The reason why we need to stop bubble wrapping our babes.
Our babes are growing up in a world where the jobs and careers that the majority of them will have as adults, do not even exist yet. There is not a rule book or an instruction manual that we can give and teach to our babes that will set them up for a career in the future. We can choose to look at this belief as a scary one, or as I choose to look at it, an exciting and empowering one.
Gone are the days where the highlighted and strict importance within an Early Childhood curriculum is one that ensured our babes knew their ABC’s and 123’s or whether they could jump with two feet before they went to school. We now recognise that the key to a quality early childhood education is one built on a solid foundation of values. Values such as resilience, persistence, perseverance, trust, and respect. These values, as they strengthen from birth are the values that will see our babes continue to pursue their dreams or, for example, develop a business, sport, medicine or technology that does not yet exist. These values will enable our babes to appreciate trial and error, to embrace and accept being denied in job interviews over and over until they finally succeed and accomplish their dreams and to simply keep going when they think they should give up. Apple, Virgin or medical revolutions were not developed in a day. Their beginning ideas failed, fell over and were refined many many times before they were fully developed. This is the approach to learning that we need our babies to have. To accept that it is only through risk and giving something a go, that they will succeed.
So, where and how do we, as Educators begin to support them to build these values and embed them in their hearts, in their wairua? To put it simply - we need to let them fall, to fail, to get it wrong, to take risks and to try. We have to ensure that our children are in an environment where giving something that they believe in, a go and where it is celebrated.
In an open-ended environment, we are giving our children the opportunity to think and problem solve. Home-based Education gives the Educator and the children the freedom to follow through with an intrigue or interest, because they have the capacity to jump in the car, or walk down to the nearest forest, beach or foothill at the drop of the hat. If a child is displaying a climbing interest, you can take them to an environment where they can climb and assess risk in an authentic way.
If we stunt this environment by placing our own biases on a new experience that we may perceive as dangerous or unsafe, we are telling our babes that we don't trust their judgement, that we don’t trust their hypothesis or that we don’t trust their process of learning. Children know what they are capable of, they know their limits and they know when they trust their body. The more we, as Educators, sit back and observe our children in play, the more we notice these capabilities.
At times, we may worry that they will hurt themselves and that maybe it will be a reflection on us as their Educators that we ‘let it happen’ because we did not make the environment safe enough. It is time that we change this notion. We have risk assessment in place for hazards that we know would be out of the control of a child - for example traffic, deep water, poisonous flora. We can mitigate those types of risks, however, it is important to note that even though we mitigate them, we still need to communicate these with each child so that they learn to eventually mitigate these risks themselves as their cognitive function is able.
When we evaluate a risk, we are using our lateral thinking and analytical abilities in conjunction with observation skills. These skills help us to assess the situation and make an informed decision as to how to move forward.
As we move forward, we are constantly assessing the results of the changes we are making. These results don’t always necessarily come easy and therefore persistence is needed. Creativity and innovation are another two byproducts of problem solving and risk management.
To ensure that the idea comes to fruition, it needs to be assessed and evaluated through observation and potentially, tweaks in strategies.
I relish in the thought of supporting the concept of learning injuries. So, what is a learning injury? It is how we can choose to perceive an injury that has happened whilst in play or discovery. Children are prone to bumps and bruises. Why? Because they are learning. If a child is encouraged to take risks, the likelihood is that as they are learning a new skill, they will hurt themselves. Yip, they will hurt themselves because we haven't bubble wrapped them and stopped that learning experience. As a result of that learning injury, they reevaluate their prior movement or judgement and alter it so as to prevent or minimise the learning injury the next time around. They are refining their working theory to better suit the need or mission that they are on.
In conclusion, children have an innate need to develop their own working theories. Risk is a vital component within their working theory capacity. Our perception of risk and how to manage them should be one of empowerment and encouragement for the children in our care.
"You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created." — Albert Einstein