childrens-agency

Children’s agency, a champion, and a model for advocacy

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childrens-agency

When I first heard the word “agency” applied to children, I naively thought that it must refer to child actors. Well, in a way it does, but not in the way I thought. Agency is a word I struggled with. For a long time I found it hard to use – do you grant agency? Allow agency? Provide scope for agency? Deny agency? Is agency the same as choice? Is it voice?

For me, the concept of agency for children makes most sense when thought about in terms of children’s rights (no surprises there), and in particular, their rights to express an opinion. All too often though, the one right which talks about children’s entitlement to a point of view, Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, is taken out of context. In this blog, I want to put some context around children’s rights to a voice, to be consulted, informed and to express their point of view and their right to say “No, I don’t want to tell you”. I also want to talk about champions – specifically my child’s right hero – Professor Laura Lundy.

Two big ideas – agency and voice

At the moment, there is an unprecedented interest in two big ideas – child agency and child voice. Both these ideas are about children’s rights to participate in all decisions that affect them – their Article 12 rights – the ones most often quoted when it comes to voice. However, unfortunately, the other Articles about children’s rights to a point of view are less well known. These, arguably, concern the ‘agency’ part. Agency is about the ability of the child to actively influence their environment – as a learner, a player, singer, an artist – whatever – and for children, voice is the way they exercise their agency.

But, and it’s a big but, because voice means much, much more than just listening to children. For example, in the table below are all the rights in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child – the Children’s Convention which, in theory, should support children to take part in matters that concern them.

Articles that support children’s rights to express a point of view

12 Children have the right to say what they think should happen when adults are making decisions that affect them, and to have their opinions taken into account.
13 Children have the right to get and to share information, as long as the information is not damaging to them or others.
14 Children have the right to think and believe what they want, and to practice their religion, as long as they are not stopping other people from enjoying their rights. Parents should guide children in these matters.
15 Children have the right to meet together and to join groups and organisations, as long as this does not stop other people from enjoying their rights.
16 Children have the right to privacy. The law should protect them from attacks against their way of life, their good name, their families, and their homes


(Adapted from Unicef NZ (2011) For each and every child. He taonga tonu te tamariki. Wellington, NZ: Learning Media. Available from https://www.unicef.org.nz/teaching-resources)

What facilitates a rights-based learning setting? What constrains it?

In my work at CORE, across the early years, primary and the secondary sector, I have heard many kaiako equate agency with voice and in so doing, assume that voice means children’s participation rights are fulfilled. But are they? Scratch the surface and you reveal some really interesting assumptions that I think are worth questioning. This is where my hero, and internationally renowned children’s champion, makes her entrance.

Children’s champion and a model for advocacy

In 2007, Laura Lundy wrote one of the most widely cited articles about children’s participation rights – “Voice is not enough: Conceptualising Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child “. Like many child rights advocates, she was concerned that equating children’s agency to voice was limiting. She started asking questions like “where do you listen to children?” and, “who is listening to children?” and, “once you have heard from children, what are you going to do about it?” (Lundy 2007).

Her intention was to broaden the adult assumption that listening to the child’s voice is one-dimensional and to do this she identified four spheres, elements, aspects, as a way to deeply understand (first stage of CORE’s theory of Action He Ariā Kōkirikiri) what it takes to really listen to what children have to say.

 

laura_lundy

Source: https://www.tusla.ie/uploads/content/Laura_Lundy_Slides.pdf 

This model has been used by some of us at CORE. I think it has enormous potential as an advocacy tool for all learners, (no matter the shoe size), and that includes us as kaiako, as facilitators of learning, and as researchers. The main point here is that children’s agency consists of more than one element – all the participation rights need to be considered to authentically hear what children have to say. To make this a reality for all children, we need to be advocates (and champions too). Part of our role as professionals is to advocate for socially just outcomes and, as Judge Becroft, our current Children’s Commissioner and chief advocate for children once observed: the Children’s Convention offers “unequivocal international commitment to protect, nurture and further the interests of what is potentially one of the most marginalised and abused groups in our community – our children”. Sobering thoughts.

