Second Teachers' Day and what's more

It is my second Teachers' Day and that means .... I've survived another year! Beyond the presents, it is the recognition and appreciation that matters. Well, I am thrilled to know that there will be an additional half day centre closure starting next year and centres are encouraged to give the day off on Teachers' Day, now that's the perfect way to celebrate! (Source: ECDA).

1st of October will forever be a special day for me. I got engaged in the morning and I went to the ECDA conference to support our centre/booth for attaining Outstanding Teaching and Learning Award 2016. It is a sweet taste of glory and culmination of all our hard work. As what my leader said to us, "This award is not about perfection, but rather, a continued commitment to excellence. We will keep learning and working hard at becoming better early childhood professionals, improve our programmes for children, and foster trusting relationships with families." I really really love the way she puts it, I am inspired and energized for the journey ahead. And, I produced a quote, it's on a bookmark, awesome!

Quickie

I was reflecting on the professional development courses that I’ve attained since my first day of work and realized that though I did not attend many, the impact was great. The informal sessions, casual conversations and constant evaluation has made its mark on my professional life. I have evolved from one who was afraid and fearful of toddlers (remember I was terrified to be in the same room with them prior) to being able to manage twenty-ish of them. I’ve professionally developed (still developing), and the best is yet to come. #learning journey.

I am thankful for my upcoming opportunity to be a mentor, dipping my feet into a tad of leadership and really really excited for mentoring. About five years ago, when I was fresh in the Early Childhood Industry, I met a lovely and inspiring mentor that lead me, taught me and encouraged me. She could have left me to sink on my own, instead, she saw something in me and groomed me. Her faith in me left a huge impact on me. To you, thank you! Five years on, it is my turn to be a mentor to guide a young student-teacher in the work that I love. Cheers! Looking forward to ECDA conference on 1st Oct too, something special is brewing.

AECES overseas learning trip to Austria; Injecting fresh light to our local practices

        In June 2016, eight local preschool advocates from the Association of Early Childhood Educators (Singapore) who represents various preschools and educational institutions came together to travel across the globe to visit kindergartens in Austria. In this cross-cultural learning trip, there are distinct differences between the two cultures and two early childhood landscapes, yet there are similarities in both countries preschool education. In this trip, our preschool advocates have gained valuable insights and are inspired to improve the lives of family and young children in Singapore. Bearing in mind that different early childhood systems have its advantages and disadvantages; a certain system works in a culture but it could have detrimental effects to another culture. Thus, it is important for learners to be exposed to see, learn and do during overseas learning opportunities and to shortlist possible, culturally sensitive practices to implement and review in our own local context.

Most importantly, we see that children’s love for learning is passionate and contagious. We witness that learning can take place across culture, children are naturally curious and attracted to knowledge; they love to learn so let’s not ruin their drive. Thus, books and music are effective learning tool to overcome the language barriers.

The bottom line: how can we improve? 

Though, it is not (yet) possible for us to have our preschool in rainforest or to banish formal learning in preschool. We can change our pedagogy to be child-initiative, where we can build a culture that allows them to be who they want to be and award them the autonomy of their own learning and play. We need to slow down to listen to them because they have so much to share. We need to move them out of padded mats, indoor gyms, to risky, nature treks because they have so much to learn out there. We need to continue to shift parents’ and lawmakers’ mindset from formal learning and kiasu-ism to play, play and more play.  Bit by bit, we can make a change for the betterment and future of the lives of families in Singapore.

Austria Overseas Learning Trip (to be edited)

I went to Austria with a group of early childhood educators and leaders in June and the trip was eye-opener. I got to see the early childhood landscape in another country and have definitely brought invaluable knowledge. The trip started off with myself having a major homesick. The lack of wifi and time differences with Singapore really gave me a stress attack. Bravely, I sucked it up. I braved the 16 hours’ flight from Singapore to Finland, to Austria. I managed to buy a postcard and stamps and mailed it back home. 

We arrived at Vienna airport to meet up with the rest of the team and we were chauffeured to our house at Pfaffstatten. Our house looks amazing, the garden, rooms, architecture, neighborhoods is the epitome of serenity and suburban. Trust me, it is a suburban and it is a break from the hustle and bustle of a city. We went to grab lunch and sightseeing around Vienna for the rest of the day. I learnt a lot about the Austria culture and advice from my fellow team mates.                                          

                                    

We went to No Landeskindergarten at Pfaffstatten, Austria. The people and culture is contagious. In Austria, kindergartens are play-based and for children between two and a half years to six years, between 8am to 1pm. They practice mixed-aged learning, so you see children of a diverse age and capabilities within the same group. Kindergarten is free and parents are only paying a small fee for food and materials each month. 

