Centres

May 21st, 2010 Filed under: Life, Pre-School, Rants, Work | Tags: , , , , ,

Bill English striking a blow against children in New Zealand.

Bill English striking a blow against children in New Zealand.

Well it’s the 20th of May 2010 and the National government has released their 2010 Budget. As an Early Childhood Educator there was one major change to the budget that has really stood out to me. The decision to remove the incentive funding for Early Childhood Centres to have 100% qualified teachers.

As it stands now Centres get different amounts funding from the government depending on the percentage of (ratio-ed) staff they have that are qualified and registered Early Childhood Education teachers. So if you have 80% qualified teachers you get so much funding, if you have 100% then you get more. That extra money goes to classroom materials and staff wages, as you can imagine a qualified teacher gets paid more than an unqualified one.

Now the new 2010 budget changes this by removing the 100% incentive. Therefore to get the new maximum funding (equivalent to the old 80% incentive) a centre is only required to have 80% qualified teachers. Now, just think about this for a minute. This is some scary shit. Let me break it down for you.

Early Childhood Centres are businesses just like any other. They need to watch their bottom line. They need to make a profit, some are under more pressure than others (you know the ones… the big name ones on every corner who have stockholders). In order for a centre that currently employs 100% qualified teachers to stay at the same level of profit they do now under the new budget they have two options.

One, fire 20% of their qualified staff and hire people with no experience who will work for minimum wage. This of course results in a weaker education system for your young children. With no incentive for uneducated staff to study. In fact incentive for them not to study as it might just lead to their unemployment.

Two, increase the cost of sending a child to their centre. Labour’s education spokesman, Trevor Mallard, said the $100 million shortfall in ECE funding amounted to about $25 a week per parent. That’s a lot, more than your probably going to be getting in tax cuts!

This is where it starts to get really scary. Once all the Centres go down one of these two paths that leaves parents with a choice, a choice many of them have no real say in. Send your child to an expensive Centre where the teachers are all qualified and know how to professionally deal with your child’s needs during their most important and influential learning period, 0 to 5 years old. Or send them to a cheaper Centre where 80% qualified teachers is enough and hope your kid doesn’t fall through the cracks somewhere along the line.

Of course parents and whānau that live in lower socio-economic areas aren’t really going to have a choice are they? Which leads to yet another way to increase the gap between the haves and the have-nots. That’s right National, make sure that even if your under 5 years old, if you don’t have the money you don’t deserve the same level of education as people who do.

Scared yet? I am.

Show Comments (2)
  1. 1 Ki said at 2:06 am on May 21st, 2010:

    Notice how this is posted at 1 am. This has me so upset I couldn’t sleep until I vented by writing it down.

  2. 2 Rick said at 8:25 am on May 21st, 2010:

    Excellent analysis Ki. National is all about inequality. Also, notice on the news last night, the analysis of the amount of the money the tax cuts were going to save you stopped when they got down to $40,000 salary (there were no examples of how it effected those who earned less than this – just a throw-away comment that those on the benefit and pension would have an increase to equal the 2.5% increase in GST). As the price of oil goes up and the world financial troubles continue, this budget will help NZ stay in the recession as a large majority of people will become poorer.

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Guns in Early Childhood Centres

February 16th, 2010 Filed under: Pre-School, Rants, Work | Tags: , , ,

Guns in Early Childhood Education

Guns in Early Childhood Education

Currently my centre has a No Gun policy. They don’t allow toy guns and we are meant to tell the kids that guns are not allowed at pre-school if we see them pretending they have one.

This in my mind is stupid.

First of all, trust me when I say that I’m no gun activist. In fact, I’m completely against guns being used against human beings. But that being said I sure as hell played with water pistols when I was a child and I even had a BB Gun when I was in high school. I have fond memories of my friends all going down to the local primary school with our BB Guns and glasses and having wars late into the night. I still enjoy the odd paintball game now a days. This didn’t make me into a crazed killer. This was just a part of my boyhood.