Be an advocate

The education sector is not alone when it comes to genuinely respecting children’s rights to say what they think, see, and feel. The roll out of the Child Wellbeing Strategy promotes a joined-up approach to the way government plans and resources services for children. That strategy foregrounds a child-rights approach. In education, we have extraordinary potential to enact these rights every day, and for each and every child. And we do. But, maybe we can do better? As Laura Lundy says, we have made huge progress with space, voice and audience, but the influence sphere is still hitting barriers. Therein lies a challenge for us: What more could we do? How can we advocate for sustained support for children’s rights to be heard across our sector and beyond?

If not you, who? If not now, when?

For more information about children’s rights visit:

Education matters to me https://www.occ.org.nz/publications/reports/education-matters-to-me-key-insights/

Children’s Rights Alliance Aotearoa (NB – this website has not been updated to reflect the new name for the organisation so don’t be confused by landing on Action for Children and Youth Aotearoa. The website houses the latest reports and submissions about children’s rights.)

Want to learn more about learner agency?
Join us at our upcoming workshop Learner agency: children’s rights to be seen and heard presented by Sarah.
Wellington, 20 May 2020. Find out more.

References

Lundy, L. (2007). ‘Voice’ is not enough: conceptualising Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. British Educational Research Journal. Vol 33 (6) 947-942
Unicef NZ (2011) For each and every child. He taonga tonu te tamariki. Wellington, NZ: Learning Media. Available from https://www.unicef.org.nz/teaching-resources

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children have rights

Weird, why wouldn’t they ask me? — Understanding children’s rights

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For quite a while now I have been interested in children’s rights and how they can support our work with children and young people. Years ago, when I first told people I was doing my doctorate about children’s rights, I was surprised by how many reacted with comments like, “What about our rights as the adults?” or, “Children today have too many rights”. Why such a reaction, I wondered? So, I started to think about what difference knowing about children’s rights would it make to us in our work with and for children? The best place to start answering these questions is to ask the children themselves, which is one of the most important rights — children have a voice and we, the adults, need to listen and, beyond that, consider what they say, which is different to doing what they want.

This was brought home to me when I worked in a multidisciplinary team on developing a children’s submission about the Vulnerable Children’s Act. We went into early childhood services, schools, visited youth justice centres, child and protection units, and youth groups up and down the country.

The overwhelming messages from children were:

  • whānau and friends were really important
  • that they often felt that teachers, social workers, and other professionals who work with children talked about them without talking with them.

They wanted to be asked about things that affected them, like school rules, and they hated it when people made decisions about them without asking them what they thought. The one thing that this did was undermine trust. And trusting relationships are what it is all about, especially in education.

While most children really like school, they were very vocal about what it felt like when a teacher didn’t like them. We can all relate to comments like, “It’s not fair when the whole class is blamed because of what one person did”. And, when the adults are making plans for a child, lots of children’s feelings can be summed up in the following comment: “Ask me if you want to know what I think. It’s weird, why wouldn’t they ask me?” One of the most powerful comments from a young person in care was, “Don’t just listen, do something.”

The place to start finding out about children’s rights is the Children’s Convention published by the United Nations. This is a typical UN document. The language is formal and not that easy to understand at first. Like most human rights documents, it represents a compromise of ideals between the east and the west, between the first world and third world countries. When it first came out in 1989, it quickly became the most widely signed and ratified human rights treaty. There are only two countries in the world that haven’t signed-up: Somalia, because they have not been able to form a government; and, the United States of America, because it believes granting children social, political, economic, and cultural rights would undermine their Constitution.

A Bit about the Children’s Convention

The Children’s Convention is based on four general principles that apply to all children, all the time:

  • Non-discrimination — their rights to be protected from all forms of discrimination, regardless of their parents’/guardians’ race, colour, ethnic, or social origin (Article 2).
  • Best interests — their right to have their best interests as the primary consideration in all actions (administrative and legislative) that affect them (Article 3).
  • Their right to life, survival, and development to reach their full potential (Article 6)
  • Children’s views — their right to express their views in all matters that affect them (Article 12).

