‘Half way down the stairs is a stair where I sit There isn’t any other stair quite like it. I’m not at the bottom; I’m not at the top So this is the stair where I always stop’ (Milne, 1932, p147). There are approximately 194 900 early learning staff currently employed across Australia, with long […]
Originally posted in 2018, this post was updated in December 2020. Karen Hope is a presenter at the 2021 ECA National Conference. The early childhood care and education sector has a workforce that often places the welfare and needs of others above their own. Because of this, in the face of ever competing demands and […]
In January 2017 I travelled to Reggio Emilia, Italy, to participate in the Reggio Emilia Australia Information Exchange (REAIE) intensive study tour. The focus of the week in Reggio Emilia was on documentation and progettazione. The word ‘progettazione’ was used during the course of the week to explain that curriculum design is a strategy of […]
‘And beware of advice from experts, pigs, and members of Parliament’ (Henson, 2007). In early December 2013 the Federal Government announced that it intended to redirect unused funding from the Early Years Quality Fund, which was established to support the implementation of the National Quality Framework (NQF), to a new professional development programme: the Long […]
A year ago I wrote a blog piece called “Hair straighteners in the home corner. Is this what Froebel intended?” This piece was published on Early Childhood Australia’s blog The Spoke on October 14, 2015. When I was thinking of contributing to this forum I noted that the blog guidelines for contributors stated that: “opinion […]
In the children’s literature classic Alice in Wonderland there is the following exchange between the curious, brave and intelligent Alice and the mysterious and devious Cheshire cat. “Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here? The Cheshire Cat : That depends a good deal on where you want to […]
Recently during a professional development session I asked a group of educators what are the rights of educators? Were they the holder of rights, and if so, what were they? I thought about providing them with some context or giving them an example, but decided against this because as much as I wanted to know […]
I spent December and January travelling through Europe. Being tuned to all things early childhood I made the following observations: Peppa Pig is annoying in any language. Noise cancelling headphones on a plane don’t cancel out everything Nutella crepes do taste better and are better for you, if made in France The last flight out […]
On a recent trip to a small village near Umbria in Italy, I observed a group of pre-school aged children walk down the cobble stoned street and into the local Frutta e Verdura (fruit and vegetable shop). They had come from the Scuola Dell Infanzia (pre-school), and along with their teachers, they made a noisy […]
In the course of my work I am often in a wide variety of early learning care and education services and I am generally in awe of the ways that Educators reflect in their curriculum designs, many of the founding theories and tenets that we hold to be true and are still reflected in contemporary […]
