Guns in Early Childhood Education

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?

Listen to me!

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.

Which bits are the important ones?

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.

Assessment Happens Minute to Minute

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.

Piggy Piggy

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.

Dressed Up

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.

Songs For Kids

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!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Airdmhor Montessori Front Door

Teacher’s College has started up again, so I’m back in to Uni on Wednesdays. We had our first day last week and were told we would be going on teaching practice (TP) this week. Not much notice for me to tell my pre-school that I would be away for the next two weeks on TP.

For those of you not in the know. I am in my final year of a Graduate Diploma in Early Childhood Education. I’m studying at Canterbury University in their College of Education via their Centre Based route. This allows me to work four days a week at a pre-school and come in to Uni one day a week to study. You are actually only required to do 16 hours of work a week, but I have bills to pay so I do the full 32 hours plus whatever shifts I’m needed at the liquor store.

Anywho, twice a year I am required to go on TP at another centre. This is a great opportunity to observe and learn how other centres work and stimulate learning among their children. In other words a great time to steal others ideas to use in your own centre. The problem with this is you don’t get paid while on TP. So that leaves me out of pocket for two weeks now and three weeks at the end of the year.

Airdmhor Montessori Outside

So, I have been on TP for the last week at the Airmhor Montessori. This is the first time I have worked at a Montessori school and I am really enjoying it. This particular Montessori has moved with the times and adapted there policies to be more up to date with todays early childhood teaching strategies. This has made them less strict with the children allowing more self exploration learning through free play while still providing wonderful structured learning activities. Resulting in some truly magnificent children who respect their environment and others within it, are academically ahead of their peers. All the while having a fun time and enjoying their childhood.

Working in Kindergartens in Taiwan I was amazed at how much the children were academically learning, but also upset with the lack of social interaction that was taking place. Most kids enjoyed the classes while there attention could be held, but often got over tired or upset with not being able to focus more on what they personally enjoyed. Resulting in incredibly academically smart children who were happy at the beginning of the session but turned into robots with in an hour or so, only to spark back into life when a particular subject they were truly interested in would be discussed. This allowed the kids to learn great amounts of knowledge through rote learning, but quite often the children found it hard to adapt that knowledge to solve real life problems.

Airdmhor Montessori Classroom

After returning to New Zealand and working in pre-schools here I found the tables had been completely switched. Children were encouraged to learn through free play while the teachers were almost completely taken out of the picture and only used as observers and guidance. These kids have a fun time, but seem to be quite often under stimulated. They are still learning basic academic skills through play like maths through blocks and pattern matching games etc. But teachers seem almost scared to help push them to the next level. Afraid to use real academic strategies in fear that it won’t be fun for the children. I have noticed this almost unlimited freedom seems to result in a lot of behavioral problems with in the classrooms.

I could see the benefits of both cultures education systems, but believe neither were offering a balanced one. That is why my goal is to open my own centre and work towards offering children a balance learning opportunity. Thanks to Airdmhor Montessori my minds picture of how that center will operate is much clearer now.

Water Slide

It’s super hot here, so we are going to sit inside and watch Ice Age 2 to cool down a bit. Might run the hose down the slide this afternoon and go nuts with the kids.

Face Painting

Today we had our annual Christmas Party for the children at the Pre-School where I work. The day didn’t start off to well. We opened the center to start setting up for the festivities, only to find that one of the class guinea pigs had died over night. The poor one that was still alive was head butting the dead one trying to wake it up. So we quickly cleaned that up before the kids started to arrive.

Once everyone was there the party was going great. We had an Ice Cream Truck for the kids and a Coffee Truck for the parents. Dawn the center cook had the BBQ going full bore supplying the masses with sausages and candy floss, while teachers were painting faces, talking to parents and playing with the children. There was also a parent their, who has a bunch of ponies, giving the children pony rides.

Pony Rides

After a couple of hours of playing and eating. Santa made an appearance. He did the rounds shaking hands and scaring babies before sitting down and handing out presents and candy canes to all the children. As you’d imagine the kids loved Santa and he had their full attention for a good half an hour. This gave the teachers and parents time to sit back and relax a bit.

Santa!

All in all a great day!

Click here to view the embedded video.