The general principle articles apply across all of the other articles in the Children’s Convention, which cover all aspects of children’s lives (for example, there are rights about education, recreation, cultural identity, healthcare to name a few). To complement the general principles are articles about governments’ responsibilities to implement the Children’s Convention “to the maximum extent of available resources (Article 4)”. Referred to as the general measures of implementation, these articles provide guidelines for governments to ensure compliance with the Children’s Convention in an ongoing, progressive manner.

How does the Children’s Convention work?

Every five years or so, our government is expected to report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (UN Committee) on compliance with the Children’s Convention. As part of the same process, the UN Committee hears from the non-government organisations (NGOs), and children and young people themselves. They want to know what it is really like for them:

  • at home
  • in their early childhood services and at school
  • in their communities
  • at work.

The last reporting cycle was completed in 2016. At the time, the NGO story was not particularly pretty. Children were worried about child abuse, child poverty, homelessness, and discrimination, especially for Māori children and children who belong to a minority group. Here are some of the comments they wanted our government to think about:

“Poverty (as an issue to address), because children are going to school and they can’t learn if they haven’t had breakfast or lunch.” MAX, 12

“My brain structure is part of who I am, so why is my disability invisible? You wouldn’t tell a kid with cancer to “toughen up”, why would you say that to me? Why would you take advantage of the fact that I have panic attacks when people start shouting? Why would you deny me my support tools in class? Why am I ashamed?” CAITLIN, 18

“If I could, I would remove the wealth gap and make sure all schools (facilities, teachers, environment) were of a high standard, eliminate prejudice, make streets safer so children could walk to and from school, and support parent relationships so they never have to be raised in broken homes. If I could.” DUNCAN, 16

Governments had made little or no progress despite clear recommendations from the UN Committee, and in 2016, they were clear, very clear, during the formal, face-to-face hearing with our government officials (from the previous Government), that this was not OK.

So, what can we do?

When faced with such seemingly complicated issues all at once, it is hard to decide how to broker solutions. That said, the climate at the moment is very focused on child-centred practices, and there are genuine attempts to put the Children’s Convention into legislation. We have a courageous Children’s Commissioner who is not afraid of promoting children’s rights. While this is something to celebrate, the general lack of awareness about what the principle articles mean and how these play out in our day-to-day practices is still of concern. There are two recommendations that the UN Committee made that, I think, are a good place to start:

  1. Awareness and training about the Children’s Convention
    In general, there is a lack of awareness about children’s rights and what they mean. The Children’s Convention is widely misunderstood and, therefore, its potential to support improving children’s lives remains untapped. The UN Committee has, since 1995, recommended awareness raising and training in the public service and in civil society. It is especially needed for adults who work with and for children.
  1. Listening to children and take their views into account
    When it comes to respecting children’s views, the UN Committee recommended that our government develop toolkits for public consultation on national policy development which, as a matter of course, consult with children in a genuine, and realistic way.

Two final points

For the last part of this blog I want to highlight a couple of points:

  • that children’s rights are indivisible and interdependent
  • that the Children’s Convention to be part of the conversation —especially in education.

Chidren’s rights are indivisible and interdependent

The rights in the Children’s Convention cover all areas of all children’s lives. In a way, we can use a well-known early childhood education curriculum metaphor of a whāriki to visualise how the principal articles, the general measures of implementation and the articles about health, education, welfare etc, are interwoven. That means that even though we can highlight one type of rights — say, children’s rights to have a say about matters that affect them — we also need to consider the other rights at the same time.

For example, when inviting children to participate in, say, what they would like to find out about, I like to ask myself:

  • ‘How are the best interests of the child being served by my questions?
  • Am I genuinely inclusive (non-discriminatory)?
  • Do my actions support children’s development?’
  • And, when I ask children for their point of view, whose agenda am I pursuing?

That doesn’t mean I’m right or wrong. As the grown-up, I have some clear advantages — I know more, and I have some influence over my life. But, I also have responsibilities to ensure that children’s rights can be realised, and this means that even if the choice is not really a choice, I can explain why. For example, going to school regularly, learning to get along with others, and understanding our history, matters. At the same time, children, too, have responsibilities. Rights don’t ever come without these.

