Bill English striking a blow against children in New Zealand.

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.

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?

Pipis Preschool

As some of you will know I really want to open my own preschool one day. In order to do that I need to learn how to run one. That’s one of the opportunities my new job is offering me. Plus my new centre is a smaller with only 25 children a day instead of up to 75 at Lollipops. I like the smaller more homely feel. At times Lollipops seemed way to much like a business. Don’t get me wrong a preschool is a business and needs to be run like one if you want to keep it open, but that doesn’t mean that it needs to feel or even look like it to the teachers, parents and children.

Today, I started my new job at Pipi’s Preschool. I actually worked at Pipi’s for 3 weeks earlier in the year while doing a teaching practice for University. I enjoyed it so much I decided to move. That being said Pipi’s also needs a lot of work. The staff are great but things aren’t running the best in my eyes.

Of course, things can change and my views of what is optimal will change as well. I’m just looking forward to learning a lot and pushing myself into more of a leadership role at my new centre.