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Candace Fitzgerald
Early Childhood Teacher, Arnhem Land (NT)
My journey so far in teaching has been far from not being challenging and boring. It has been completely the opposite, by embarking on a not so ‘traditional’ career path for a first year teacher. Following my graduation from Macquarie University, my initial teaching plan was to work as a casual teacher in EC centres or primary schools around the Sydney metropolitan area. Instead, I have ended up 4045 km away from Sydney, in a school located in a remote place up north in a town with a population of approximately 1200.
During my fifth year at Macquarie University, studying a Bachelor of Education (Birth to 12 years), I was one of three students who completed the final practicums up in the Northern Territory at the local school in a remote Aboriginal community. I loved it so much that the following year I decided to pack up and move to this community. The remote school was located approximately three hours from Darwin in Arnhem Land, on the other side of Kakadu National Park. Arnhem Land is the home of traditional landowners, which requires non-Aboriginal people to get a permit to work or visit the land. The school caters for all ages of children with a crèche, a playgroup, a preschool, a primary school and a high school. During the first six months of my employment as a teacher, I was managing and running the playgroup, followed by a transition into the primary school for the rest of the year.
Many lessons have been learnt from engaging and working in this very ‘foreign’ setting that I have not grown up in and where they speak a different language. There are, however, two particular lessons I have learnt that I wish to highlight from this experience in this locality:
1 Building relationships with parents and children is the key to education
Relationship building can take a while, and depending on the cultures of the families you interact with, it may take longer. When I first started managing the playgroup I needed to hold myself back from my personal beliefs, such as asking parents questions about their child, shaking hands or talking loudly. All the things that may be very inviting for parents in urban settings were very intrusive for the parents I was working with, who were Aboriginal. It took me at least a month to see the trust being built between the children, the parents and me. Once the trust had been created, it was as if a wall was knocked down between us and I had been adopted into the community. First I was given a skin name, and from that point onwards the parents, particularly the women, taught me a lot about their culture and life. More importantly, I was able to develop meaningful relationships over time. This in turn reflected through my planning for activities and lessons because of my deeper understanding of their culture, as well as knowing how to communicate with parents to better understand their children.
2 Educating children and interacting with parents is not limited to the four walls of your EC centre or school
For some cultures, to set foot into a large, air-conditioned, clinical building can be very intimidating and an unwelcoming experience. When I initially was running the playgroup in the community, the attendance of children and parents was very low and I needed to find a way to encourage more people to attend. In collaboration with my colleague, who had lived in the community all her life and knew what community members wanted, we decided to take the playgroup to the community instead of them coming to us. We developed a mobile playgroup a couple of times a week where we took ‘the classroom’ into communal areas within the community. As a result, children’s attendance grew because families could come and go, it was close to their homes, and teaching and learning occurred outdoors—on the land. I was so surprised at the difference in not only the attendance, but the difference in how comfortable both parents and children were being in the ‘outside classroom’. I used a similar technique when teaching in the primary school. When a child’s attendance was low or I wanted to share a good news story, I would reach out to the parents by personally visiting them at their homes instead of waiting for them to approach me. These EC strategies also helped to increase high school attendance and relationships.
Teaching is a career that can go far and beyond cities, buildings and fences. Putting yourself out there and letting go of traditional ‘white man’ environments where children are typically given an education is something I think all teachers should reflect upon within their own practices when teaching. Get out there and be a part of your community to make a difference in the child’s world.
Lisa Syrette
Manager, Caretaker’s Cottage Child Care Centre, Australian Institute of Sport, Canberra (ACT)
What has influenced your decisions in planning spaces for children and adults? What were the influences that shaped your spaces and environment?
Personal philosophy is important in planning spaces. I believe in aesthetics, sustainable practices and homelike spaces. Our image of children has also influenced our decisions. Concepts such as agency, freedom of movement, and seeing children as capable and competent are all factors in decision- making. Added to this is the importance of involving children in decisions, and we did consult with children extensively when planning our outdoor areas.
Staff well-being is important to me. When educators feel valued they give their best. I believe that being, belonging and becoming applies to educators and families as well as children. For a number of years we invested time and resources in improving spaces for children, but hadn’t given the same attention to the adult spaces. It was a good opportunity to be reflective about this. Alain de Botton’s ‘visible signs of tenderness’ remains a key concept, and something I refer to often. For us, it means our environments and resources are valued and cared for, and in turn that sends a message to children, families and educators that we value them and care for them.
What have you found to be the most effective decisions you have made? Who has benefitted and why?
A number of years ago we had the opportunity to build a new staff space, which means we now have a staff break room and a staff office. The benefits for staff well-being have been enormous. The staffroom is a work-free zone, away from the activity of the centre, so educators feel refreshed after breaks. A separate staff office means that the work of pedagogical planning and documentation is seen as valuable as well.
More recently, we opened our playground so that we have one space that children can share at all times. The change in children’s play and relationships has been exciting to watch. Siblings can spend more time together and we have noticed that the morning drop-off rituals are happier as children can be dropped off together. Older children have mentoring and leadership opportunities and we have noticed that children are choosing peers based on shared interests rather than age. Relationships are developing between all educators and all children. I think that the sense of ‘team’ has developed, and communication between educators has improved as well.
Have there been any challenges to your decisions?
The shared outdoor space was challenging for educators. They needed to change the way they viewed supervision and responsibility for children. They also needed to revisit ideas of risk versus hazard and children’s agency. Parents had some concerns about access to all areas as well, but we put in place some good communication strategies to ensure that parents were well informed.
What changes might you make after having lived with the organisation of the environment for a period of time?
The environment is always evolving. Opening the outside environment has changed our spaces and our thinking so much we are looking at how we can open up inside. The other challenge I have set is to think about how we can establish our outdoor space so that it doesn’t need ‘setting up’ and ‘packing away’ every day.
What would you keep the same and why?
The one thing I would keep the same in relation to environments is our attitude. While there are things I love about our spaces, our thinking is always evolving and our community is changing regularly. What works for us now may not work in one, two or ten years. So openness to critical reflection in relation to environments is the only thing I wouldn’t change.