Belonging Doesnt Grow on Trees

I was thinking while avoiding the pile of washing (waiting patiently to be folded and put away) behind me on the spare bed: What would be the best topic to write about in 2016? I thought with the start of a new year, belonging was the most logical choice for me.

Belonging

 For many people, big and small, 2016 will be filled with new beginnings...

• Perhaps as a child starting their first day ever in a setting?
• Perhaps a child starting at a new service, because they needed to leave their old one? A mix of familiarity and starting all over again.
• Perhaps as a fresh bright-eyed graduate starting a new role?  
• A student commencing studies?
• Starting a new position at a new service – or even an old one?
•  Volunteering or perhaps being on placement?
• Beginning a leadership role? Team leader? Director/Manager? Educational Leader?

I am sure many of us are feeling quite lost. I know I did. In fact, although I’ve been at my current service for 9 months, I still don’t feel a sense of belonging. We all want to feel that we belong, and that brings us to this question:

How do we facilitate a sense of Belonging? For Children? For Colleagues? For Ourselves?

I don’t have all the answers. I’m just nutting out and putting down my thoughts on this thing that is often presented in the shape of a tree: A Belonging Tree.

A belonging tree isn’t going to do it. [I’d love to know who started this belonging tree thing] Putting a child’s name on a birthday chart so high up they can’t even see it isn’t going to facilitate a sense of belonging.  It especially won’t facilitate belonging if they can’t read or recognise their name or are so young their eyes cannot focus at that distance.  Family photos on a wall? Nope. Names on lockers, names on hats, children’s photos on walls etc – they don’t create belonging. They are merely a collection of strategies that together plus something else MAY help to foster a feeling a belonging. These strategies are not guarantees.  You cannot implement them and then walk away and say that your efforts at ‘belonging’ are done. Tick those boxes. No. Just no. It just doesn’t work that way.

I believe the most important thing we can do to facilitate belonging is through relationships. It is so critical that we respectfully connect with people as people:

•        educator to child
•         educator to parent
•         educator to family
•          educator to educator
•          educator to leaders
•          leader to educator

How did you feel?

• How did you feel when there wasn’t a space for you to put your belongings?  Either as a child, a student, relief educator or employee?
• When you weren’t greeted when you arrived?
• When your name wasn’t spoken?
• When your name was pronounced incorrectly, repeatedly?
• When your name was overlooked on a list?
• When your name was spelled incorrectly on your paintings, repeatedly?
• When conversations around you didn’t include you?
• When conversations in the staffroom excluded you and included topics you could never participate in?
• When your position title: “floater” implies you don’t have any belonging to a space – you merely waft in and out with no connection?
• When people had their backs to you?
• When they didn’t bother to greet you and say good morning/afternoon/evening/night?
• When an educator you were working with in a team calls up the staff person you were covering and tells them how much they miss them and can’t wait for them to return so things can get back to normal?
• When colleagues don’t greet you much less even acknowledge that you are in the room?
• When colleagues discuss their plans for spending time together but exclude other educators in the room?
• When you see an educator giving consistent special attention to one particular child and not to you?
• When you were crying because you felt so alone, and someone said “Stop crying, you’re fine.”
• When you didn’t speak the language that everyone else was speaking?
• When you were down low, and everyone towered over you?
• When someone refused to give you a hug because someone else said “Put her down, or she’ll expect you to hold her all the time. She has to learn.”?  
• When you’re frustrated and want to do something so badly and someone laughs at you and says “Oh he’s such a little girl!”
• When you’re a girl and you hear someone use your gender as an insult?

I could really go on ... But you get the gist.

I feel horrible even writing those ... but the sad truth is they are all real. They exist. They existed in my past, I’ve experienced or witnessed them or colleagues have shared these stories with me. These moments may exist in someone else’s present and sadly they may exist for someone else in the near future.

Would you feel you a sense of belonging in those spaces?

Probably not. You might one moment, but not the next. 

So what do we do? How could we foster a feeling of belonging?

