Curious learners
Some thoughts around what it means to be a teacher and a learner at Greerton Early Learning Centre with Te Whāriki (The national curriculum) principles embedded into our practice…
When teachers position themselves as learners and teachers, ako becomes our priority and we are less likely to miss the meaning of our Te Whāriki principle, Empowerment (1996, 2017). We are learners and teachers with and alongside children who are also learners and teachers. This doesn’t mean we do not offer provocations, however, we do not expect that all children will do the same thing at the same time.
Instead, we address the notion of children leading their own learning and teachers refraining from hijacking children’s ideas and their play. Instead, we focus on respectful, responsive relationships with a high expectation for complex learning to emerge from nurturing children’s deep-seated interests. This is highly nuanced and is as far from didactic teaching as one can get. We trust our children’s energies, their passions, their spirits and their desire to seek learning through social connection. This is why we strive to build a collaborative community with children growing their characters as learners from the inside out. This is why we do not have ‘activities’ or templates, stamps and stickers. We grow competent social learners who self-regulate their emotions and work hard and long to achieve their self-set goals.
This is why we can spend long periods with invested learners at the sewing machine, in the tinkering shop, at the kai table, to name a few spaces, engaged in deeply thoughtful conversations. Other children are very able to play in complex ways without interference in this high stakes/high trust kind of learning and teaching setting.
We are of course ever responsive and are there, not to interrupt but to co-construct learning together as appropriate, there to add vibrancy, expressive language and there to ask questions that provoke awe and wonder.
We seek to have a richly resourced environment that invites curious exploration, with teachers who are very clearly learners and researchers, ever seeking to understand each and every child’s language, culture, and identities.
We include our perspectives on learning, based on our considerable professional learning, both formally and through the wide range of books we all read. We write Learning Stories with quotes from researchers we value, in ways that are interesting and emotionally engaging for families/whānau. We track children’s progress and see continuity of learning as a high priority for children and for ourselves.