Second, aren’t we meant to be working with the children’s interests? The kids at my centre are very interested in guns. Wouldn’t it be awesome to do a project on guns. Learn about the different types of guns. Learn what guns are used for? Learn about how to safely use guns. Learn about gun licenses? Make some gun licenses? Teach them what to do if they ever find a real gun? To me this sounds like a great idea, but I’ve had some pretty horrible “great” ideas in my life time. But then again what’s the alternative? Make guns, which are seen by kids everyday in their cartoons and stories, a taboo subject. Just pretend they don’t exist?

What’s your thoughts on toy guns at centres? Would you allow them at your child’s centre? If so, why and what rules would you expect to come with them? Would you forbid them? If so, why and how would you stop a child from pretending a stick is a gun?

Show Comments (3)
  1. 1 Barbara said at 10:18 am on February 20th, 2010:

    Well, Ki, I believe your blog is very significant and you have valid thought and opinions. I must say, as an educator for more than ten years, I have always worked at child care centers where there is a no guns policy. No weapons period. That meant even if they made swords. The thing is is that as early educators, we have to think of the generalization of our children. What separates them from learning what is right from wrong at school and at home. We never know what is being taught at home about guns in general. Some parents have no problem with it and others may be totally against it. We don’t want to offend the parents that are totally against weapons. And we also want to let the parents know that they are the primary teacher of their children in that aspect. Kind of like religion as well. Which is why a lot of day care centers either don’t celebrate any holidays or celebrate them all.
    But what I want to focus on is the point you made about working with the children’s interests. And you are so absolutely correct!!! This is something that educators tend to loose track of when it comes to sensitive issues like weapons. Of course if all the children were interested in dinosaurs, educators will go all out to create a extensive theme on dinosaurs and get extravagant… but not with weapons like guns. I could go on and on. Especially with this society and the views that it puts out there… For example, with police officers. Society tends to make it seems like police officers are bad and send a message to children that they are there to take you to jail if you’re bad, and child care centers work so hard to change their mind set from society that police officers are good and are there to protect and serve. Which is very true… and what we should think about police officers regardless of what children see and hear…
    Guns and weapons are very taboo in the child care world. And educators have made it that way. There are many reasons why and why not. And we could go around in circles forever. I would say, that if it’s the child’s interest, especially if the curriculum you are using is child-centered, and it’s ok by the parents, if I were a director of a center, I would allow a thematic unit on guns.
    I appreciate your feedback and will keep it in mind as I continue in my career in ECE. Thank you!

  2. 2 jim kassiones said at 11:30 am on March 20th, 2010:

    The kids,I believe, are interested in toy guns,not real guns. When I was in Grade 6 our class learned how to handle a rifle, how to check to see if it was loaded and while at a rifle range how to shoot a rifle. We were sufficiently mature enough to learn these lessons. I believe it was wise because a lot of our parents had rifles at home which we had the potential to come into contact with.
    I’m still glad I learned to safely handle a rifle. I don’t know if you could properly teach a child how to safely check that a rifle is unloaded and safe to handle without using a real one for the instruction.

  3. 3 Tom O'Carroll said at 6:42 pm on May 26th, 2010:

    I agree about following children’s interests.
    As a young boy I played war games, cowboys and indians, and more. We fashioned up guns out of anything we could find. My father did not believe in guns but was happy as long as we never pointed our guns at anyone’s face.

    My experience in a centre has shown me that a no gun policy will not stop a disposition to explore guns in dramatic play. There is science, construction, drama, exploring the concept of death, not to mention physical play involved in guns.

    I have outgrown guns and have moved on to new interests. I am sure most of the young children we support will do the same

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Men Changing Nappies

January 22nd, 2010 Filed under: Pre-School, Work | Tags: , , ,

Does this image disturb you? Why?