• Smile reassuringly. Be genuine – not artificial.
• Be welcoming. Greet people, big and small and say “Hello. Good morning.”
• Make eye contact – see them. Let them know that you see them! They exist!  If they don’t want to make or maintain eye-contact don’t force them! That’s creepy. Don’t be creepy.
• Speak their name. Make every effort to pronounce their name correctly. Ask their parents – write it down phonetically. Fo-Net-I-Call-Ee.  Learn it. It’s ok to make mistakes. Just don’t make mistakes for a year. Or change their name to suit you. That too is not cool.
• Re-assure and acknowledge feelings: “I know that you are upset; I can see that you are feeling sad/scared/angry/happy/joyful.”
• Be present and connect. “I am here to be with you. You are not alone.”

I think we give Belonging lip service. I think it’s something that is taken for granted. I think it’s a piece of plywood we have had  laser cut in the shape of a tree and tacked on a wall or written on a notice board. I think we just gloss over it because it’s compulsory. It's something we "have" to do in order to pass Assessment & Rating.

I challenge you - in 2016 to really think about your education spaces. Do you feel a sense of belonging? If yes, how and why? What contributes to those feelings? How could you embrace others in your space to support their sense of belonging? It doesn’t have to be ‘new’ colleagues, it could certainly be established team members. If you don’t feel a sense of belonging, how could you support yourself to feel a sense of belonging to your space? What changes would you need to make to manifest this for yourself? Would you need to speak up and voice your feelings or would modelling be enough? 

How does all this translate and have impact upon the children in our care? 

How important is Belonging to you, really, and what are YOU going to do?

Please put the trees down ... 

And no, don't pick up the bloody rainbow ...

Belonging is more than a tree ... 

It is more than a tokenistic display ... 

Belonging is a feeling. 

© Teacher's Ink. 2016

How Many Different Ways Do You Need to Document? (Really?)

People are confused and lost when it comes to programming and planning. Look, I totally get that you’re lost. I do. As a curriculum mentor I knew what I was doing, and then the more input people had into my thinking and practice the more confused it became. The more I read online the more convoluted it seemed. I thought that was bullshit. I decided to become a pedagogical hermit for a little while and I delved into the Standards and I wrapped my head around them. I shut out the background noise and I looked at the Standards themselves. NOT other people’s interpretation of them. Start at the beginning. The Standards.

Now what amazes me is some of these self-professed consultants. I am not a consultant hater. In fact I can think of three brilliant consultants that I know who rock. They are smart and challenging and cluey. One challenges the crap out of my mind but I adore that. I need that.

Be aware that not all consultants are created equal. KNOW who you are paying. KNOW who you are trusting with YOUR reputation. The consultants don’t go through Assessment and Rating. You do. You can’t blame them when you get working towards because your program lacks depth and continuity. And I have yet to see a money back guarantee.

I wonder about these shonky consultants. I especially wonder about consultants who promise you more with less documenting and yet they show you 25 different ways to document and meet the supposed requirement of the NQF?! How is 25 less? Guess how many styles of documenting I used to use when I was a practicing teacher? My curriculum cycle had three elements to it. So that is three documents. On the side I’d do little documentations or displays but they would slot into the Day Book or the Curriculum Reflections, plus the Children’s Portfolios. THREE. Then the types of documentations or observation formats I would create in the children’s portfolios? I made them all up. So it was essentially say about five different documents. And NOT one of them was a Learning Story. I am yet to be a fan. I might change my mind in future, but as of today, I don’t particularly like them. They’re too time consuming. I don’t have time. You don’t have time. Are you doing them at home? You shouldn’t have to! Home should be YOUR time.

I’ve seen it published that “old fashioned” ways of documenting such as anecdotes and jottings and checklists are no longer valid.

I’m going to be seriously blunt.

Fuck off.

Why are they not valid? Because everyone is taught to do them when they study? No one has to come to trainings or workshops or conferences to learn how to fill out a checklist or take a jotting? 

Guess what... Anecdotes and jottings and even checklists are still valid forms of documenting. And I STRONGLY suggest you do them.

Look, programming and planning under the NQS is not the simplest thing in the world, but it also doesn’t need to be the most complicated. Slapping 25 different formats that you’ve briefly been shown photos of is not going to get you far. It’s bullshit. It’s sales-pitches and marketing designed to get your money. It’s sure as hell NOT going to get you the promised “Exceeding” ... Why not do two or three or five and do them brilliantly? Why spread yourself so bloody thin that you’re completely transparent that no one can see you or what you’re trying so desperately to achieve?