Children’s Convention to be part of the conversation

I want to advocate for the Children’s Convention to be part of the conversation, especially in education. We are already on the way here with a lot of research now focused on children’s agency, or their ability to influence their own experiences. The trick here, though, is to ask about the context in which ‘agency’ takes effect. Where, for example, does the power really lie? Unless we think about how power relations play out in classrooms and in early childhood services, we fail to fully consider the big picture of children’s lives. Very often, asking children to contribute is based on an assumption that if they have a say, they will feel they have a stake in the outcome. Offering children a choice needs to be real. So the good part is that children are asked; the not-so-good part is that the child’s rights to not participate, or to more information, or to privacy, or to deciding who and where and when to talk to others, are often overlooked.

Therein lies a genuine human rights dilemma – rights, including children’s rights — are aspirational, and how they are enacted depends on the situation. We need to remember that children’s rights are about real issues that affect them. That means we always need to think about how we get better at understanding children’s rights and how we can use these to enhance their wellbeing.

A highly respected child rights leader, Professor Michael Freeman, once described rights as like arms and legs — children are born with rights; they are not privileges to be earned or taken away. They exist. He also said that the most important right is to respect the rights of others — a good place to begin and to end this blog.

Challenge: Why are you asking children to join in? How are you inviting their participation? Please add your comments below — be a part of the conversation.

 

References:
UNICEF/Save the Children (2016). Our voices. Our rights. Supplementary Paper submitted to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. Retrieved from https://daks2k3a4ib2z.cloudfront.net/59bef78dd0c4540001fa1706/5a28b1fa5a27480001dee695_OurRightsOurVoices.pdf

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Webinars for Professional Learning in ECE

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“PLD in my Pyjamas”
The possibilities afforded by webinars as a professional learning platform for the ECE sector.

The background stuff

te whāriki early childhood curriculumIn partnership with the Ministry of Education, the Professional Learning and Development (PLD) programme to support the implementation of the revised and refreshed early childhood curriculum Te Whāriki began in May 2017. Alongside face-to-face workshops and facilitated communities of practice (Kōtui Ako) across the country, part of this implementation support has been to provide webinars. These webinars have been designed to both complement the other elements of the programme and to reach more kaiako. I have been very privileged to have been part of this programme, from the rollout of the initial workshops to the development of the webinars designed to continue the discussion in the ECE sector about our treasured curriculum.

Ten webinars have been prepared and are being delivered on 10 different areas of content associated with Te Whāriki, with each of these webinars being presented 10 times (100 in total). At the time of writing, webinar 10 is being delivered. The uptake has been incredible with over 9000 having participated in the webinars, and a further 3000 viewing them online!

Being an absolute newbie to webinars, helping to develop this series has been an exciting part of my role, but it has not been without its challenges. It has not been easy to narrow down possible content, choosing what we believe to be the most important ideas for the sector to engage with. It has been even harder to condense this content to an hour! But it has been worth it, providing PLD through a webinar platform has opened up a world of possibilities for both the presenters and the participants.

While there have been pockets of professional development for the ECE sector provided via webinar, there has never been such a large-scale use of webinars to support kaiako professional learning before. From the very beginning, and (I admit begrudgingly) much to my surprise, this platform of learning has been embraced by ECE kaiako across the country. Overall satisfaction has been very high — 88% of participants have rated their webinar experience as 4 or 5 out of 5. Not bad for a sector where the majority of participants (in the first few webinars, anyway) had NEVER participated in a webinar before!

Part of this particular model of webinar presentations has been to send the recording of the webinar to each person registered, including a transcript of the chatbox. In addition, a ‘clean copy’ was recorded (without participants and chat), and these have been uploaded onto Te Whāriki Online, so kaiako who were unable to register for some reason, are able to view the full series online. Another added bonus has been the opportunity afforded to us to bring renowned ECE experts directly to the sector.

Professor Carmen Dalli (Victoria University of Wellington) engaging directly with ECE kaiako through a webinar.
Professor Carmen Dalli (Victoria University of Wellington) engaging directly with ECE kaiako through a webinar.

ten trends 2017While the power of webinar is new to me, as it is to most of the wider ECE sector, CORE Education Tātai Aho Rau has been running webinars and commenting on the use of digital platforms and media in PLD for quite a while — most recently in the Ten Trends identified in 2017. Many of the possibilities and advantages I have discovered myself, and through feedback from the participants in this programme, reinforce some of these ten trends, in particular, Learner Agency, Communities of Learning, Virtual Learning, and Collaboration.

