Kinder Campus - Lions Gate

This is the other early childhood centre owned by Debra and Ralph. They purchased this property and renovated it to make it an early learning environment. You might have noticed there is no sign on the property. Out of respect for the neighbours and the vision of keeping it as homely as possible, a sign does not exist for either centre. 

 Debra and Ralph paid a large amount of money for the iron fences rather than using cheaper resources out of respect for their neighbours and to enable the property to blend in to the street as much as possible. 

Indoor spaces

Creating rooms in the space for children to play

Using furniture to create boundaries - there are lots of toys and resources available to children.

Each room is self sufficient to enable teachers to engage in cultural activities like domestic responsibilities with children. The children scrape their plates and put them in the dishwasher and snacks are available. Food is provided and prepared in the kitchen - the kitchenette works well to keep the flow of spaces going and not take teachers away from children.

Humour with children

We saw this on the door of one of the rooms and I thought it was funny. These sorts of things bring humour to the team and interactions with families

Dr Ana Kirova - University of Alberta

I was lucky to be invited to attend a workshop on Friday 2 May - organised by the MacEwen Early Learning and Childcare Centre. My amazing friend and host Mary Lynne has some amazing connections and the early childhood centre is also what is called a 'lab' centre. This means that they host many groups of visitors during the year and faculty staff have close connections with the centre. They have also been one of the development centres for the new Alberta curriculum.The workshop was a 'low key' dialogue about culture, specifically focused on celebrations. The teachers have been reflecting on the impact of celebrations throughout the year on the programme and the expectations this has created from the community.

Activity time:

We went through an exercise where we thought of a celebration and had to identify our not negotiable through to those things we can do without. We used the diagram below to select a celebration and as an individual - at the top we identified something about that celebration that was critical for you, then next two very important, three in middle as important, next two as could do without if necessary and that last one represented the feature that was not important at all.

When we got talking in groups with our diagrams, it became clear that the things in the middle row were typically a 'shared space'. It was a really useful activity to go through as we got to see the things that are important to others that we may not have identified as being so critical. It was interesting to see how much we shared as a 'important' and could see how this would be a great way to develop curriculum experiences around cultural celebrations. Ana shared how the three boxes at the top are typically those things that describe how we celebrate at home and are not necessarily as relevant for our work at the early childhood setting. I really liked this way of thinking about it as it can be difficult to 'practice the celebration in a shared space'.
We talked about how over time cultural celebrations get distorted through retail hype and the opportunity to 'make a buck' and mostly this was what was represented in the box at the bottom.
Did you know that in many cultures, birthdays are not important - your name is the reference for celebration and this can be in recognition of a saint or flower? I love this idea.

Discussion points:

• We discussed the importance of 'minimising' the significance of dominant cultural celebrations to make space for cultural celebrations of all children.
• Commercialism strips away culture - making a choice not to participate in a commercialised construct of a celebration.
• Political correctness is deadly to multiculturalism
• having mature conversations about culture with children

Quotes of the session - 
"It is not up to teachers to teach a child their [the child's] culture"
"It does not matter so much what we say - it is what we do"

Where's New Zealand?

While in the centre, I was talking to children about where I was from. Luckily one of the educators (teachers) Connie at the centre is from Australia and there has recently been a project about Australia and Olympics with the flags in another room. The children know where Australia is and it is pretty easy to point out NZ from there. It was interesting to share with children that even though I live in NZ, when they were asking me where home is I said Napier and then shared I lived in Palmerston North. Some of the children could relate to this.
Connie and I were sharing the Aussie VS Kiwi humour...we shared YouTube clips and joked about our 'isms' that only the two of us understood - it was as if we had our own language. We shared YouTube clips that we love that 'make fun' of the other country -

Connie likes this one about Kiwi accent (there is the S#*@ word in this one if you are a bit sensitive) from Australia...

and I love this one from NZ.

PS - you are welcome Connie....I love the card and the message...yes lets keep in touch. It has been my pleasure and privilege to spend time with you all.