I have so much more to say, but that will do for now.

© Teacher’s Ink. 2014 All Rights Reserved

Where Am I?

Greetings... I have been quiet for a while as I've been engaged in a few other projects as well as starting up a small business. The small business alone has pretty much take up a year of my life. Plus I work full-time as an advisor and have home-life-responsibilities.

I clearly need to work on my time management strategies! But that's not really a new discovery.

I have two ideas I'd like to explore within the pages of my blog. The first is Intentional Teaching and the second is Reflective Practice. I've been wanting to work on these for quite a while actually - but ya know - TIME. Where does it go, and how does one find more?

I've written my two ideas on a post-it note and I have a page of time management strategy plan thingy-ma-bobs.

I shall write again.

I shall.

- G @ Teacher's Ink.

Why So Many Ways to Document?

When I studied the first time around I learned how to observe and document using the following methods:

Anecdotal Observations
Running Records
Jottings
Time Samples
Event Samples
Sociograms ...

I'm sure there were more, but those are the ones that come to mind.

That was 1996. Waaaay back when.

Now, there are training organizations, the now defunct DEEWR with their 'Educators Guide'  and the self-proclaimed consultants who are passing the old formats of observations off as if they are something new, and adding:

Morning meeting minutes
Afternoon meeting minutes
Reflective practice
Reflective Oblongs
Children's Philosophies
Family Philosophies
Surveys
Projects
Learning Stories
Mind Maps
Analysis of learning
Etcetera

Do you not wonder why you are being told to spread yourself too thin? And who are these experts? Have they been through Assessment and Rating themselves? Have they even managed a centre consistently under the new National Quality Standards? What are their early childhood qualifications? Are they certified? Or are they just out to make a quick buck out of your insecurity and fear? If they were really out to help you, they wouldn't charge you exorbitantly for their time and supposed expertise.

I am a consultant. That's my nine to five. But I resent using the word because of those who are laying claim to it. Abusing it. Abusing you.

No one, NO ONE can get you exceeding. EVER. Apart from the fact that I have little faith in the A&R system as it is, I certainly think that if a centre gets Exceeding then it's their own doing. They did the work, not the books that they read, the websites they joined or the consultants they consulted with. The centre earned it. Not the hired help.

Are you even comfortable with someone claiming to take credit for your hard work? Is that fair? Is it ethical for someone to take your success, pass it off as their own, and then use your success to advertise themselves to make more money from other educators and service providers?

Just because someone delivers something in a way that you connect with. Just because they are charismatic and friendly, doesn't mean that they are speaking the truth and giving you sound information or advice.

My advice to you: Stick with a few styles of documentation and do them well. You only need a few. Don't fall for the "children's magical voices" bullshit. Writing anything down is worthless without some serious reflection behind it. And children are not magical beings. They are people. If you called me magical I'd smack you across the head for demeaning me and tell you it was just fairy dust. Don't. Call. Me. Magical. It's degrading. I'm a person who deserves respect.

Don't fall for empty promises and spread yourself too thin. That is not the path to a "Meeting" rating much less an "Exceeding" one.

Reflection is deeper than asking the children what they liked or didn't like about their day. Reflection is not about what you liked or what 'went' well or how lovely it was in the sandpit with all the children playing so nicely or what the children said.

I've given you plenty of professional reflection on my blog - go read it.

So what sorts of documentation would I use?

The Teacher's Ink Approved Documentation Methods: < tongue in cheek in case ya didn't know.
Anecdotal observations
Jottings
Photo montages
Conversations
Narratives

And then I'd tie it all in together with my reflections of my knowledge of the child and what I would like to see the child working on in the near future.

I personally am not a fan of (New Zealand) Learning Stories - I think they're great for NZ and I think they're fabulous for centres that are above ratio and provide their educators with a) a computer and b) extensive time to document. Otherwise who has time to do them? I didn't.

I've never particularly liked them. And most people don't do them properly anyway. I doubt that many people know they come from NZ in the first place. You don't need to do them. They're not required. No matter what anyone says. There is NOTHING in the NQS or EYLF that says you need to use them.

So in regards to children's portfolios, I would have five main documentation formats. Five. That's it. FIVE. Not 10, not 20 or 30 or 86 different ways to document (yeah you think I'm joking? I've heard this one).

