GEKA McKinnon

Spring in My Step

Louise Shin, Early Childhood Educator

It is my third year working for GEKA as an educator in McKinnon. At the same time, I am a second year PhD student, researching teaching methods integrated with digital technology and e-learning based education. Recently, I was given the opportunity to step up into a teaching position! I felt extremely honoured to be able to show my enthusiasm for education in this new position.

On my first day on the job, I thought the weather was perfect for having morning tea outside. Sitting and eating their snacks, the children observed a butterfly which happened to be flying around us. As a teacher who believes in encouraging curiosity and educational liberty, especially at a young age where their creativity blossoms. My somewhat ‘philosophy’ is saying the best program comes directly from the learners’ interests, and I feel that taking advantage of teaching moments is crucial in boosting motivation for attaining new knowledge. I asked more open-ended questions regarding what they already knew about butterflies to encourage them to utilise their prior knowledge when connecting long term memory with recognition and encouraged them to feel comfortable with expressing their confusion.  Our conversation flowed around the surrounding nature, the weather and seasons. I was so happy to see just how smart and capable these children were, and it reinforced my enthusiasm for teaching.

Throughout the discussion outside, I couldn’t help but feeling as though there was a limit to their knowledge of what became our central topic, Spring. As per my philosophy, I was encouraged to seize this teaching moment to further extend their knowledge. But how? As a PhD student researching the teaching benefits of digital technology, I felt that a more visual stimulus would also be of use to the children for this topic, so a digital book that the team had in mind for introducing to the children was, when spring comes by Kevin Henkes, along with the book a short film about changes in spring was added. The children concentrated while reading the digital book page by page on the screen. Afterwards, we discussed ‘how we know it’s spring’. It was joyful to listen to how they verbally interpreted what they saw and how they were able to comprehend it. 

They said; 

“It’s warmer”, “I can see flowers in my garden”, “I can see frogs in ponds”, “We can play soccer”, “I can see butterflies, birds, and bunnies”.

They described what they had seen on the screen in their own words. One Asian proverb I recollected that truly reflects this display was;

‘It is better to see something once than to hear about it a thousand times.’ 

The children made or drew images about spring during quiet time after lunch. Their ‘masterpieces’ were displayed on the shelf and the children proudly presented their artwork at ‘show and tell’ during afternoon tea. While they presented their work in class and answered their peers’ questions, they revisited what they had learned about the seasons and spring. 

The first day of teaching required a lot of instant decision-making and flexible routines. As I was new to this teaching position, I was worried about the flow of our plans, however, it was smoother than ever expected and our teamwork was golden! We met a point during the day where the children were quite restless, eager to find a new activity to finish the day with. We as a team made a spontaneous decision to do yoga from YouTube! It was a marvelous choice for us as it helped calm everybody down and the teachers also got to have a stretch. It made me extremely proud of our smooth cooperation. We were a new team; we had never worked with each other before, however, I believe, the key to success for the day was a brief morning meeting where we shared team expectations, information to plan the day accordingly and prepare smooth transitions between programs. Each educator took charge of their own tasks, their decision was respected, and communication was crucial among us. Rina was there for everyone with a smile and Maitri showed her care by asking ‘are you okay?’. Every little thing made my day, I couldn’t have asked for a better first day! 

I love teaching children. In my opinion, being a teacher is one of the most important jobs right now. Being around children helps me realise the future is bright and it is important to educate them so they can grow up to be amazing individuals. I would like to utilise my PhD education and research to apply those theories in practice, so I look forward to any more teaching opportunities that may come my way with GEKA!