Principals and managers of schools are not responsible for enrollment rate, profits or targeted growth, their job is to ensure the best quality in the education and care provided. Preschool teacher training is five years of course work, examinations and apprenticeship. Soon-to-be teachers are required to learn piano, guitar and other basic instruments. Such training provides trainees teachers to learn and understand the process of picking up music, movement, literacy. With that, they better understand the process and are able to facilitate the children when they learn. In terms of curriculum outcomes, the state has desired learning outcomes for kindergartners (just like our early childhood system) and different kindergartens uses different methodology and pedagogues to achieve these goals.  

                                      

We had our morning runs by saying hi to them all in their large campus, then we prepared for our activities. We had music and movement, story, making of firecrackers with red packets and erasers game. We taught the little angmoh how to play with our flag erasers! Remember our childhood erasers with country flags and you aim to flip your own erasers on top of your opponents! 

                                                 

Through this planned activity, I learnt that learning can take place across culture, children are naturally curious and attracted to knowledge; they love to learn so let’s not ruin their drive. I also learnt that books and music are like magical learning tool, despite the language barriers, they were so attentive and have strong desire to know more. It also reinforced my teaching pedagogy at Cove where materials are used to facilitate children’s provocations. We provided red packets for them to create crafts, unfortunately they do not have the cultural and contextually knowledge, hence we provided some directions. But, I strongly believe with time and familiarity, these children are capable to create masterful, creative artwork. 

 

While we were at Pffaffstaten, we had the opportunity to participate in the Kindergartner's (6 years old) transition to Primary School. We walked to Volkshule and along the way we saw painted flowers concrete on the roads! These colorful, concrete markers are built by the community to help young children to identify the road to the primary schools and to remind drivers to slow down. How nice! In primary school, children bring food from home and they can eat it during their breaks. Their schedule is such that they have fifteen minutes of focused work, five minutes of break and the cycle repeats. Each classroom has a soft corner, music, movement areas and library corner. Also, I like how they practice continuity of care in primary school, their class teachers accompanies them from first grade to the fourth grade! 

 Later in the week, we went to another preschool in a nearby city - No Landeskindergarten Doblhoffpark (Barden). Bearing in mind that preschools education is free and resources, teachers and land are state funded, I assumed that we will be seeing similar pedagogies and environment setup. However, as compared to Pfaffstatten, the city of Barden has a casino, spa, farmers’ markets and amenities, the demographics of the families are probably middle- to high- incomes and parent seems to work longer hours. 

We learnt from the centre's manageress that this Kindergarten in Barden opens from 7am to 6pm to cater to the families’ needs. Similiar to Singapore’s preschool, kindergarten is subjected to the parents’ needs. While we were sharing our practices, I could empathized with the struggles the manageress of the kindergarten faced; parent’s expectation and demands. A state law has ensured that as long as more than three families requires additional kindergarten hours, the school must be open. With a longer working hours required in a thirty-hour work week country, manageress takes great pain to work out teachers’ schedule and timings to cater to the family’s needs legally. In Barden, families have greater expectations and enjoys looking at the product of the children’s play. Hence, documentation and progress reports are done frequently and digitally. Akin to our own culture, different centres/groups has different families’ dynamics with varies socio-economic status, expectation, commitments, thus different challenges, cultures and joys at work.

                                 

 

The kindergarten has an aesthetically pleasing decorations, developmentally appropriate and open-ended learning environment set up with plenty of nature and sensorial materials for the children. What amazed me was the children goes for walks almost every day, and they walked for an hour long under the hot Sun. They play outdoor between 10.30am-11.30am when the Sun is the hottest. Imagine how our Singaporean families would react to this! Most importantly, a big Congratulations to No Landeskindergarten Doblhoffpark to be awarded the great honor of thirty years of successfully inclusion practices. Yay!

This trip is a great eye-opener, but what's more important is to know what I can bring back and implement in the local context. As I continue to regain my thoughts on this learning trip, and reflecting on my groundwork with the toddlers, I will be brainstorming on what and how I can improve my strategies and skills. So stay tuned for latest updates!

The Thirty 30 Million Word Gap" with AECES Early Educators (Jan 2015)

I have been doing some writing, dipping my feet in both children's literature and reading materials for professional. And, I am very blessed to have an opportunity to published my first advocacy piece "The Thirty 30 Million Word Gap" with AECES Early Educators (Jan 2015). Early Educators is a national journal for early childhood educators in Singapore, available hardcopy. 