A culture of caring...

My friend and booking agent Mary Lynne had to 'love and leave' me on Thursday - pressing work to do. Thankfully we arranged earlier in the week for Bejuna Joshi (educator at the centre) to accompany me to the shopping mall (I know what you are all thinking) to meet Mary Lynne at 4pm on the train. I am getting quite savvy at using public transport with support. Bejuna made sure I met up with Mary Lynne after 'making' me look at the Banana Republic and Michael Kors stores....I really didn't want to do it!!
The culture of a place is experienced through the relationships and how people make you feel...thanks Bejuna and Joan for making sure I did not get lost in Edmonton!!

Teachers as researchers @ MacEwan University Lab School & Child Care

I spent some time at the centre today, reconnecting with some of the teachers while they were on their lunch breaks. I had been on a tour around the centre and was really impressed with the way the teachers document and display their research questions with pride alongside the children's learning and planning. 

 Above Jennifer is standing next to her display about dispositions. I could not share close up photos as there are many shots of children on display as part of the teachers learning. These research projects take months to work through.

 This service is a 'pilot' or 'research' centre for the development of the curriculum in Alberta and have been supported by Lee (Instructor in ELCC programme and Academic Coordinator for Curriculum Framework Development Project). The centre has been exploring the importance of dispositions as a focus of assessment and researching the impact of this on play.

 Meet Kayla - educator at the centre. The research project has involved a deeper look into culture and her own competence in this area. The discussions in the team have included the influence of celebrations on learning and teaching.

Making your learning as a teacher visible - inviting parents to engage in dialogue about the research.

This is what the curriculum planning looks like in one of the rooms - thinking about the research question and then considering possible actions to make progress towards the goals. The teachers are using learning stories confidently to observe children's learning and make it visible to the community. This is on display in the corridors of the centre and to family as they walk through.

Meeting with Angela - The power of home visits

Angela hosted me for an hour and a half this afternoon - meeting with me to discuss the life of the centre. It felt very familiar....as far as I can tell, Angela is leader/manager of multiple spaces in the centre and has been there for 25 years (Margy told me that....yes...I had a coffee and chat with Dr Margy Whalley for a hour and a half:O). We started off with passing on some communication to the staff - to get a sense of how full on it is at this place, there was a Skype meeting with a group from USA at 4pm and the time had been changed. Then we got to sit together over a herbal tea to discuss the life of the centre according to Angela. There is so much going on here in amongst a lot of changes in the political agenda for education.

Home visits - a window into culture and identity
Home visits are an important feature of the activities of the teachers. The teachers visit to meet the child in their own space and to enable them to engage in conversations about things relating to the environment of the child when at the centre....the loop concept.
One idea was to take photographs of the doors of where the children live while visiting so there is an image to revisit. it also helps children explain to others where they live and opportunities for story telling and rich language experiences. There are two 'traveller' communities that have children attending so I was intrigued about how this works. It is important for teachers to 'be with children and families' in their spaces and to get a sense of the culture of the family through being in their home. 

This is a blast from the past for us - something we would do for all families in the 90's. Could this be a way to strengthen relationships? The teachers have half a day per week for professional time (AKA non contact) - and children are gone by 3.30pm - staff work until 4.30pm so visits are done in this time. 

Assessment
Teachers here have learning stories and have had numerous exchanges with Wendy Lee and Margaret Carr over the past 10-15 years (at least). The documentation on the walls had a very familiar feeling to NZ and even looked like what I see in many services. I want to explore a bit more the approaches to assessment and how decisions about planning for learning are made. I scratched the surface today and will research more tomorrow and Friday. I had better pace myself.
There are some crazy things happening in the education system over here. I don't want to rant about them here too much as I have only been introduced to the ideas and if my understandings are right - it is ridiculous!! Lets just say that the team at Pen Green have found ways to stay true to their approach and frameworks as well as accommodate the needs of the external evaluators. This is an important lesson for us all.