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?
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!
Almost everyday I see a teacher or parent get angry or frustrated at a child because ‘they don’t listen’. Most of the time it’s not the children who aren’t listening, it’s the adults.
Too often adults get frustrated when they ask a child ‘Can you put away your toys please?’ and the child answers ‘No’. Then the child gets frustrated when they get in trouble for not listening. They did listen and they answered the question, you just didn’t like the answer.
Adults seemed to forget the difference between a question/request and an order/command. If the child doesn’t have a choice then don’t offer them one.
Using the above example, it would be much better to say ‘Jimmy, it’s time to put your toys away now, thank you.’ Notice how it is directed at the child (using their name), firm and to the point yet still polite. Make sure to use thank you instead of please at the end. Please infers a request, while thank you gives praise for an action that is going to be done.
If you’re still having trouble with the child, try giving extra praise right after the order. For example ‘Sara, it’s time to go to bed now thank you. You’ve been such a good listener today I’m so proud of you. I think you deserve a special story tonight!’ The more praise you give them before they follow out the order the more pressure they feel to complete that order to deserve the praise they have been given.
I recently wrote about the importance of rewarding participation over knowledge within a classroom. I discussed how by doing this it helps everyone in the class learn more.
Today, I was thinking more about why we are so afraid of making mistakes or being seen doing the wrong thing? Society today puts far too much importance on being right, on not making mistakes. A mistake can cost you a job. A mistake can lead to disgrace or humility. A mistake can imply you are stupid!
But in reality how does one be an innovator or learn by ones self without making mistakes? Far too often I have children come up to me in class and ask me to do something for them. Can you draw me a picture of a cat? Can you build me a tower out of blocks? This scares the shit out of me! Why? Because our teaching is killing their creativity! They have already learnt that mistakes are bad and that things that look different are bad within our society. They want their picture of a cat to look like what society tells them it should look like. They’ve already decided what they aren’t. They’ve already decided what they can’t do. Or is it us as teachers and us as a society who has decided that for them?
This is exactly the opposite of what we as teachers should be striving for. I want my kids (the ones in my class) to have the whole world open in front of them. For them to have the confidence to do want ever they want to. To be true to their dreams and believe that they can accomplish anything.
Happily it seems I’m not the only one that believes this. Below is an amazing talk I stumbled across while surfing today that covers exactly how I have been feeling. It’s about 18 minutes long and well worth a watch for all parents, educators and students.
Historical Influences on Assessment Within New Zealand
Since the late 1980’s, many historical events have influenced the way we as educators assess the children in our New Zealand early childhood centres. In this essay, I will highlight three such influences and discuss how they have affected the assessment of children in early childhood centres to the present day. The historical events I will examine are the publication of three government documents; ‘Te Whāriki He Whāriki Mātauranga mō ngā Mokopuna o Aotearoa Early Childhood Curriculum’, ‘Kei Tau o te Pae Assessment for learning: Early Childhood Exemplars’ and ‘Revised Statement of Desirable Objectives and Practices’. I will discuss the theories behind these documents and how they differed from what was previously being used in centres as well as some major ways in which they impacted on the role of assessment.
The introduction of Te Whāriki in 1996 greatly influenced assessment as we know it in the present day. Before it was released as New Zealand’s early childhood curriculum, assessment focused around Piaget’s developmental views that development precedes learning. This meant a discontinuous development model where children would be grouped into different developmental stages by age (Berk, 2003). Educators would test children’s abilities and check them off a predetermined list for their age group. Any tasks that the children were unable to complete to the predetermined standard were highlighted as areas that needed to be improved and worked on. This lead to an assessment process of ‘deficit value’. Te Whāriki on the other hand is more influenced by Vygotsky’s developmental views that learning precedes development.This results in a continuous development model where each child is looked at individually and their learning is scaffolded by a more knowledgeable other (Berk, 2003). In other words, educators work closely with children in areas that interest them, always trying to help the child take the next step towards being more competent. This leads to an assessment process of credit value. This can be seen in how Te Whāriki defines assessment; “The process of obtaining and interpreting information that describes a child’s achievements and competence. The purpose of assessment is to provide pertinent information to contribute and improve learning opportunities for children. (MOE, 1996, p.99) and else where states “assessment of children’s learning and development involves intelligent observation of the children by experienced and knowledgeable adults” (MOE, 1996, p.29).
Te Whāriki was also built around the ecological systems theory of Bronfenbrenner. Bronfenbrenner’s theory suggests that the environment a child grows up in will impact on their development, therefore said child’s whole environment must be taken into consideration while being assessed (Berk, 2003). Unfortunately, educators were confused on how best to document this environmental impact as well as the minute by minute assessment of children which Te Whāriki supports; “assessment occurs minute by minute as adults listen, watch, and interact with an individual child or with groups of children.” (MOE, 1996, p,29). To help, the Ministry of Education later released a set of books Kei Tua o te Pae Assessment for learning: Early Childhood Exemplars in 2005. “Kei Tua o te Pae will help teachers to develop practices that integrate assessment and quality learning experiences and to engage with children, parents and whānau about children’s learning and progress” (MOE, 2004, Book 1, p.15). These exemplars showed a new approach of documenting assessment in a narrative form through learning stories. Learning stories reflect and protect the quality and complexity of learning by using a narrative approach (Carr, 2001). This meant that educators could now assess children’s development based on their relationships with people, places and things within the child’s environment (Carr, 2006), thus supporting Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory. It also showed the use of multiple perspectives from educators, caregivers and the child themselves within the learning stories, further showing its dedication to involve as many aspects of the child’s environment as possible during assessment. Long gone were the assessments involving forms full of check-boxes that only looked at the abilities of the child rather than at the child as a whole including their ecological system.
