Taming Lions

Well, I think in my last blog, I mixed up a couple of days...I'm doing so much and going so many places I'm afraid my over 50 year old brain is mixing things up. Anyway, a few words about the Baby Room Conference.

Friday was the day of the University of Christ Church Third Annual Baby Room Conference, at which I was a keynote. What a lovely setting and a wonderful day. There were about 125 or so participants, of all stripes -- caregivers, program directors/managers, trainers, professional development folks, regulators, etc. Hard to plan exactly for talking to such a diverse audience, but I think I hit the right note. I did a speech with slides and lots of pictures of US baby rooms to back me up. I largely hit the high points of what we do in the US and the major philosophies that influenc our thinking. It seemed well-received.

A funny thing happened though, resulting I think from my starting off my speech with a quote from Helen Raikes who said, "Caring for infants and toddlers is Holy Work." I was trying to make the point of how vitally important what we all do in birth to three is, that we need to believe in its importance, etc. Well, one of the exhibitors was a group of folks from Community Playthings. They are deeply religious folks, Anabaptists from the US who have many of the beliefs that the Amish and Menonites do. The man from Community Playthings just LOVED my message and apparently me (or thought my soul might be worthy of saving) and followed me about the rest of the day. He presented me with one of their books about the importance of children from their religious perspective and a list of places that their communities are located nearby to Canterbury for me to visit! It was quite an experience.

It did bring me back to conversations I've been having all week with Kathy Goouch about the words that we use. One that we have batted about a lot is what to call the person who works with very young children. There are problems, for instance with "caregiver" and "teacher," and these words mean very different things in the US and UK. A caregiver here is a lower ranked early childhood professional, one without the professional credentials that a teacher holds. We tend to use the terms interchangeably in the US, although some I/T professionals are adamant about being called "teachers" thinking that "caregiver" is something that is less than a professional. I've been arguing over the past few years that we should be reclaiming the word and title "care" in what we do because it is so highly important in the social/emotional health and well-being of young children. Here in the UK Kathy and she says many others have trouble with the word "teacher" because it implies education in a didactic, lesson-driven sense. So, she got out the thesaurus and I got on Google and we tried to come up with other possible words for what we do. The best fit, although we don't think it will fly, is mentor. We wanted a word that implied someone who shared the experience with the child, wasn't dominating, but recognized that the person was wiser or perhaps more knowledgable in that they had something to contribute to them. So many words suggest the professional is "giving" something or "doing" something to the child, rather than supporting, nurturing, and guiding them. The thesaurus also suggested "lion-tamer" as a possibility, but that suggests something else entirely.

Flowers in Blue Wellie

Wow! What a week! I've done so much this week and had so many thoughts and good conversations about baby rooms and those who work in them and with them that I don't know where to begin so I won't even try to capture it all. Just a few dominant thoughts that I don't want to lose and want to bring back go consider more and with others back home.

First to organize my thinking, on Wednesday, Kathy and I visited more sites. We went to two very interesting and different types of infant care settings. One was a for-profit program (infants through preschool, which is designated a "nursery" I believe here in England) that was connected to a hospital. In fact, the women who started this are going to have several sites, a bit of a chain. But, despite being for-profit, this one had much to recommend it. The difference here is that the owners/managers were educated early childhood professionals. The woman, Penny, who ran it had strong support for her teachers going on for advanced degrees, and encouraged them. One of the infant caregivers was a member of Kathy Goouch's Baby Room Project and had been for the past few years. Babies, kids and teachers were all engaged and there was that lovely buzz of busy-ness that you like to hear when you go into a well working setting. The only things that were unique and different for me that I don't like seeing were high chairs all lined up against one wall, and interestingly, although there were cribs for 6 babies (12 I think were in the room) they were in a funky stacked array, like bunk cribs, with one on top of the other -- sort of like we did it many years ago.

Next we went to a nursery that was on the University of Kent campus and run by the student union (I believe it is, or a student organization now helps fund it). Many good things were happening there, and they had a strong philosophy and sense of the importance of engaging infants and toddlers (and preschoolers). There were some odd choices in terms of the arrangement of the center (like one very small preschool room and one enormously big; along with one small infant room and a very large toddler room) that I would have changed. They admit their biggest need on campus was for birth to three, with the longest waiting list. If I was running this place, I would have the two smaller rooms for babies (small but still nice sized) and have one of the large rooms for big two-year-olds before they transition into the one gigantic preschool room as one group. But, they didn't ask MY opinion. The one funny thing that happend here, though, was that a bunch of children were out in the play yard when we were there and it began to thunder and lightening. No one took notice! I asked if they were going to call the children in...the director said something like, "oh, they are hardy children, not afraid of a little storm." Coming from the Midwest, I found myself getting increasingly aggitated and was about to say something like, "Are you crazy?! Get those children inside now!" But, it started to rain and the teacher decided to bring them in. I processed this with Kathy later who saw how nervous I was during this episode. She'd been to the US last November to visit me and happened to be there during a particularly horrendous thunderstorm. She said that it must just be that folks here (in England) are just not aware of the dangers of lightening because it is so seldom here that they get any serious storms. Just lots and lots of rain.

