Garderie Indigo
Highlandview rd E1A 2K9 Moncton, NB, Canada

#libertédinstruction #libertééducative #libertépédagogique

Au cas où vous êtes un parent qui a besoin d'entendre ce message

A word (or, more accurately, LOTS of words) about AUTHENTIC learning vs COERCIVE learning. Those things we learn without joy will be easily forgotten -Finnish... Saying I wonder if adults spend too much time planning ways to coerce children into learning things in order that we can check off a check list. In my 22 years of experience with being both a coercive teacher, and then, a believer in authentic learning, I can safely say I am a firm believer in patiently waiting for the authentic moments that happen in child-led learning. I have discovered the most meaningful learning happens in those beautiful authentic moments that are intrinsically motivated by children. This photo story describes one of the many authentic moments that happen in my child-led play school. Instead of force feeding letters by isolating them on a flash card or worksheet, or letter-of-the-week; this authentic method shares letters with children in their natural habitat. Letters are never used alone, other than the words a and I, they work as a team with other letters. In order for a child to be authentically interested in letters, they really should have an opportunity to acquire the intellectual understanding of how letters work FIRST. In order to WANT to know more, truly, the knowledge that letters work together to make words, I believe, should come first....or, perhaps, at the same time. What happens in this photo-story does exactly that. This is what happened, back in February, 2015....and a gazillion times since then. A group of children were playing with our Kodo Kids rubber ramp set. After much trial and error, they finally got it set up and were excitedly exploring rolling. From this play, came a child’s interest in writing the word roll. Denita? Will you show me what roll looks like? I want to write it. AUTHENTIC REASON TO WRITE! AND An authentic opportunity to provide an opportunity for children to acquire the intellectual understanding of how letters work! I wrote roll on an index card witb this child by my side, observing as I modeled. I then hung the word roll on the wall. Once no one was paying attention to me what-so-ever, I hid the letters r o l l around our space and waited. I have never met a child who doesn’t love to find something different or out of place, and bring it to my attention. As letters were discovered ORGANICALLY, while the children played, slowly, the word roll was built. Through time, the children gathered the intellectual understanding that each letter MATTERED. They learned that each letter CHANGED what the word said. How did that happen? I simply model, as each letter was found and added, I would read what the word said thus far. The act of modeling this (and I didn’t make a big deal out of it, just a conversation with whatever child had just added a letter: Now it says ______ led to the children eventually asking (once I stopped modeling to see what would happen) Denita! What does it say now? This particular interest in the word roll, was brought into more of the children’s play (in a truly child-led program, chances are good that not every single child is playing the same thing), and that interest led to the making of machines....and eventually a child asked to see what the word machine looked like. A natural, child-led extension of their learning. I encourage you to watch for the authentic moments children organically lead you to. I think you will find, as I did in my transformation to a believer in authentic learning, that the JOY and MEANINGFULNESS in this type of learning far outweighs that of any other kind. Not only is the learning loaded with meaning and joy....but the reduction in stress for both myself and the children is truly life-changing. I used to work hard to plan ways to coerce children into learning what I NEEDED them to know, when society needed them to know it. But then, I would be almost angry when they didn’t love what I had worked hard to prepare for them. NOW....the children own it all, and JOY is the dominant emotion for us all.

Being around someone who is feeling something hard is really challenging. We often feel the urge to make it go away to take away their sadness, fear, or frustr...ation. We want to solve the problem so we can return to comfortable feelings of calm, safety, or joy. What are we teaching kids if our goal is for them to be happy? What are they learning about the rest of the feelings they experience? Will they be able to allow and process them? Will they know it’s truly okay to feel hard things? What is your goal for your child? Share it below.

Recevoir un dessin dans une enveloppe avec ce message écrit dessus fait tellement chaud au coeur

Est-ce que ça vous donne une différente perspective? Parfois nous sommes tellement pris dans notre cerveau d'adulte qu'on oublie que le monde d'un enfant n'est pas du tout pareille que le nôtre et c'est correcte! Je prends un énorme plaisir d'observer les enfants jouer et créer, de voir les roues tourner quand ils rencontrent un défi et l'émerveillement dans leurs yeux quand ils trouvent une solution, l'évolution d'un jeu ou d'un bricolage, la fierté qu'ils ressentent quand... ils accomplissent quelque chose par eux même... Après plus de 10 ans dans le domaine, j'adore mon travail plus que jamais! J'adore apprendre des enfants, j'adore développer des nouvelles connaissances et j'aime bien voir l'évolution que j'ai fais (et continue de faire) en tant que professionnel dans ma carrière