Vancouver, Canada

Taking a short excursion from Seattle, I made my way to Vancouver for a few days to meet with our Canadian colleagues. Jen Moses is part of the early childhood faculty at Capilano University, but has been on Sabbatical leave for the semester, returning to Capilano in the fall. Jen spent some time in NZ last year, while also being able to squeeze in a visit to Tots Corner.

University of Capilano Childcare Centre; Infants - 5 year olds. 

www.capilanou.ca

Situated on campus amongst such an exquisite and breath taking nature, this early childhood centre provides education and care for infants - young children. 

Capilano Early Childhood Centre 

One of the many aspects I was interested in whilst visting these ece centres in the US and Canada was how they intertwined the principles of Reggio Emilia into their teaching practice and pedagogical documentation. This actually got me questioning; What is it about early childhood education in Reggio Emilia that places such high emphasise on centres around the world? 
In 2009, I was fortunate enough to visit Reggio Emilia alongside 30 teachers (predominantly ece) from around New Zealand thus combined with another 300+ teachers worldwide for the annual Reggio Emilia ECE Conference. Here is a week filled with translated knowledge, stories, presentations and visits to Reggio Children pre-schools. Something that has always been entrenched in me about this town was the determination to turn things around for education after the war centuries ago, and it all began with some of the most influential people - the "parents". 


In the words of Loris Malaguzzi of Reggio Emilia, ‘War, in its tragic absurdity, is the kind of experience that pushes a person toward the job of educating, as a way to start anew and live and work for the future. This desire strikes a person, as the war finally ends and the symbols of life reappear with a violence equal to that of the time of destruction.’  http://www.communityplaythings.co.uk/resources/articles/reggio-emilia.html


Over the last few years, I have attended various conferences from a lot of world class individuals from Reggio Emilia, Australia and the US. Carlina Rinaldi, Tiziana Fillippini, Jan Millikan, Margie Carter and Deb Curtis - just to name a few. All have left tiny footprints that have been engraved on my teaching soul and stimulated my thinking with such influential provocations that has indeed contributed to my teaching today. 
Which brings me back to the essence of my visit to Canada and the US. After such an evolving teaching journey we (Tots Corner) have been able to extend our global community with centres not only within NZ, but beyond the globe as well. My personal pathway seeks such value in dialogue, growth and collaboration with other teachers. 


During my visit to Capilano I was also joined by Laurie Kocher and Joanne Szamreta from Lesley University in Massachusetts. Laurie has spent time in NZ with colleagues from REANZ and also completed her PHD at Hilltop Pre-School in Seattle and Australia. 

Joanne and Laurie 

Something that I continue to ponder about upon visiting Capilano was their  choice in not having individual porfolio's for children. The reasons validated that their wall documentation and daily/weekly documentation shared enough information about the learning and development of their children in a group environment. 
As I may have mentioned in prior posts, there is a huge influence of the NZ ece "learning stories" and the Bicultural ECE curriculum "Te Whariki that is sweeping the globe as world class exemplar's. 
I was interested to know if not having portfolios was merely enough to justify the learning of young children without individual narratives? 


I am open to discussion about seeing the possibilites and potential dialogue that unfolds around this. Especially since the majority of centres in Reggio Emilia do not have individual learning stories or portfolios for children, but more group based documentation. What are the alternatives to learning stories in some centres? 
www.reggiochildren.it


Many thanks to Tia Smith and the team at Capilano for hosting me that morning, and especially to Laurie and Joanne for the adventurous afternoon at the suspension bridge (next postings) along with the engaging conversations. 

Laurie and Joanne with Capilano teachers 

University of British Columbia Childcare Centres; Infants - 5 year olds. 
www.childcare.ubc.ca

UBC

One of the largest Universities and home to at least 21 early childhood centres, all situated within the vicinity of each other. UBC are hoping to increase the number of centres over the next few years, to accomodate at least 1000 children. 
I loved the fact that the centres were literally next door to one another, reminding me of a neighborhood village. I questioned how centres were able to maintain those connections with each other to remain as one united front? 
You are literally working with several centres, teachers, families and children. Leaders of each centre meet every week with the UBC childcare centre director,   which enables time for collaboration and centre discussions between each other. 
I think the benefits of the UBC centres is that they are so physically close to one another, it seems to enable flexible access for building relationships between teams and leaders of each centre. . . Maybe? or is this my vision that I would love to see happening! 
The concept "community of learners" comes to mind and I look at the endless possibilities that can arise from these larger communities. 
You probably see a trend of passionate virtues that are strongly advocated within my postings. Here is one of them! 

