All posts by Karen Hope

Karen is an early childhood consultant, lecturer and freelance writer who has extensive experience in a broad range of services within the early childhood care and education context. Her consultancy practice and teaching aims to provide teachers and educators with a disruptive approach to working with, and thinking about, children. Challenging taken for granted practices and dominant discourses is a feature of her work.

The 12 days of Christmas (except when it’s more!)

‘Being a professional requires you to exercise pedagogical judgment—every day. It does seem though we now have a ‘Christmas’ curriculum and it starts early.’ Karen Hope encourages educators to reflect on more than just the art and craft of Christmas in early childhood settings. I like this time of year and I celebrate Christmas. For […]

What’s love got to do with it? (Part 2)

‘The word ‘love’ is a tricky one when applied to the early childhood education and care space.’ Karen Hope shares part two to her 2018 blog, ‘What’s love got to do with it?‘, keep reading to hear her perspective. The Spoke has published other blogs on this topic and are linked at the end of […]

What can the new ‘normal’ teach us?

What can the new ‘normal’ teach us about how and what young children should be learning? ‘Is it possible that we can use this opportunity to create a new normal around what and how young children learn?’ KAREN HOPE explores theories in early childhood education in a time where online learning has been the only […]

A face for early childhood teaching?

Do you have the face for early childhood teaching? The importance of early childhood educators being aware of the relationship between their face and the child’s recently struck KAREN HOPE. In this piece, Karen takes a closer look at this, as well as the children’s emotions and the impact these emotions might have on their […]

Portfolios: Pedagogical documentation or souvenir?

KAREN HOPE shares some key discussion points after facilitating a group of educators, who were delving into re-thinking ways to document learning and development for educators and children. Karen asked the group ‘what current documentation practices might they leave behind?’—This opened up ideas to what changes could be implemented to create documentation to improve ideas, […]

Orange is the new surveillance

‘Putting children on a hi-vis alert in the community is depriving them an opportunity to take responsibility for their own safety.’ KAREN HOPE and HELEN JENNINGS, explore what this means and give their perspective on pre-school aged children wearing hi-vis clothing when outside the enclosure of their early childhood setting. In parks, museums and other […]

Why is the Reggio Emilia project so important for early learning environments in Australia?

Why is the Reggio Emilia educational project—which exists in a context so far removed from ours, culturally, politically and geographically—so important in our Australian context? While this project now has networks in many countries around the world, its influence in Australia has been significant both in our application of its theoretical and practical ideas. The […]

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