Closing the Gap at 2 [Personal Opinions]

There are hundreds of research articles around the world that talks about academic disparity between children across socio-economic groups, geographic, family types and cultural groups. Throughout my years being an educator and studying to become one, I learnt to accept that such disparity is usually common in older children (5 – 7 years onwards) and usually it takes tremendous efforts and time to recuperate the missing lapses. However, I was wrong. The gap begins at toddlerhood and intensifies each passing year.

Of course, disparity among the early childhood years is evident in Singapore as well. With the qualifications of parents and varied quality of care and education available across the nation; there is no standardized early childhood education at the moment. Hence, every child is embarking at a different starting line. These starting line are, however, subjected to a societal flaw at how much parents are willing to pay for early education and care.

After directly working with the infant and toddlers and their families in the past year, I learnt that the gap starts at two.  I am not advocating for parents to enroll their inquisitive toddlers into enrichment classes or to pay truckloads of money for high quality early childhood education. My intention is to highlight the importance of good teachers for the youngest children. Knowing that the gap begins at two (and sometimes even earlier), the role of the edu-carer and educator is extremely important. Their job is to provide developmentally appropriate materials, intentional facilitation and pedagogues to scaffold the entire class to progress forward, while paying extra focus on the lagging child(ren). Based on my own experience, I worked with several passionate and experienced educators to suspect learning disabilities/learning needs/self-regulation issues at toddlerhood and worked with families and therapists to devise strategies to include them seamlessly within the class. Without time lapses, these toddlers received help early and was able to progress alongside with their same-aged peers. 

Currently, in Singapore, there are grading to ensure teacher quality and needless to say, our best teachers are deployed to work with older children (4-6 years of age). This arrangement works perfect for our society as citizens are programmed to know that ‘preschools prepare each child for primary school’. However, we should promote the ‘inverted pyramid of teaching qualifications’ within our local preschool system. Made famous by Finland and Switzerland’s early childhood education system, it refers to having the best teachers for the youngest age group. Studies has shown that conscious and intentional infants and toddlers teachers grooms healthy, well-adjusted, curious children who displays strong learning abilities in their school life.

Moving forward, I wish for parents, educators and policy makers to know that preschools prepare your child for life. I wish for policy makers to understand the opportunity cost of deploying great teachers with the older children than the birth to three. Lastly, for tertiary institutions/teachers training schools to reevaluate modules offers for teachers-to-be. Having been through the system, I wish tertiary institutions provided me and my peers more hands-on experiences with infant and toddlers than just theoretical knowledge. Lastly, I wish for parents to know the windows of learning opportunities through play and exploration in the early years than just the preschoolers/school-aged. 

In my humble opinion, for the betterment of early education in Singapore, such changes must be done progressively and intentionally. 

Discover the Storyteller within you by Ana Sousa Gavin

I registered this course with the intention to be a better storyteller for my toddlers. Currently, the toddlers that I am working with (are turning three), are very curious and keen to use their developing language in story reading with questions and comments and short stories.  I wish to include them in stories beyond the visuals or published content. As we know, storybooks have great visuals to enhance their language comprehension and attention span. Hence, I wish to challenge myself and the toddlers, to rely less on visuals and more on auditory and imagination. I wish to embrace the beauty of creativity and imagination in the classroom.

I was truly inspired by the facilitator and the people I met. Firstly, Ana was the most talented and engaging storyteller I’ve met. She was quick to react to the audience’s verbal and non-verbal cues while delivering consistent and engaging stories. As an adult, I was engrossed and was able to visualize her stories vividly in my mind, these visuals are unforgettable and remains in my mind till now. The classmates who I’ve met are not just teachers or students, they are film makers, sales executives, businessmen and insurance agents. Just like myself, they are aware of the importance of storytelling in convincing and educating others (to achieve sales, objectives, etc.).

Most importantly, I am inspired to know that I am a great storyteller.  Everyone has their own stories to tell and everyone can learn the skills to tell good stories. Furthermore, humans are wired to learn through stories. There are strategies that we can learn from to aid us to be great storyteller. For instance, using simple storyboards, highlighting special phrases and features to replicate. With consistent practice and evaluating, your stories can be mesmerizing and educational to others as well.  New class goals: To tell more stories! And, be better at it!

If you are keen, you can register via ALAP (Academy of Literary Arts and Publishing Singapore) for Ana’s upcoming classes - Discover the storyteller within you 2; Storytelling with Pictures in April. 

See you there!