On Celebrating Learning Stories - Conference Oct2015

The Learning Story Conference has been a stalwart of the Educational Leadership Project since the year 2000. Each year teachers come together from throughout New Zealand and share stories. What is refreshing about this, is that every story is different. And thus, every Learning Story Conference offers new insights, fresh ideas, and stimulating pedagogical discussion.

2015 was no exception. As Wendy Lee enthused, it is, as usual, encouraging and inspiring to see teachers face their fears, and stand up and share their stories, philosophies, successes and challenges with fellow colleagues. At times we saw the nerves, presenters shared their anxieties, as new and experience presenters began their presentations. But what excitement! as these leaders, reached deep, expressed their passions, relaxed and became animated as they began to enjoy the conversations that evolved from their personal and professional shared experiences.

At the end of an incredible conference, Wendy Lee thanked presenters, and encouraged new presenters by quoting “You have to be brave so that others can be brave”. And that is certainly what I witnessed throughout the day.

The Learning Stories shared worked together to clearly represent and encourage learner identity. These are treasured stories that children claim as their own, interacting with their portfolio, and passionately sharing their learning with friends and family. Examples were shared about learning Stories and portfolios connecting children with events through time, and with whanau - clinging onto their books with a deep sense of belonging.

Margaret Carr brought us back to the essence of the story. When Margaret first researched narrative stories, it was just the beginning of what has become a rich assessment process, not only documenting children’s learning, but developing learner identity and influencing children’s long term image of themselves as competent and confident learners. Margaret reminded us of the element of uncertainty - about what came before and the direction the learning will take - between stories. We were encouraged to continue to embrace the value, and grow the continuity, of learning stories, to celebrate the connections between time, places and relationships.

Wendy Lee explored the development of e-portfolios and challenged us to remain true to the purpose of the learning stories’ socio-cultural perspective, and to remain true to our professionalism. The use of technology within ECE has always been a contentious one, however e-portfolios offer valuable connections. We need to be mindful not to become teach-technicians using quick and easy tech tools, which can distract us from digging deep and expressing what we know. We were encouraged in all manner of learning stories, to reflect and be mindful about how we weave our professional knowledge of assessment, using Te Whāriki into children’s stories of learning, in a way that is relevant and powerful. There is value in both the e-portfolio, and the paper portfolio, and we hugely beneficial to have both!!

I can’t wait for the next Learning Story Conference, and to hear about the tamariki and teachers’ courageous stories of learning.

Let the children play.

I was at a centre recently and we were discussing Learning Stories.  My question to this group of teachers was - what are your long term aspirations and goals for the children at the centre.  The teachers thought about this for a moment and replied - they would like the children to have empathy, to be socially competent, to have resilience and a surety about who they are.  I do think that there were a great deal more aspirations that these teachers had but in the moment that was their list.

After a bit of discussion about the aspirations we watched an interview with Sir Ken Robinson in which he was asked,  “What skills are essential for humanity to thrive in the modern world?”

Sir Ken Robinson has four areas that he thought we should grow in children - our long term aspirations for them.  These were the four area:

Creativity - which he described as the fruit of imagination.  I have heard others describe this also as divergent thinking.  Gansky  described divergent thinking as “the ability to branch out from a starting point and consider a variety of possible solutions, involves fluidity of thinking, broad scanning ability, and free association.”   

Compassion - Sir Ken Robinson says this comes from the same power as imagination.  It is being able to see things away from our immediate circumstances.   He calls it applied empathy and the cultural glue that holds us all together.

Composure - This he said is mindfulness.  He quoted recent statistics from the World Health Organisation that state in 2020 depression will be the biggest form of disability. He goes on to say that children need to feel whole.   Within ECE I think this about seeing the tamaiti as a whole person with spirituality, mana, a past, present and future who is rich in potential and ensuring that the tamaiti has the same understanding of themselves.  Maybe we would call this belonging - but belonging is very very big.  Small word big meaning. 

Collaboration - He said children need to learn to work together rather than as individuals.  Going into the future if children have learnt collaboration they will be facing common challenges together.  I can imagine that if children are sharing their ideas, thoughts and passions in a collaborative way when facing problems while they are young then when faced with new challenges in the future that they will have the multiple perspective and ideas available to them through this ability to collaborate.

The teachers from the centre had actually spoken about many of the skills essential for humanity listed by Sir Ken Robinson.   

It is always amazing to me that when you hear something for the first or second time then you start to notice and hear about it more.  It is a little like when you buy a car and all of a sudden you see that particular brand everywhere and you hadn’t noticed it before.  Well that feeling has happened to me over the last week - hearing those teachers speak, hearing Sir Ken Robinson’s interview and now today an article I found on the internet called, ‘The Decline of Play and Rise of Children’s Mental Disorders’.  In the article Peter Gray talks about the decline of play and the correlation between lack of time to play  and depression in older children.