Unsolicited feedback

While it has not been a question in the evaluation form completed at the end of the webinars, I was really interested to discover that many of the participating kaiako felt moved to comment on the effectiveness (or otherwise) of the webinar platform to support their professional learning. Again, for a significant majority (77%) of those compelled to comment, their experiences have been positive. Digging deeper into their responses, I have found that the reasons for kaiako support for the webinar model CORE is using came down to the following five areas:

  1. convenience and accessibility
  2. simplicity of use
  3. networking with other kaiako from around the country
  4. supporting team engagement
  5. the ability to revisit their learning.

I will dig a little more deeply into each of these areas.

“PLD in my pyjamas”

Convenience and accessibility

In relation to convenience and accessibility, kaiako really appreciated:

  • the ability to choose which webinar session they would access
  • the relative shortness of the initial presentation
  • the fact that they could access learning from the comfort of wherever they happened to be.

This form of Virtual Learning provided them with the Learner Agency to choose when and where to access the PLD and what PLD to access.
Unlike teachers in the compulsory sector, ECE kaiako do not necessarily have the ability to get together as a team regularly and for enough time to generate deep and meaningful conversations and learning. Many early childhood services are open from 7 in the morning until 6 at night. Professional learning at the end of a very long day has sometimes proven to be less than fruitful for the kaiako involved, particularly when additional travel has been involved. For many kaiako, webinars have proved to be a convenient, accessible, and comfortable form of professional learning.
Their appreciation can be summed up in these quotes:

  • “It’s great that it was only 1 hour. I can make time for 1 hour, not for 4 or more :-)”
  • “We are a small isolated Community Kindergarten. Good PD is sometimes difficult to find without travelling lots of kilometres to a city”
  • “…loving listening in my own time from my own home, as it makes it feel homely and my own focus, rather than a super long day at work — like a staff meeting or after work PD, thank you!”

I wonder whether the accessibility of these webinars exploring Te Whāriki provided the impetus for kaiako to ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’. It would seem that they were pleasantly surprised with the result!

Simplicity of use

The simplicity of use was also an area appreciated by kaiako. Research and popular media have reported that many teachers have expressed fear and anxiety when faced with learning through ICT. I have had many teachers express these fears to me as well, often worried that it will be complex and they won’t have the skills to participate fully. In contrast, the simplicity of this webinar format was worthy of comment by some. Examples of these comments include:

  • “Webinar was easy to get into, easy to hear the speakers, easy to follow the content. Links provided [are] relevant. Excellent webinar.”
  • “The webinar is really good from the perspective of the chat room and how efficient that is at getting everyone’s input so easily which is not possible in a face to face situation as you have to wait and take turns, so I find that really good.”

CORE Education also identified collaboration and communities of learning as two of the Ten Trends for 2018, and these results would back these up. Networking was identified as a particularly positive outcome for the kaiako participating in the webinar series. They appreciated being able to share their ideas with, and get feedback from, kaiako from all over the country — moving them beyond their teams and immediate communities.

  • “Getting feedback from the other attendees also is very enlightening. It gave me the opportunity to reflect on and revamp my dealings with children.”
  • “With our Centre being located in the northern region, I appreciate access to the cyber-space classroom with over 111 online students.”
  • “It is great being able to join in with others and get many new ideas that you would never think of on your own.”

Networking and team engagement

The collaboration and development of online communities of learning occurring through the webinar series is not only supporting networking amongst geographically dispersed kaiako, participants have also indicated that the webinars are a useful tool to grow team engagement within discrete early childhood services too!

  • “Often we go on PLDs individually so it was nice to do this together learning from each other as well as other Teachers sharing in the comments box.”
  • “The webinar was a great way for me and my team to come together at the start of the day and be inspired for our future practices.”

Revisit the learning

I was really pleased to note that many individual participants expressed a desire to share both the webinar and their changed thinking with their colleagues and/or the people they lead. The availability and accessibility of the webinar recordings (as well as the opportunity to attend more than one session) supported participants to revisit and grow their learning as individuals and collectives.