EARLY YEARS PILGRIMS

Ebury Hotel, Canterbury, Kent, England

So, here is the view from where I was sitting, outside in the backyard of the Ebury Hotel in Canterbury much of the first day after I arrived. I took this that afternoon, after spending "tea time" with Kathy Goouch and Sacha Powell, my colleagues from University of Christ Church Canterbury. Very nice, so restful. I left temperatures that were over 100 in Bloomington and here it is high 60s, low 70s. It is actually possible to be outside and I'm loving that. Birds are LOUD and going crazy in the trees all around. The air is so fresh.

It was so nice to catch up with Kathy and Sacha and talk about babies, babies, babies and hear all about what is happening here in England.

Today (Tuesday -- I think), Kathy picked me up after breakfast and we spent the day exploring out and about in Medvale, Kent with a woman named Tracey who is responsible for professional development, supervision, and resource provision in that area. (I can't remember her title exactly, but it reminded me of a CCRR in the U.S.) It was a wonderful day. She, and Kathy and I visited her main office located in a teacher resource/professional training faciliting, simply wonderful setting, located next to schools and programs for I/Ts & young children.

There were so many wonderful things in this professional development setting. I would love to have such a place centrally located on the IU campus as a education and resource center for pre- and in-service caregivers and teachers. It would be so cool. One of the things special about it was the atmosphere. It had a strong "Reggio" feel about it, a strong focus on the aesthetic, everything was beautiful and natural. Natural lighting, colors, materials. simply gorgeous and strong sense of order. This picture doesn't at all do what I'm describing justice, but I wanted to show a little cabin in the little garden courtyard, "the Scrap Store," that was a recycle shop for caregivers and teachers. It was, well, marvelous.

Next we went to visit a "Children's Center" which in this country are programs set up for young children and families who are poor or at risk. These centers provide wrap around services for the entire family, not just babies/children. The one we visited, for example, had a midwife, a health care professional, and people who did social services and mental health care provision, parenting classes, among other things in addition to child care. We visited the multi-age infant to 2 1/2 year old class. Excellent -- engaged in continuity of care and used "key person" approach, what we call "primary caregiving." Very mindful in approach to transitioning families into the room and then into the preschool class. The playground (or "play yard") was particularly wonderful. No plastic toys, no typical climbing equipment, but all natural material and equipment, garden plots and growing things, rocks to climb, terrain that was interesting, etc.

Then, for contrast, Tracey took us to a for-profit center. OMG. This was dreadful, yet had achieved a high quality rating from the government agency that awards such ratings. Although ratios between adults and babies/children were reasonable, group sizes were HUGE, and the environments bleak. The owner had no experience in early childhood, strictly a business man.

At lunch later, Kathy and I discussed our concerns about "warehousing" babies or as Kathy said, "parking," babies. The children in this center were merely existing -- babies were distressed and anxious, preschoolers seemed bored, aimless, and hungry for conversation, with too many bodies crammed into spaces in which, when there were toys and materials, they were inappropriate mish-mashes of brightly colored plastic bits that looked like it came from the local K-Mart, or whatever the English equivalent would be. The baby room was one huge open room, next to a smaller big room (for eating). Eighteen babies and 6 adults shared this space. Babies slept on little bean bags on the floor, although there were 2 cribs off in an isolated crib room. The caregiver who showed us around said that when babies are in there, they check on them "every 15 minutes." Preschool-age children do not nap, yet are there from as early as 7:15 in the morning until 5:30 at night. I could go on, but I won't. It would be interesting to do an ITERS and an ECERS here.

These are just a few random thoughts for now, a few worries and thoughts: I'm concerned about the sleep needs of children and what happens when we don't provide for them. After having coming to question whether group sizes really matter so much after visiting some Asian settings, after today, I'm more convinced than ever that group sizes do matter, but how/why? (Or is it a combination of size and arrangement of the envrironment + group sizes and ratios + capabilities of the caregivers/teachers? The Asian teachers were all very well educated and experienced). Notions of care versus education and their inter-relationship (both/and rather than either/or). Allowing babies/children to just "be" in such spaces while we go to work -- don't they have a right to be more than "kept" some place in a holding pattern?
Oh, the title of this blog...as Kathy and I were heading back from a wonderful lunch at a cool little farm restaurant that Tracey took us to in Medvale, we ended up on the Pilgrim's Highway to Canterbury. We decided that we were "Early Years Pilgrims."

Welcome to my Blog!

 

Welcome to my Reflection Blog about infants and toddlers!

This picture was taken of me while I was doing research -- and yes, I have the most fun of all as a researcher. I get to be with babies for hours and days at at time learning all about what they think, how they learn, how they grow, and how they feel safe, and most of all, how they develop a strong sense of self and others by developing healthy relationships with other children and adults.