Preservice teachers’ learning with Yuin Country: becoming respectful teachers in Aboriginal education

The ownership of Aboriginal knowledge and the Aboriginal perspective presented in school curriculum is always with Country. A number of preservice teachers were taken to a sacred story, “Gulaga a Living Spiritual Mountain,” to participate in an elective subject to engage in respectful reciprocal relationship with Country. The spirituality of Country is unknown to many preservice teachers, consequently the concept of Country as teacher in a respectful reciprocal relationship was unfamiliar. Engaging in Aboriginal ways of knowing, learning, and behaving provides an opportunity for preservice teachers to initiate a relationship with Country to respectfully implement Aboriginal perspectives in their own teaching. This article not only examines how preservice teachers developed a relationship with Country, but also importantly demonstrates how a relationship between Country, researcher, all the participants, and the research can inform respectful behaviour in reculturalising Aboriginal perspectives.     

Investing in high quality preschool: lessons from an urban setting

Abstract

Large numbers of children of low income families in the United States arrive at kindergarten already far behind their more affluent peers on measures of school readiness. In the absence of any federal preschool policy and amidst alarm about this growing divide, universal prekindergarten (UPK) programs have been launched around the United States, at both the state and local levels, to address the school readiness gap. Invest in Children, a public/private partnership in Cuyahoga County (Cleveland, OH) launched a UPK program of high quality, affordable preschool nine years ago. The program’s creation, implementation and challenges are discussed along with evaluation findings that document its positive impact on school readiness. Lessons learned are discussed in terms of the impact of political and economic shifts, as well as state policy changes, on this local program. The program’s planned expansion and enhancements to program design and evaluation are also described.     

Boxing clever: using shoeboxes to support home–school knowledge exchange

A key tenet of the Home–School Knowledge Exchange Project is that children's learning will be enhanced if the knowledge and experience that are to be found both at home and in school can be brought together. In this paper we explore ways of connecting home and school to support literacy learning at Key Stage 1, focusing on the home‐to‐school direction. We discuss how shoeboxes, filled with children's artefacts, can support a range of literacy‐related activities in school. It is suggested that the extensive diversity of knowledge and interests reflected in the chosen objects presents teachers with an invaluable opportunity to personalise children's literacy learning.     

What Preschool Classroom Experiences Are Associated With Whether Children Improve in Visuomotor Integration?

Research Findings: This study examined the contribution of several class-room experience measures (classroom characteristics, teacher characteristics, and teacher–child interactions) to preschoolers’ improvement in visuomotor integration. Children (N = 467) ranged in age from 3 to 5 years old and were enrolled in 115 classrooms in 5 U.S. states. Children’s visuomotor integration was measured twice (on average 5.2 months apart) using the Beery-Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration (visuomotor integration subtest). Hierarchical linear models controlling for background characteristics and inhibitory control showed that children improved more in visuomotor integration when they were in classrooms with fewer 3-year-olds, when their teacher had at least a bachelor’s degree, and when teachers demonstrated high quality in their interactions. Practice or Policy: Visuomotor integration, and specifically the ability to copy designs with a writing utensil, is a robust indicator of children’s school readiness and longitudinal achievement. U.S. preschoolers gained more on visuomotor integration in classrooms with fewer 3-year-old children that were taught by a college-educated teacher and when such classrooms provided high-quality organizational and instructional interactions. These results expand the outcomes linked to early childhood education experiences and emphasize the need for well-prepared early childhood teachers who interact with children effectively.