Pick five, and do them well. Especially the jottings - do lots of them! They're more meaningful that a whole long drawn out story.

In regards to hiring consultants, Google them, do some research! Just because they're nice and charismatic doesn't mean they're qualified.

Remember that: Charismatic is NOT the same as Qualified.

And a pretty portfolio is NOT an assessment of learning nor is it your curriculum documentation.

Portfolios are not even required, yet many of us do them. But that's another story.

I think perhaps the moral of this story is that you shouldn't spread yourself too think. You're not Vegemite.

Work smarter, not harder. I know. That's what they say. They all say it. But they're full of shit. Because they tell you to do it 10 or 20 or 30 or 86 different ways.

© Teacher’s Ink. 2014 All Rights Reserved

  

Being: A Reflection

“Childhood is a time to be, to seek and make meaning of the world. Being recognises the significance of the here and now in children’s lives. It is about the present and them knowing themselves, building and maintaining relationships with others, engaging with life’s joys and complexities, and meeting challenges in everyday life. The early childhood years are not solely preparation for the future but also about the present.”

Belonging, Being & Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework

(DEEWR, 2009 p. 7)

I have noticed a great many discussions over the past 12 months or so around multiple highly commercialised programs for teaching children literacy through ‘cute’ characters and catchy songs. I have also seen a great deal of confusion around what ‘Intentional Teaching’ means.  I can quite easily reflect on both literacy and intentional teaching. But here I’m not going down that path today. Today I am reflecting on being and what it means for me as an early childhood teacher and what I think it means for children.

I try to think about times when I have been me, and I’ve been given direction or criticism or even guidance into a new direction that I knew I wasn’t prepared for. Do you know how I feel about that? I feel like I’m not good enough. I’m not good enough as I am at this time in this space. What my I hear is “NOT GOOD ENOUGH”. Now, whether that is the truth or not, it doesn’t matter. That horrible judging statement chips away at me.

Here’s a prime example. I was going to TAFE College in the 1990s part-time at night while working part-time as a live in nanny.  I was doing quite well. I was getting As and Bs and I was happy. I enjoyed it. My father thought that since I was doing so well, that I should apply for university. I was happy with TAFE, but he was adamant that I should apply for Uni. I would leave my job, I would move back home and I would be supported in conjunction with whatever part-time work I did. Good deal yeah?

So I withdrew from TAFE and I went to Uni. I struggled. It was so technically different to TAFE and I struggled. My self esteem plummeted. It just spiralled lower and lower. I was miserable. I put everything I had into the subjects I felt I could do, and I passed. I went from excelling to passing in a short period. I failed the other half of my subjects because they were so far beyond what I was ready to deal with at the time, and I didn’t know enough to withdraw. I felt like I had not only let myself down, but also my family. I was low. I was defeated. I was shattered. I went into a very dark place, where I was telling myself that I was not good enough.  This was the beginning of the dark times.

I was pushed. I let myself be pushed. I wasn’t strong enough in my being to say no. I wasn’t ready.

If I were left to be a TAFE student at a level where I was doing very well, who would I be today? It sure would have saved me a great deal of heart ache and turmoil. That decision to listen to someone pushing me beyond what was good for me, led me down a very dark path which lasted 3 painful years.

I want to say: “it doesn’t matter, because it has made me who I am today” but I look back at 19-year-old me, and my heart breaks for the hurt and pain and that 19-year-old me went through. It impacted upon my sense of belonging, I ended up interstate, essentially homeless and almost completely alone.

I eventually landed on my feet. I went back to TAFE and I completed my Diploma in EC. But it could easily have gone a very different way. I did even end up going to University. On my own terms, and when I was ready for that commitment.

I am who I am and I am travelling my own path. I also know now never to let myself be pushed. I now choose who pushes me, and how hard.

So, what does this have to do with children and their sense of being?

EVERY THING.

Imagine being a very capable three year old. And then imagine being re-directed and instructed into a different place.  Imagine the message that you are giving that young person: You are not good enough at three. You can’t do what you enjoy freely. You need to be doing these things. You need to be here at four. The same at four, you are not good enough at four, you need to be five. And so on and so forth.

Imagine your interests – the things you love doing and playing, being used against you. The things you loved doing for the sake of doing, for the pure love of being you, turned into something else conveniently labelled as “Intentional Teaching” to meet some sort of predetermined adult decided outcome that you at three or four or five really aren’t interested in much less ready for.