Nappies are just another part of the job description when working as an early childhood educator in New Zealand. Unless you happen to be a man that is. For some reason, being of the male persuasion leads to all sorts of awkward questions during interviews when it comes to the nappy changing policies. Are you comfortable changing nappies? What’s your stance on nappies? How do you feel about changing soiled children? Of course, these questions are usually followed up with some sort of polite statement roughly translated to “We know this is a non-issue now a days, but we feel like we have to ask”.

You’re right, in this day and age it is a non-issue, but you asking is making it an issue, isn’t it? For me personally, I have no problem doing nappies and believe that it comes with the job. I would be happy if I was just expected to do it and no one batted an eye or suggested otherwise. I mean, it seems to me that the only way it’s going to really become a non-issue is if that’s how we treat it.

But instead, I feel pressured into giving the centre permission to ask the parents if it’s alright with them if all staff (including the new guy we just hired) changes nappies, soiled clothes etc. It seems like the easy way out. The company gets to cover itself.

I wonder if there will ever be a time when I start at a new centre and this isn’t brought up. Or a time when if a parent does have a problem with me changing their child’s nappies, management will tell them that I’m an employee like any other and to get over it rather than awkwardly asking me to not to change little Susie’s nappies anymore.

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  1. 1 Tom O'Carroll said at 6:53 pm on May 26th, 2010:

    I am about to write a presentation about warm physical contact and hugs with infants and toddlers from a male perspective. I discovered this blog by searching for an image that may or may not disturb a proportion of our society, that is a man caring for a baby.
    You are correct, nappy changing is just another part of the job that males are very capable of doing (smells and all). I believe that the person who should judge whether you cut the mustard with nappy changing is the young child who is very comfortable with the scenario. I have had professional experience with nappy changing, but for the reasons that have been mentioned, I intend to work with kindergarten aged children. I appreciate the honest and reflective blog post.

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Dinosaur Jr. – Farm

January 17th, 2010 Filed under: Music, Reviews | Tags: ,
Dinosaur Jr. - Farm

Dinosaur Jr. - Farm


1. Pieces ★★★★☆
2. I Want You to Know ★★★☆☆
3. Ocean in the Way ★★★☆☆
4. Plans ★★★☆☆
5. Your Weather ★★★☆☆
6. Over It ★★★★☆
7. Friends ★★★☆☆
8. Said the People ★★★☆☆
9. There’s No Here ★★★☆☆
10. See You ★★★★☆
11. I Don’t Wanna Go There ★★★☆☆
12. Imagination Blind ★★★☆☆

Overall: ★★★½☆


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The Antlers – Hospice

January 17th, 2010 Filed under: Music, Reviews | Tags:
The Antlers - Hospice

The Antlers - Hospice


1. Prologue ★★★★☆
2. Kettering ★★★★★
3. Sylvia ★★★★☆
4. Atrophy ★★★★☆
5. Bear ★★★★★
6. Thirteen ★★★★☆
7. Two ★★★★★
8. Shiva ★★★★★
9. Wake ★★★★☆
10. Epilogue ★★★★☆

Overall: ★★★★½

I really wanted to get away with just rating albums with stars and not having any written description. Mainly because I don’t really have the writing skills to differentiate in words how one album or track makes me feel compared to another.

Unfortunately for me, this album does require a description. This is an album that needs to be listened to in its entirety in one sitting. You also need to be really focusing on the music to get the most out of it. The ten tracks tell a story of a relationship with a terminally ill child. With tracks made up from hospital scenery, snippets of conversations with doctors, terrifying dreams, and prayers. They take you on a emotional trip through guilt, duty, mortality, and hope in the face of hopelessness.

As overly depressing as all this sounds, the album is surprisingly uplifting. Make no mistake, you will feel the emotional strain that singer Peter Silberman is going through, but by the end you will see that even in our darkest moments there is unfathomable beauty.


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