The Desirable Objectives and Practices (DOPs) were first introduced in 1990. They were put in place to enforce standards among chartered early childhood services within New Zealand. These standards were used to show educators what is expected of them and their centres. This document was then revised in 1996 to link closely with the newly published Te Whāriki resulting in the Revised Statement of Desirable Objectives and Practices (DOPs). The importance behind this is that while it is not mandatory for all chartered New Zealand early childhood centres to follow Te Whāriki, it is for them to follow DOPs. This was a clever government work around to help ensure that Te Whāriki would start being used in centres as soon as possible, as it is much quicker and easier for a government to edit a previous mandatory document than it is to introduce and pass legislation on a new one. DOPs’ close ties to Te Whāriki and the Vygotskian developmental theory of a continuous development model can be seen in the following exert, “identify learning goals for individual children, and use this information as a basis for planning, evaluating and improving curriculum programmes” (MOE, 1998). It also ties in with Kei Tua o te Pae and it’s exemplars of learning stories that incorporate relationships with people, places and things; “Educators should implement curriculum and assessment practices which reflect the reciprocal relationships between the child, people and the learning environment” (MOE, 1998), as well as with the introduction of multiple perspectives; “Management and educators of chartered early childhood services, in partnership with parents/guardians and whānau, will promote and extend the learning and development of each child” (MOE, 1998).
In conclusion we can see how the documents; Te Whāriki, Kei Tau o te Pae and DOPs, have been linked together to allow a relatively swift transformation in the way assessment is carried out within New Zealand early childhood centres in the present day. Introducing new developmental theories by Vygotsky and Bronfenbrenner to help push assessment towards focusing on the achievements of the whole child and their place within, and interactions with people, places and things in their environment. Providing a good guideline on how assessment can be done while leaving it open enough to allow for individual centres’ philosophies and environmental impacts to be taken into consideration. I doubt assessment would be as it is today if any of these three documents had not be published to help support the other two.
References
Berk, L., (2003). Child Development. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Carr, M. (2001). Assessment in early childhood settings. Learning stories. London: Paul Chapman Publishing.
Carr, M. (2006). Learning dispositions and key competencies: A new curriculum continuity across the sectors? Early Childhood Folio, 10: 2006, 21-26.
Ministry of Education. (1996). Te Whāriki: Early Childhood curriculum. Wellington: Learning Media.
Ministry of Education (1998). Quality in Action; Te mahi whai hua. Wellington: Learning media.
Ministry of Education. (2004). Kei Tua o te Pae. Assessment for learning: early Childhood Exemplars. Wellington: Learning Media.
It’s school holidays here in New Zealand, but pre-schools are still open. That means it’s work as usual for me, well kind of. We are putting on different special events every day to give the children a treat. Tuesday was Dress Up Day, all the kids got to dress up in their favourite costumes. As you can expect we had a lot of princesses and Bob the Builders.
I decided to join in with the fun, so I got dress up as well. I dressed up as a pig. I used my brother’s pink Puma track suit, Shen you’ll have to enlighten us all on how you became in possession of a pink Puma Track Suit. I also cut up an old egg carton for the nose and a box for the ears. Ivy made me an adorable little piggy tail out of some old fabric she had lying around.
We’ve got some more cool days coming up like, Bike Day, Disco Day and PJ and DVD Day. Should be a fun 2 weeks.
To help bring in new children to Lollipops we held an Open House on Saturday. This let parents bring their children into our center and have a look around. They get to see the classrooms, resources etc. and also meet us the teachers. Well they got to meet the other teachers, not me.
The reason they didn’t get to meet me was because I was dressed up like a giant cat (Lollipops the Cat) standing on the street corner directing traffic. To my surprise, I actually had a great time doing it. With the full face mask it’s not like anyone could see who I was, so I went wild. I was raising the roof, doing the running man, air guitar, blowing kisses and waving. I got heaps of honks and waves from passer byes. It was a shit load of fun.
Came across a site call Fliggo which lets you set up your very own video sharing website, kind of like Youtube. Of course I had to give it a go, so I made a site called Songs for Kids. I intend the site to be used for sharing songs that you can sing with your kids, be it at home or at kindergarten etc.
Right now I have one video of me singing a song Look in the Book Bag, so if you’ve got kids, work in early childhood education or just want a bit of a laugh, then check it out. Also, feel free to join my site and share your videos of songs for kids!
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!