I don’t think we are preparing them for anything but failure and heartbreak and fragile self-esteems that might seriously put them in harms way in the future.

Why have we lost “being”?

Why can’t we let them be. Let them be who they are. It’s not our job to push them, to prod them into another state of being. It’s not our right.

I think that it is so critical to be who you are and be supported in being YOU.

I think we need to embrace “being” ... I think we need to let children learn who they are and be proud of themselves. I think we need to support them in driving their own knowing and learnings. I think we need to support them in connecting with each other and I think we need to focus on empathy.

Children are confident and involved learners who “follow and extend their own interests.” (DEEWR 2009 p. 34).  Why do they ‘need’ us pushing them? Especially when the learning framework tells us children have a right to be, but they also have the right to drive their own learning.

These are my thoughts on “being” and what it means to me as a human-being and what I think it means for the children in my life.

© Teacher’s Ink. 2014 All Rights Reserved. 

Nature IS Nurture

I was sitting in the little corner oasis in my garden. I am especially fond of this spot as I made it myself. I didn’t use a landscaper, I had a vision, I had a loose plan, and I made it happen. The plants are shade loving semi-tropical and hardy and I’ve created a tiny micro climate of sorts. It’s my space where I often just go and sit and ‘be’. I think it’s important to have a place where you can ‘be’ and nothing else.

(view looking up)

  

(view looking out - can see you find bubba bird?) 

Birds come to my garden because I provide them with large bushy shrubs and multiple water supplies. I have a large bird bath, a pond in a pot in my corner oasis, and I have a small water tray and a larger pond. Water is so important for life.

So, as I sat and was busy ‘being’ I was watching a family of butcher birds. Normally they are quite shy retired birds, but the family in my garden are quite confident. Very different to the ones at my parent’s place about 35kms away ... These birds also have to deal with my dog who doesn’t like birds in our garden much ... He tends to bark carry on and chase them away. As a result I don’t get any ground grazing crested pigeons. I get noisy miners, butcher birds, and magpies mainly. They all bring their offspring to my garden where they have to learn to be quick and resourceful.

I was watching the baby practising life. She was sitting in a hanging basket which had a Hoya and some large leaves from the tree above in it.  She was picking up leaves and turning them and moving them around and snuggling in and rearranging and she did this for a good 15-20 minutes. Her father (darker almost black and white) was in the tree above her. He was singing. Her mother (grey and white like she) was on the ground.

(bubba bird having a drink)

(pappa bird looking for bugs)

I was just mesmerised by what this little bird was doing ... she was being a child ... she was learning about life doing what it is she was inclined to do ... it was practising and it was learning but it was living life more than anything else. There was no one in her face taking her picture or asking her what she was doing. She was just being a young bird exploring leaves and what she could do with them.  She was connected to her world, she was developing important skills which I assume would help her in her nest building endeavours when she grows. She was also learning how to use her beak to manipulate tools. She was chattering away which I took to be self-talk. She could have been talking to her parents. She was engaging in life and learning and all the outcomes that we attribute to children in our work were there, happening in front of me with a little bird.

The mother also fascinated me. She was pecking at a spent flower head which was on the ground. I imagine insects were inside and she was eating them. She pecked and pecked. It’s a rather large flower head which is in a cone shape and it is a tall plant called a Justicia.

(momma bird after the flower head had finally dropped)

 What she did next really amazed me. She picked up the flower head and put it in the fork of the flower stems where it had come from. Once it was wedged she back pulling it apart. It would then fall to the ground again. She did this a few more times. Then she picked it up and flew up to the callistemon tree under which I was sitting. There she wedged it again, higher up, and in thicker branches an she continued to pick it apart, eating what she found there, bits of flower dropping below.

Genius.

There is genius to be seen in nature. So there I sat, connecting with nature and the world around me, watching these little creatures learn about life, or living life, not merely surviving, but thriving in my little modest garden.

Why can’t we have this same peace and harmony at work? I think maybe this is a possibility, we just have to create it, and fight for it.

© Teacher’s Ink. 2014 All Rights Reserved.

Thoughts On Portfolios/Journals

Just some random thoughts I've been having of late ...