  • “Kaiako are revisiting the videos of the webinar and the chat pdfs — great resources.”
  • “I will be reading all the links you provided to remind/get further prompts for my own and the team’s practice.”
  • “I have just gone over all 5 webinars and I have been able to take more in without the pressure of what is/ about to/ has happening.”

So what?

The data and trends emerging from this small piece of analytical work indicate an increasing acceptance of, and appreciation for, the use of webinars as a professional learning platform for ECE kaiako. Alongside other learning opportunities, I believe PLD provided through webinars is providing the sector with meaningful and accessible professional development that has the potential to keep an over-stretched profession informed and motivated to critique and transform their own practice.

Let’s keep it up!

Bibliography

Ministry of Education Te Tāhuhu o Te Mātauranga (2017). Te Whāriki He whāriki mātauranga mō nga mokopuna o Aotearoa : Early childhood curriculum. Wellington, NZ: Author.

Image Credits:

Te Whāriki Early Childhood Curriculum,Ministry of Education Te Tāhuhu o Te Mātauranga, ISBN 978-0-478-16926-3

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On the path to literacy through a pair of shoes and smelly socks

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sea of words

Last week I had the privilege of watching something very special; an early childhood teacher helping a two-year-old to put on her shoes and socks in preparation for going outside. Yes, I can imagine what you are already thinking, ‘so what was so special about that’? A fair question and one I will attempt to answer through this blog post.

Firstly, let me share some of what I observed in a little more detail. The teacher, Kelly, sits down facing Ngaire, who has brought Kelly her shoes and socks to be put on.

Kelly: Ok what do we put on first? (curiosity in her voice)
Ngaire: (holding one sock) Shoes.
Kelly: We put our shoes on first? Ok then let’s put our shoes on. (She reaches out to start doing this).
Ngaire: (Holds a sock close to her face and looks inside)
Kelly: What’s in your sock? Let’s have a look.
Ngaire: (Puts the sock up to Kelly’s nose)
Kelly: (playful and expressive) POOOOOH! What’s that smell?
Ngaire: (Laughs and puts the sock to Kelly’s nose again)
Kelly: POOOOOH!
Ngaire: (Laughs even louder and returns the sock to Kelly’s nose again)

This back and forward interaction goes on a further three times, each time with Ngaire’s laughter getting louder, until Kelly stops reacting and switches back to the business of putting on the shoes.

After further exchanges in which Kelly protests nicely at having to do all the work of getting Ngaire’s shoes on, she asks Ngaire again to help her. All this time, Ngaire is looking at Kelly, smiling, laughing and responding. She is clearly totally engaged and enjoying this back and forth exchange.

Kelly: (Holding shoe for right foot) Where does it need to go? (The tone of her voice and facial expression suggests this is a game)
Ngaire: (Presents left foot – no sock – for Kelly to put the right foot shoe on)
Kelly: (Puts shoe on and then sock over top of the shoe) Is that right? Is that how we do it? And then we put the sock on, eh. There we go.
Ngaire: (Laughter. Pauses, looks concerned)
Kelly: What’s wrong with that?
Ngaire: (Pulls the sock off) Wrong feet.
Kelly: Ahhh, wrong feet! You show me. I don’t know. (Shrugs)
Ngaire: (Undoes shoe and attempts to put it on right foot) It goes there. (Looks up at Kelly with a big grin)

This was an interaction (among several I have observed) in which Kelly was a responsive partner in a conversation that had a definite ongoing ‘serve and return’ pattern to it. In the case of Ngaire, who is still learning to string words together, gesture also played a key role in her contribution to the conversation.

What made this interaction so special and memorable for me was not that Ngaire knew a bit about putting shoes on the right way, although that was impressive too. It was the skills and dispositions that Kelly demonstrated as a facilitator and teacher of oral language. She used several strategies that are known to encourage interaction and communication, yet in my experience are often overlooked by teachers.