Gray wrote, “Free play and exploration are, historically, the means by which children learn to:

solve their own problems, 

control their own lives, 

develop their own interests, 

and become competent in pursuit of their own interests.”

Solve their own problems - creativity.

Control their own lives - composure.

Develop their own interests, and become competent in pursuit of their own interests - if you have seen they way children work together and share their passions and interests you would know there is a strong link to - compassion and collaboration.

If I were to ask how can we build creativity, composure, compassion and collaboration within the children we teach I wonder if we would all answer - ‘let the children play.’

This is a link to the article:  

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201001/the-decline-play-and-rise-in-childrens-mental-disorders

Growing up....

More thoughts on 'what do you want to be when your grow up'.

I have recently listened to Sir Kin Robinson online - he was discussing what 21st Learners need to learn in preparation for their future.  This is something that we might share over the next few blogs.

Who you are!

Notes On An Unhurried Journey

While getting lost in the internet, as I often do - sometimes only to surface several hours later for a coffee and a time to ponder on the journey, I found these wonderful words by Professor T. Ripaldi at:  https://en.wordpress.com/tag/professor-t-ripaldi/

Notes On An Unhurried Journey

When we adults think of children, there is a simple truth which we ignore; childhood is not preparation for life; childhood is life. A child isn’t getting ready to live; a child is living. The child is constantly confronted with the nagging question: “What are you going to be?” Courageous would be the youngster who, looking the adult squarely in the face, would say, “I’m not going to be anything; I already am.”

We adults would be shocked by such an insolent remark, for we have forgotten, if indeed we ever knew, that a child is an active participating and contributing member of society from the time he is born. Childhood isn’t a time when he is moulded into a human who will then live life; he is a human who is living life. No child will miss the zest and joy of living unless these are denied him by adults who have convinced themselves that childhood is a period of preparation.

How much heartache we would save ourselves if we would recognize the child as a partner with adults in the process of living, rather than always viewing him as an apprentice. How much we would teach each other… adults with the experience and children with the freshness. How full both our lives could be. 

A little child may not lead us, but at least we ought to discuss the trip with him; for, after all, life is his and her journey too.

In the book He Pou Tātaki - How ERO Reviews Early Childhood Service it is very clear about the expectation for collaboration of everyone involved in the ECE service.  One of the contributing elements to Pou Arahi is:
"Establishing and developing the organisation culture of the service " under this element an indicator of good practice is:

"Collaborative ways of working are fostered with everyone involved in the service. "

This is a very broad view of collaboration that includes everyone in aspects such as:

self review,

strategic planning,

annual plans,

assessment & planning,

staff appraisals, 

policy & philosophy review.

 Everyone includes teachers, children, whānau, managers and board members in varying degrees depending on what you are looking at.  If we are truly seeking the best for our tamariki having a broad base perspective will assist us as we refining and reflect on our practices because it will not be about one person's perspective any more but rather they ideas of the collective.   As we gather everyone's ideas and thoughts then filter these with current research we will have self review, planning, assessment etc that is rich with   knowledge, culture and passions. 

Outdoors

Tim Gill is one of the UK’s leading thinkers on childhood, and an effective advocate for positive change in children’s everyday lives. This video and the below graphic are from Tim Gill's Twitter page: https://twitter.com/timrgill  Gill is talking about older children having the freedom to be part of the wider community.  As he said the issues around this are complex and I wonder if one of the issues is risk aversion.  Are we cotton wooling children to the degree that they would not be able to cope at the age of 6 or 7 to explore their community? Have they been given the opportunity to make decisions about their play, learn from mistakes, set their own challenges and goals and move into a backyard that is exciting and supportive of them as learners?

Children need to have access to outdoor spaces.  This is an important issue for childcare.  All to often children are unable to freely move between inside and outside spaces due to the ratios within our centres or gates that need a teacher to open them - as the photos show for the St Peters Centre in the last post.  Teachers need to be reflective about their practice and they need to be the advocates for children to ensure that they get the care and education they deserve 100% of the time, not just on the good days when our ratios are better or for that hour that is between morning tea and lunch when we can manage to have the doors open.   Gill talks about the children's shrinking horizons - are we adding to this in ECE by actually reducing children's opportunities to have the freedom to explore even in our  backyard.

Outdoor play and the importance of risk and challenge for children would make a wonderful basis for an action research question for centres who are thinking about providing the best opportunities for children to become thinkers and learners within an environment that supports their innate curiosity.