Early Learning Centre
- Mrs Silvina Wearner
On 23 October, the staff at the ELC undertook training with Gowrie Victoria. The following information was provided to share with families.
Putting the A in STEM…
The Early Learning Team spent their professional development time this month exploring STEM (science, technology, engineering & maths) teaching in the Kindergarten context. Gowrie Victoria came to our campus to facilitate our learning conversations and reflections. We explored adding the A to STEM to create STEAM; adding the A honours the importance of the arts and creativity in making sense of our world.
Our philosophy is influenced by the city of Reggio Emilia in northern Italy, where, after the devastation of the Second World War, they developed an educational approach that emphasised democracy, proactive citizenship and the embeddedness of the expressive arts, which has captured the interest of educators across the globe.
Loris Mallaguzzi was tasked with developing the philosophy for Reggio Emilia and wrote a metaphor for creative expression as follows:
100 languages
NO WAY. THE HUNDRED IS THERE
The child
is made of one hundred.
The child has
a hundred languages
a hundred hands
a hundred thoughts
a hundred ways of thinking
of playing, of speaking.
A hundred, always a hundred
ways of listening
of marvelling of loving
a hundred joys
for singing and understanding
a hundred worlds
to discover
a hundred worlds
to invent
a hundred worlds
to dream.
The child has
a hundred languages
(and a hundred hundred hundred more)
but they steal ninety-nine.
The school and the culture
separate the head from the body.
They tell the child:
to think without hands
to do without head
to listen and not to speak
to understand without joy
to love and to marvel
only at Easter and Christmas.
They tell the child:
to discover the world already there
and of the hundred
they steal ninety-nine.
They tell the child:
that work and play
reality and fantasy
science and imagination
sky and earth
reason and dream
are things
that do not belong together.
And thus they tell the child
that the hundred is not there.
The child says:
No way. The hundred is there.
Loris Malaguzzi (translated by Lella Gandini).
This metaphor asks us to ensure children can explore freely to discover and to engage in an environment which promotes learning, this is extremely important when teaching STEAM, providing children the opportunity to develop scientific process skills, such as:
Observing
Communicating
Comparing
Classifying
Measuring and using appropriate tools (using body parts, string, rope, informal materials as well as formal)
Prediction
Inferring.
We use inquiry-based learning in our play-based curriculum here at Hamilton Alexandra Kindergarten to equip children with the skills of research and discovery to equip them for the work of tomorrow, today!