We worked with others in our community. We hoped to strengthen educators’ ability to work collaboratively, strengthen their leadership skills as well as to be open to different perspectives.
Our journey came as a result of the last 4 years, the work the Infant Toddler programs of SFUCCS have engaged in as a result of their successful Learning Journey grant projects. In total we have now received 6 grants, and through these grants we have learned and grown a great deal in our practice and our work within our community on the mountain.
Through each experience, we reflected on what we have embraced as new perspectives and through the grant the impact it had on our relationships.
Our last two grants, “Studio Spaces” and “Loose Parts” have been shared with workshops at SFUCCS, our conference with Deb Curtis and Margie Carter that we hosted 2017, and various CCRR’s workshops and conferences. The educators who presented were able to do this because of their research, reflection and wonderings during their inquiry with the Learning Journey Grant work.
The goal of the grant applied for this year was to build leadership capacity in educators at SFUCCS who positively impacted the Society with their work as mentors, sharing ideas gained through their engagement with their Learning journey grants.
Benefits/Impact to SFUCCS educators, was to build their leadership capacity, and to foster their strengths and passion by sharing their learning with others. This Learning Journey provided us with an opportunity to build relationships within the Burnaby ECE Community, and strengthen our relationships through planning and preparation of our work with Purpose Society in Communities of Practice.
We believed the benefit to Purpose Society programs (Yukon and Cameron) would be to introduce them to Reggio Principles and Values. To strengthen their image of themselves as educators and to share a strong image of children. We attempted to do this work through the use of Loose Parts as an entry point into Reggio inspired practice.
Through this Learning Journey we learned, that change is a long process. We learned to celebrate small successes of wonder or inquiry. We interacted with some educators who showed curiosity, wonder and a desire to learn more.
We recognize that the intentional work SFUCCS educators have engaged in to embrace a strong image of children and educators has been a process of more than 5 year’s. The shift it takes for educators to understand a process that trusts the children as learners and to explore in a self-directed process, requires there to be support from the leadership team.
We have identified early in our process that we may have been over ambitious in our expectations. We realized that we needed to start with the Leadership team, to first ensure that educators would be supported in their transformation from a ridged teacher directed approach to a collaborated approach where children and educators are partners.
We propose our next steps are to write a proposal to Purpose Society to revisit the Principles of Reggio, and to work with the Leadership group on how they might implement changes in their processes and systems that would encourage a strong image of teacher.
Our hope is that we might continue the relationship with Purpose, by working with the managers and program leaders to implement a system of change, addressing the educator’s fears of child directed play and perceived risks that can occur.
TEAM
Jacqueline Ewonus
Cameron/Yukon Child Care Centres
Nita Pedersen
Cameron/Yukon Child Care Centres
Tamara Cosic
Cameron/Yukon Child Care Centres
Ines Tuzlukovic
Cameron/Yukon Child Care Centres
Thess Malapitan
Cameron/Yukon Child Care Centres
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