AGENDA for the Day
- 8:00 – Room Open, Set-up
- 8:30-8:45 – Welcome
- 8:45-9:45 – Jim Forbes Update
- 9:45-10:15 – Ethos and Goals
- 10:15-10:30 – Break
- 10:30-12:00 – Curriculum Making Part 1 – Images we hold and how they shape our work
- 12:00-1:00 – Lunch
- 1:00 – 2:15 – Curriculum Making Part 2 – The ripple effects of project work
- 2:15-2:30 – Break
- 2:30-3:30 – Curriculum Making Part 3 – Pedagogical narrations
- 3:30 – 3:45 – Closing Round
- 3:45 – 4:30 – Ethos and Goals Team Discussions
BEFORE the Pro-D Day on Dec 20th
A) We invite you to continue to read and think about your Place’s ethos statements. Kim shared an email with an invitation to work with your ethos and have them made into large posters for your Place. There will be some opportunities to consider ethos statements individually and in teams on the 20th.
B) We invite you to review some quotes from the ELF shared below, read one article (an FYI article is also provided) and some ELF pages on pedagogical narration, watch one video of a keynote address, and listen to one radio program. Below you will find the quotes and resources listed as they connect to different parts of our day. The readings can be found as PDFs in the Resources section of this CCS website.
Curriculum Making Part 1 – Images we hold and how they shape our work
REVIEW – ELF Notes:
- This framework puts forward an image of every child being capable and promotes inclusive pedagogies through discovery and inquiry, as well as through attending to place and history. (p. 28)
- Early care and learning for children aged birth to eight is based on an image of the child as capable and full of potential. All children are celebrated as strong, competent in their uniqueness, and having a secure sense of belonging.Children can experiment, investigate, and inquire in ways that are relevant and meaningful to them. They are provided with opportunities to enrich and deepen their relationships with place, land, and community. Within the contexts of their individual and cultural identities, children are listened to and valued for their ideas and knowledge.Learning and education is envisioned as a continuum as children transition between early care and learning programs, schools, and other services. (p. 12)
- Everyone has images of children and childhood from their cultures, knowledge, personal histories, and aspirations for the future.A person’s images of children reflect their beliefs and ideas about children, as well as ideas about what is possible and desirable for human life at the individual, social, and global level. (p. 15)
- Images of the child and childhood strongly influence how adults engage with children, and what intentions inform the choices they make in all they do with and for children. Engaging with differing views of children and childhood is essential to education in a socially and culturally diverse society. (p. 16)
- The vision of this framework is to generate dialogue in early years settings and beyond about images of children and childhood.This will help create conditions where every child and family can participate and contribute to common or shared worlds. (p. 16)
- Children begin learning from the moment they are born in a continuum that is not linear or universal, but collective and complex. (p. 16)
- Educators collaborate with children and their families as partners in research. This means educators are continually observing, listening, and experimenting with an openness to the unexpected. The role of the educator has shifted away from being a transmitter of knowledge toward being a collaborator who creates conditions so that children can invent, investigate, build theories, and learn. Educators work in relationship with children, and strive to ensure children feel safe, confident, motivated, and listened to. (p. 18)
- Educators foster a curiosity that leads them to seek ways to extend not only children’s learning but also their own.They examine their practices and expectations to consider their biases and expectations and how these may perpetuate racism or prejudices. (p. 18)
- Educators do not see themselves as holding the “right” knowledge of pedagogy and practice. Rather, they are learners as well as educators, continually reflecting. This is not to say that “anything goes” in practice; instead educators make intentional choices inspired by the pedagogical approaches in this framework. (p. 18)
LISTEN [24 minutes]: Taig, J. (2019, February 18). Parenting throughout history could be weird, and downright dangerous. In CBC’s The Current with Anna Maria Tremonti. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-february-18-2019-1.5021628/parenting-throughout-history-could-be-weird-and-downright-dangerous-author-1.5021677
FYI READING:
Hodgins, B.D. (2019). Mattering threads, knots and black holes. In Gender and care with young children: A feminist material approach to early childhood education(pp. 58-111). New York, NY: Routledge.
- This is offered For Your Information for those interested to read about the Euro-Western historical threads entangled in our ECE work today. The first part of the chapter (pp. 58-71) focuses on “A Tale of Development”. You might consider looking at this section as a FYI resource, though the other two sections of the chapter, “A Tale of Resistance” and “A Tale of Materialization” may be of interest as well.
Curriculum Making Part 2 – The ripple effects of project work
REVIEW – ELF Notes:
- Living inquiries are rooted in the belief that children learn by doing when they are engaged in projects and inquiries that extend their interests. (p. 65)
- Play is vital to children’s learning, growing, and making meaning. This framework uses many terms related to play, such as “engagement,” “experimentation,” “inquiry,” “building theories,” “participating,” “making meaning,” and “investigating.” By broadening the vocabulary around play, educators may begin to see play in different ways, which in turn can enrich conversations. (p. 24)
- Play is an approach to inquiry, a way to research the world. By providing diverse materials and experiences, educators create spaces for experimentation and transformation. (p. 24)
- Inquiry: a framework that allows educators to think with and to bring focus to pedagogies. An inquiry may emerge for educators while they are paying attention to the theories children build, or when they are working with their own questions, or a combination of both.An inquiry should provoke educators to challenge themselves to see and do differently without having clear answers. It becomes a focal point for discussion among colleagues, parents, and children. Inquiries have no preset outcomes but emerge organically as children and adults think alongside one another. For example, an educator may pose an inquiry question such as, How might I think about time differently? What might emerge if I thought about time as flow, rather than in schedules? (p. 103)
READ: Motegi, N. (2019). Reconciliation as relationship: Exploring Indigenous cultures and perspectives through stories. Journal of Childhood Studies, 44(4), 82-97.
WATCH [50 minutes]: Taylor, A. (2018, April 11). Following and narrating children’s common world relations. Keynote address ECEBC Conference, Vancouver, Canada. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6IW1yyH_1k
- Many of you will know Affrica’s work and will likely remember that we have read (parts of) her book Reconfiguring the Natures of Childhood. She is one of the co-founders of the Common Worlds Research Collective, along with Mindy Blaise and Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw. Leaning particularly on the work of Bruno Latour and Donna Haraway, Affrica was integral to the crafting of “common worlds” (as an approach, philosophy, orientation) and with Veronica and Mindy it has grown as a concept for thinking within early childhood. You may have noticed that it’s named regularly within the revised BC Early Learning Framework. Unfortunately, citing Affrica’s work and the work of the Collective as to where this concept comes from was not well done (and in some places not done at all) within the revised ELF. We note it here because we believe it matters who we acknowledge and who we do not, when we acknowledge and when we do not, what we acknowledge and what we do not; what Sarah Ahmed calls the “politics of citation”.
Curriculum Making Part 3 – Pedagogical narrations
REVIEW – ELF Notes:
- Educators can record moments of play using pedagogical narrations to make learning visible, to invite others (colleagues, children, families) to share their perspectives, and to consider different theoretical perspectives. (p. 24)
- Educators can use pedagogical narrations to critically reflect on children’s play and to notice when play is unfair, or when uneven relationships of power or injustices are enacted. (p. 24)
- By paying attention to play, educators can make decisions about further provocations for thinking for both adults and children. (p. 24)
READ [PAGES 51-59]: Government of British Columbia. (2019). BC early learning framework. Retrieved from https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/education-training/early-learning/teach/early-learning-framework