Here is a summary of the qualities I observed in Kelly’s practice:

  • She makes time to turn a fairly routine task into a fun-filled, engaging experience by joining in the play.
  • She positions herself face-to-face with Ngaire to show she is present
  • She doesn’t simply follow Ngaire’s lead; she adds to it.
  • She uses playfulness, expression, surprise and curiosity to sustain the talk and conversation.
  • She gives Ngaire more reasons to communicate by putting the shoe on the wrong foot and the sock over the top of the shoe.
  • She helps build Ngaire’s vocabulary by imitating and expanding single words to full sentences.  For example, when Ngaire says “Shoes”, Kelly comes back with, “We put our shoes on first? Ok then let’s put our shoes on”.”

So, what has this episode got to do with literacy — as the title of this post suggests – when there is not an alphabet or a writing instrument in sight?

I think James Britton 1, answered this eloquently and accurately back in 1970 with his proposition that, ‘…reading and writing float on a sea of talk’ ( p164). What he was suggesting, and what has been confirmed over and over again by more recent studies 2, is that to be a confident and competent reader and writer you first have to become a confident and competent talker and listener. Aside from the obvious social and emotional benefits, talk introduces children to the words they later learn to read and write. Importantly, talk is the outward expression of thinking; it is also how we process and remember information. This last point comes with a caveat though. Without opportunities to speak as well as listen, the development of this all important thinking is limited.

Despite the overwhelming evidence that talk and conversation are the best predictors of later success during the school years, oral language remains the neglected Cinderella of the components (oral, visual and written) that are necessary to become literate in any language. To illustrate this here are some examples of what I often experience in my travels around early childhood services.

  • I see plenty of planning for activities and experiences, far less for the new vocabulary that could be introduced alongside these.
  • I see teachers reserving stories, songs, chants, rhymes and word games for large group mat times when informal, spontaneous small groups for these same activities would give children richer opportunities to participate actively.
  • I hear teachers saying they feel guilty if they spend too much time talking to one or two children, not appreciating that these conversations are probably the best gift for learning they can offer.
  • I hear and see teachers responding to parent expectations for literacy learning (often expressed as alphabet knowledge) with exercises and worksheets when they could be doing so much more towards achieving this outcome by adhering to James Britton’s notion that reading and writing ‘float on a sea of talk’

The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once said, ‘The limits of my language mean the limits of my world’. We have a situation in New Zealand now where new entrant teachers are telling us that many children are starting school with insufficient oral language competency to successfully begin the formal reading and writing process. Importantly, the negative impact of this on learning and social competence is frequently cumulative as children move through the schooling system and beyond. While, the reasons behind new entrant teachers’ concerns are often multi-faceted, it is worth considering that early childhood teachers, in particular, are in the very privileged position of teaching the age group most receptive to language learning.

If there is one message I hope you will take from this blogpost, it is that you grasp this privilege firmly with both hands so that children aren’t confined to a limited world both now and in their future. A starting point for doing this would be to give at least as much attention to the quality of adult-child talk and conversation in your practice, professional learning and discussions, as you give to things like alphabets, narrative assessment and planning activities.

Acknowledgements:
Kelly teaches at First Steps Everglade Babies Childcare, Manukau, Auckland.

1 Britton, J. (1970). Language and learning. Coral Gables, FL: University of Miami Press

2 van Hees, J. (2007). Expanding oral language in the classroom. Wellington: NZCER.

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collaborating

The value of “experiential learning”. Show me and I will learn.

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collaborating

The Early Childhood SELO Pasifika Leadership programme offers bi-monthly networking meetings to participants enrolled in the programme. The purpose of the network meetings is to explore the many aspects of Pasifika cultures through hands-on learning and language. One of the key messages echoed from the participants is that they value the hands-on experience as a catalyst for people sharing knowledge and skills, but also the bringing of people together with a common purpose.

What is experiential learning?

There is a wide range of research on the value of experiential learning. Haynes (2007) describes experiential learning as learning through action, doing, through experience, through discovery and exploration. Although learning content is important, learning from the process is at the heart of experiential learning.

Kolb (1984) signaled that experiential learning contains four elements: active experimentation (doing), concrete experience (experiencing), abstract conceptualization (thinking), and reflective observation (reflective).  He described each one of these elements as an essential part of the critical thinking process moving beyond rote learning.  It provides a better understanding of the material and instructors can increase their enjoyment of teaching.

My own personal experience of experiential learning

“Show me and I will learn”.

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