My Froebelian Journey Part 2

"Early Childhood is important in its own righting not merely a preparation for later learning. Learning begins at birth and continues throughout life" 

Tovey H. (2017) Bringing the Froebel Approach to your Early Years Practice p125

I am now 3 sessions in to my Froebel in childhood practice certificate and each online session just strengthens my desire to describe my own practice as Froebelian. It feels like I have come home and am among other practitioners who really get how early years education should be offered to our young children and their families. It is very interesting to see how Tina Bruce's Bedrock Principles are so interwoven with a Frobelian approach as it was these principles that resonated the most with me in 2003-2006 when I undertook further studies after my PGCE in Primary Education. I knew I wanted to teach nursery and that I would have to have robust knowledge of how young children learn to be able to be the best advocate for the type of play based curriculum I wanted to offer. My PGCE year was intense and was focused on primary teaching which seemed to be at odds with how I had seen young children learning in nursery when working as an assistant and later a substitute teacher. 

The biggest issue for me on teaching practice and then when subbing in primary was that stories were no longer read for pleasure. In nursery I had got used to reading or telling at least one story a day to the whole class, then in primary no story was read without there being questions afterwards or a dreaded worksheet to complete. It seemed like there had to be evidence of learning after every activity instead of trusting that the children were learning all the time.  So  I knew I needed further studies more based in early years so I could begin to articulate why I wanted to teach a certain way. I enrolled in a Masters in Early Education and it was whilst attending lectures that I was introduced to Bowlby and gained more insight into Vygotsky & Piaget. I heard about Montessori, Steiner and Froebel and began to read widely on practitioners who were influenced by these methods and approaches. One such person was Tina Bruce, I was just so struck by her Principles and I really enjoyed her style of writing. I loved the reading aspect of the Masters and probably spent more time reading in the library than writing my assignments. I devoured Margaret Edginton's The Nursery Teacher in Action and ordered anything written by Cathy Nutbrown. These were practitioners who had confidence in their approaches and were able to be advocates for the young children in their settings. 

I was terrible at research however, so decided to do an extra module and get a DASE (Diploma in Advanced Studies in Education) rather than do a dissertation to get a Masters. I really enjoyed the assignments and my then Principal was very helpful and read them for me to critique my writing style and to see if he, with no early years background could understand what I was writing about. This lead to us having an incredible relationship were we both learned from each other and he respected my early years knowledge and I was given a lot of freedom in the running of my class. I remember using Bruce's Principles as a way to explain why I would not be taking my nursery class to assembly or to eat in the dinner hall. I was able to articulate that the nursery year was not a preparation for school or P1 but that the young children in my class had a right to be 3 or 4 and had legitimate feelings and needs that should be met in the safe environment of the nursery classroom. These Principles particularly helped me argue for a more slowed down settling in period and of course this in turn does make it easier for the next teacher but it is not the main goal. 

I was very fortunate over the past 18 years to take part in the Comenius and then Erasmus programmes and was able to visit early years settings across Europe and host visits from European pedagogs in my classroom. The idea of kindergarten seems to be so natural and it always baffles me why in Northern Ireland, we only offer our youngest pupils one year of a preschool experience compared to the minimum 3-4 years their European peers are offered. 

Sometimes it felt like I was trying to cram 3-4 years of play experiences into 1 year and my day in nursery felt frantic as I tried to have it all. It felt very disjointed with lots of stopping play to transition to the next activity. I had the opportunity to listen to a webinar by the Froebel Trust and first heard the term 'wallowing in play' and it struck me as something I needed to work towards offering in my setting. If I am completely honest the recent Covid 19 pandemic was the turning point for me as a practioner, I was able to take part in many online trainings and webinars and I began to see how I could slow the routine down in my classroom to allow children time to actually get in to deeper play experiences. When visiting European kindergartens I was always struck by the gentle flow of the day, transitions were seamless and didn't always involve the whole class but more importantly staff and children had a lot more trust in each other - it was common for children to be out of sight and rarely did I see a whole group sitting looking an adult awaiting instruction. One big jarring aspect for me in my class was that we needed to clear the room to set up for dinner & this meant the children had to be in the story room for at least 30 minutes every day while the room was set up. I saw lovely dinner routines in the kindergartens I visited and really wanted to offer something similiar but we didn't have the space for a separate eating room or did we? Cue the pandemic and suddenly we closed the doors to families and children were dropped off and picked up from a gate or door and families were no longer coming into the setting & we had a big hallway sitting doing nothing. We took the decision to turn the hallway into a dedicated eating space and create a calm environment where half the class at a time could eat together whilst the other half remained at play. This has had the effect of slowing the whole routine down, children now have a choice, do they want to go for dinner now or in the second group? It allows for a relaxed ebb and flow in the play as the group dynamic changes from 27 to 13 or 14 children. 

Our current set up was inspired by Alison Clarke's research on 'Slow Pedagogy' (available here on the Froebel Trust website) and during the last 2 years I found myself drawing closer and closer to Froebel and those practitioners who are doing their best to reflect his approach in their settings. I love the term 'Slow Pedagogy' and am striving to ensure I try my best to offer such an approach in my classroom. As I continue on my journey I am constantly reminded of why I embarked on further studies over 16 years ago and why I need to keep on learning and connecting with other pedagogues who have similiar outlooks as myself.