Community Child Care: Rattler 62

HOME | Staff | Training | Rattler | Broadside

Community Child Care Co-operative Ltd (NSW) is a not-for-profit organisation and a member of National Management Agencies Alliance Quality Management, Quality Care.

Community Child Care gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance of:

Creating better learning environments

Children's services are always keen to look at different programs and educational practices that can lead to better learning environments for children. We spoke to Tracey Popple about the emergent curriculum used at the Kogarah Uniting Church Long Day Care Centre and the benefits that it provides for children.

Focusing upon the child's needs is a more appropriate way of creating better learning environments for children.

The idea of an 'emergent curriculum' has been gaining momentum in some children's services throughout Australia. But the idea of emergent curriculum is not new, and some services have been utilising the methods and styles of learning and teaching for some time.

What is emergent curriculum?

The term 'emergent curriculum' could be defined as a style and philosophy about teaching in the early childhood sector that incudes the child's focus as primary and involves teaching in a creative and stimulating manner both for the child and the teacher. The focus of learning is from the child's perspective, so often topics of learning are about the things the child finds interesting and stimulating. Often, these areas of interest would not be found in a 'conventional' curriculum that focuses on children learning a range of basic fixed skills. It focuses more on observing the child on a very personal level and then incorporating the aspects identified as being of interest into the daily lessons.

Tracey Popple is Director of Kogarah Uniting Church Long Day Care Centre, a service which has introduced an emergent curriculum and believes that focusing on a child's interest is crucial for early learning. 'I know an eight-year-old child who is considered by her class teacher and parents to be struggling with her literacy development', says Popple. 'On a recent visit to my house we began talking about her interest on Pok�mon. This particular child was able to draw the most elaborate pictures of several of the characters and most importantly to write their names, names which can have up to nine letters and almost defy pronunciation. This child doesn't struggle with literacy when she is focussing on a true interest.'

Emergent curriculum takes the child's interest and turns it into a learning process and allows the child to be not just learning but sharing and developing their own knowledge with the childcarer. To develop the above example of the child's interest in Pok�mon, there is a lot that many adults don't know or understand about Pok�mon. A child would therefore become the 'expert' in this area, creating a genuine educational exchange. 'Imagine the potential in this type of exchange for developing a child's feeling of self worth', says Popple.

Reggio Emilia and emergent curriculum

Emergent curriculum is often used in the same context as the Reggio Emilia approach to learning. The two methods take into consideration a number of similar children-based issues but are separate historically and socially. Reggio Emilia is a small city in Northern Italy and is where this approach was developed soon after World War II. Parents in the town wanted their children to develop critical skills based around the community and the national needs of post-war Italy and, after the experiences of Mussolini's fascism, they wanted it mainly to be centred around social democratic principles.

What's in a name?

The word 'curriculum' within the term 'emergent curriculum' is misleading because the style of teaching doesn't have a fixed agenda that itemises or prescribes the content and the outcomes. The curriculum, as such, is about spontaneous teaching and learning and by its very nature, cannot be planned. The style of teaching is not based on the 'wrong' or 'right' answers to the questions that may be posed to the child. Often, questions start with 'what do you think about ... ', 'what can you tell me about ... ', or 'do you know something about ... '

The Kogarah Uniting Church Long Day Care Centre has practiced this philosophy since January 2001 and has found it an excellent mode of learning for the children at the centre. 'Emergent curriculum is about teaching and learning in a slightly different way and how we go about planning experiences for young children', says Popple. 'It looks at a lot of things that we have traditionally held dear, such as child-centred learning, child choice or interest-based planning, but suggests that if we can look at children differently, that instead of looking at children through a developmental approach that concentrates on weaknesses, that we start looking at children as being really competent individuals and giving them more credit for the things they can do.'

This style of programming and planning is making its way into the early childhood studies with journals such as the Australian Early Childhood Association starting to document the approach and make its way into university courses.

Most centres take on the approach of a developmentally-appropriate practice model, generally described as the philosophy of children learning in a prescribed and developmental manner. Under this model, there are things a child needs to know by certain age brackets and skills are developed accordingly. Emergent curriculum is the next phase of addressing questions that are raised in regard to the developmental approach, such as, why do children need to fit into a mould in terms of stages and content of learning?

Children with additional needs or highly intelligent children are also taken into consideration by the emergent curriculum. There is a fairly strong focus on what the child finds interesting or relevant in their life and the childcare teacher incorporates this into the lesson to meet the child at their own learning level. 'In our previous approach to planning, if we took a two-year-old child and were evaluating that child's development in the area of social development, a very common comment would be that the child has trouble sharing. A common approach in this situation would be to look at objectives to assist that child to share over the next six-month period', says Popple.

'As early child hood professionals, we know that most two-year-old children do not like to share, so it is an unrealistic expectation of that child to immediately start sharing. Under the emergent approach, we'd look at focusing on what they can do and under what circumstances the child can share and then take it from there. The approach doesn't look for faults but for strengths. It is a lot more respectful of children, as they are learning so much in one day that it seems unfair to pick out what they aren't learning.'

Journal of learning and activities

Emergent curriculum works towards freeing up the childcare worker to enjoy the uniqueness of the child without looking for weakness or faults in the child. A typical daily routine includes small and large groups and a process of documenting the child's learning activities via playful journals, pictures and general observations being discussed. Family involvement is also encouraged through the journal process, and results in a better interaction between parents and their children. 'Some of the parents are writing the most amazing things in the journal', says Popple. 'They are able to express a lot more about their child and the child's learning experience. It's also useful for the parents to express their own feelings about their child's learning and progress. There has been a whole new level of interaction with parents that we never had before.'

General information on emergent curriculum can be found at www.SmartStartECEC.com

RELATED STORIES

NSW Curriculum Framework update

Site programmed and maintained by ARMEDIA