Autumn 2007

Early childhood education & care

Educators make a difference

Alma Fleet, Elke Jesdinsky and Pam Winter report on research that demonstrates a commitment to children that will allow high quality learning experiences in early learning environments and have a positive impact on children’s wellbeing.

We are reminded that the quality of children’s early experiences has a direct impact on wellbeing and educational outcomes (Elliott, 2006). In South Australia, we want to make sure that those children whose life chances are compromised are in learning environments that will advantage them.

For planning and programming, childcare educators are encouraged and supported to use the Early Years Band of the Department of Education and Children’s Services (DECS) South Australian Curriculum, Standards and Accountability Framework, birth–year 12. Underpinned by a social constructivist theory of learning, this framework has a focus on context, content and outcomes. The focus on process is provided through professional learning opportunities.

During 2005, 14 child care centres in South Australia focused on their process by volunteering to participate in an 18-month practitioner research project. This project grew out of current research findings that were demonstrating important correlations between children’s wellbeing and deep level learning through involvement (Laevers, 2006); between an educator’s competence (their relationships with children and their pedagogy) and children’s wellbeing and involvement in learning (Winter, 2003); and between the strength of a teacher’s sense of responsibility for children’s learning and children’s achievements (LoGerfo, 2006). Laevers offers evidence that the most economic and conclusive way to assess and improve the quality of the educational setting is to focus on the degree of children’s emotional wellbeing and their level of involvement.

Under the leadership of Dr Alma Fleet from the Institute of Early Childhood at Macquarie University, DECS district curriculum leaders and TAFE Child Studies lecturers challenged educators to reflect on everyday interactions between children as a foundation for problem solving, learning and developing relationships.

Each participating centre formulated a research question that had particular significance for their centre. The following story from Elke Jesdinsky, director of the Grey Ward Children’s Centre, is an example of the process and the richness of the outcomes for educators and children.

The Grey Ward Children’s Centre provides child care and preschool for 71 children. For some time our outdoor environment had been a recurring issue. Staff often raised concerns about responsibility for setting up and packing away, as well as ‘supervision’ of the children, but the issues never seemed to get resolved. One day I decided to just sit, watch and take notes (from indoors) of the children at play in the outdoor environment and this is what I saw: several children had been drawn to a game using a clown’s head with a large cut-out mouth through which balls are thrown. While the children were picking up the small coloured balls two staff members were nearby but their attention was elsewhere. The children threw the balls randomly until some conflict broke out. Hearing this, a staff member ‘sorted it out’ by suggesting they take it in turns by lining up. At this point some children left the game, while others did as suggested. The staff member then left. The ball throwing continued until one child tipped the clown over. The other children ‘complained’ and the staff member went over to ‘sort it out’. Order was restored; more children left the game. There were only two children left. One of them now diverted all his curiosity towards the clown by pushing it over and dragging it. The other child ‘complained’ and the staff member went over to ‘sort it out’. Words about ‘safety’ were spoken and the clown was restored to an upright position but by this time all the children had left!

I was unsettled by this event and decided the practitioner research project might help us to resolve such recurring issues.

We began by discussing what I had seen and decided to start by collecting data. Staff members were asked what they thought the ideal outdoor environment should look, feel and sound like. Interestingly, they gave all the ‘textbook’ answers which were quite different from what we were observing! We then asked the children about their feelings and preferences. We also tracked the children in the yard, noting where they went, how long they stayed there and what they did.

As a group, we also looked into the work of Dr Ferre Laevers regarding children’s involvement in the curriculum. A pivotal moment came during one of these sessions. Laevers’ training video includes a child who we now affectionately call ‘Panther Boy’. He seems to have a lot of physical energy. He is working in between two other children trying to solve a puzzle on the table. In the video, using the Leuven Involvement Scale developed by Laevers, Panther Boy is rated as having very high involvement, due to his apparent physical and emotional engagement with the task at hand. Our staff, on the other hand, rated his involvement level as very low. They justified this low rating because the boy’s physical behaviour was ‘an issue’ and he was trying to ‘take over’ the puzzle play. I was uncomfortable about our reasoning and began to think about what would happen if Panther Boy was at our Centre. He would certainly have been ‘behaviour managed’ away from that puzzle table! Then I began to think about how many Panther Boys had been through the Centre, how many do we still have and what is Centre life like for them? I also realised that as a team we were unsure about what ‘involvement’ looked like.

Armed with all this information and doubt, we realised that the set up of the outdoor area was not the problem. We came to the understanding that children’s feelings (wellbeing) drive their actions (involvement) and that all behaviour is communication. Our relationships with children affect their wellbeing and therefore influence their behaviour and involvement.

We reflected on our realisations and began to plan for change. We examined the nature of involvement and revisited our beliefs and practices about children’s behaviour.

One year later we are increasingly seeing children in a social context which revolves around relationships, their emotional wellbeing and their interactions. We focus far more on relationship building between children and between staff and children, through fostering and acknowledging children’s feelings, and ‘reading’ their behaviour. We encourage children to stay together rather than separate them when they have differences. We are beginning to teach ‘feelings’ as part of our curriculum. It is now clear that the communication within the Centre sounds different with children being genuinely listened to. We feel that we are better at interpreting their behavioural communication, and consequently capture opportunities for developing relationships and extending learning.

Our way of observing is also changing. Instead of looking at children in terms of their development, we are now looking at observation-taking as a way of documenting the children’s lives at the Centre. As staff members we are becoming more ‘visible’ in those stories because we now understand that our relationships are pivotal to the children’s learning outcomes. We know that we can enhance or detract from children’s involvement in the curriculum.

Involvement in this project has encouraged us to make changes: in our professional development program, in styles of leadership, in our communication with parents, especially about children’s emotional wellbeing, in the size of our care groups, and in the type of staff we aim to recruit.

It has been a rewarding journey. We believe that Panther Boy’s life at this Centre would now be more peaceful, satisfying and seen in a positive light. The support we gained from being in the project has provided us with the time, resources and provocations to improve our curriculum provision for children’s wellbeing and positive educational outcomes.

References

Department of Education, Training & Employment (now DECS) (2001). South Australian Curriculum, Standards and Accountability Framework, DETE Publishing, Adelaide.

Elliott, A (2006). Early Childhood Education: pathways to quality and equity for all children, ACER, Victoria.

Laevers, F (2006). ‘Making Care and Education More Effective Through Wellbeing and Involvement: An introduction to Experiential Education’, paper presented for DECS, Adelaide.

Winter, P (2003). ‘Curriculum for babies and toddlers: a critical evaluation of the first phase (birth to age three) of the South Australian Curriculum, Standards and Accountability Framework in selected child care centres in South Australia’, PhD dissertation, University of South Australia, Magill.

Alma Fleet is associate professor at the Institute of Early Childhood, Macquarie University.

Elke Jesdinsky is director of Grey Ward Children’s Centre, South Australia

Pam Winter is early years curriculum manager at the Department of Education and Children’s Services, South Australia.

The author owns the copyright in this article. For information related to the reuse of this work in any form please contact the publisher denise.quinn@curriculum.edu.au