UBC early childhood centres 

The UBC childcare centres did get me wondering about how transition worked to ensure there was a smooth and fluid shift when the time came for children to transition from the infant centres to the 2-5 year old centres. 
The children transition to the next available place within the community of centres. Transition is very flexible and a lot of time is taken for teachers to enable that switch over for children is done so with ease, time and comfort for children and their families. I have to say, although they are separated centres under one umbrella, there was definitely a sense of togetherness in their own way as you walked through the many centres. 


As you can imagine, the outdoor environment here in Vancouver is nothing short of adventurous. I found that this was highly reflected within the gardens of these centres as well. Such enchantment with beautiful wooden forts and lofts that shared their own stories. At Capilano their outdoors were surrounded by that Vancouver greenery, giving such a natural outlook on not only life at the centre, but life in Vancouver - simply amazing. 

Many thanks to the director of the UBC childcare centre's Darcelle Cottons for the morning tour of the centres. Yet another university that is situated on acres of beauty. Whilst the priority of early childhood at UBC is quite high, the university is very accommodating to their students in offering subsidised fees for their children to attend the centres. 


Brentwood Pre-School; 3-5 year olds. 
www.brentwoodpreschool.com


Final centre visit and final day in Vancouver, Brentwood Pre-School is located in the suburb of Burnaby and right next door to the local primary school. Brentwood is run by a committee of parents and have sessional times for the children to attend. 

What started off like any other day, children arrived at the centre, awaiting for the doors to Brentwood to open. Parent's said goodbye to their children outside and they made their way inside, being greeted by their teachers. Collecting what looked like place mats, the children sat themselves in a circle holding clear bags containing different objects inside them. You can imagine my curiosity in wanting to know just what was going to happen when all the children were sitting down ready to start their morning session. 


Homework? was included in these bags! After the morning welcome songs, teachers discussed the homework the children were given the day before. Now this was not your ordinary "homework" however you may want to perceive the word! This was homework with a twist of enjoyment, willingness and almost a thrill in being able to go home and research objects that may "glow" in the dark room the children and teachers at Brentwood had created over the last week. 


Each child had the opportunity to talk about what they had brought in from home and why they had chosen that particular object. Eventually there were a tray of items to test in the dark room, outside the dark room were boxes labelled "Yes it glows" and "No it does not glow". This was going to be one of the many experiences the children could investigate that morning. 

This reminded me about "morning meetings". A time for children and teachers to come together and share their intentions for the day, work from the previous day, possible provocations etc. Whilst being involved with the Brentwood morning meeting, you could see the passion and energy that was put into such a ritual time of learning together and hearing the ideas of others, questioning theories and allowing that process to evolve in collaboration between teachers and children. 
I felt really inspired by how the Brentwood team had created their own culture of morning meetings. Homework was completed by the majority of the children and they only anticipated awaiting their turn to share their exciting discoveries! 
It didn't seem to worry the children whether they were right or wrong, the un-certainty only made it that much more conspicuous. At such a young age, children are being encouraged to question, problem solve and test such theories, which I personally think is brilliant! 

"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new"

Albert Einstein 

Many thanks to Melanie and the team at Brentwood Pre-School for having me spend my last morning in Vancouver with yet another enthusiastic team of teachers. 

It was great to be able to meet and learn about how ece is shaping in some centres in Vancouver. Although it was a short visit, I am hugely grateful to those who took the time out to make me feel welcome and share their space. All of this wouldn't have been possible without the organisation and contacts of Jen Moses, thank you Jen! I have loved being able to combine the 2 things I love in one and that is teaching and travelling. 


"The wonder of learning" exhibition from Reggio Emilia will be in Vancouver from July in collaboration with the Italian embassy of Canada. Margaret Carr will also be heading into town later on in the year, which is looking like quite an eventful few months ahead for the teaching community in Canada.

Obviously my next posting will have the tourist explorations of Vancouver! Stay tuned, as I think you will fall in love with this place, as I certainly did!