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| Developing programs which support sustainability
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This week early childhood educator and Backyard in a Box designer Kiri Combi offers her advice on how to develop and implement programs which support sustainability in the early childhood environment and beyond.
Writing programs to support the integration of sustainability in early learning environments can be a challenge for first timers. Long standing safety concerns by consecutive and varied governments has seen crucial elements such as water, animals, and food plants approached with extreme trepidation, to the degree that attempts by licensees to incorporate these 'elements' have been relegated to the 'too-hard basket'.
For many years services have simply lived with the fact that they couldn't introduce experiences beyond the token water and sand troughs or a visiting chicken hatchery or animal farm once a year at Christmas time.
All things in moderation is the best approach and so it is now with the recently introduced National Law. This Law makes clear provision for the incorporation of common sense notions relating to the thrifty use of the earth's resources, including human resources, necessitating the use of these previously and largely ignored 'elements'. Grass roots sensible approaches that my grandparents and great grandparents undertook as a matter of course, simply because it was the smartest and most viable action to take at the time.
The National Quality Standard and National Quality Framework make a clear and deliberate attempt to return to this age of common sense with the inclusion of Quality Areas 1 and 3, Educational Program and Practice and Physical Environment which requires educators to provide children with a fundamental education in sustainability.
No easy feat when one considers the bulk of the teaching population itself has extremely limited exposure to education for sustainable practice.
The problem facing licensees is threefold: First is the shortage of professional development options to educate practicing teachers on the job, second, is the lack of resources to help facilitate sustainability in the classroom and third, there is no single and effective planning tool that assists educators to comply with their basic reporting requirements while they cut their teeth in this new area of education.
Many educators and licensees are feeling as though the walls are closing in around them. Another source of disenchantment is the about-face in government policy. Barely a decade ago many of these same licensees were encouraged to remove all evidence of natural play spaces, and install fake turf and easy to clean plastics as these were deemed best practice.
Many operators have come to a fork in the road: Do we bend to ever-changing government policy and commit ourselves 100 per cent to the idea of sustainability and trust that it won't be a passing fad to be disproven in the next 10 years? Or, do we take a risk that this fad will pass and in the mean time 'fake it'? Both valid positions, all things considered.
Operators that opt for the latter, risk much however, particularly if their parent body is reliant upon Government funded child care rebates. A recent article published in the Sydney Morning Herald November 17 2013 found that "one in three [services] are below standard for physical environment, with "promoting sustainable environments" proving the most challenging criterion for centres to satisfy.
A spokeswoman for ACECQA said it wasn't surprising services across the board had more difficulty meeting certain standards than others."Staffing and relationships with children and families are a well-established part of most providers' practice," the spokeswoman said. "But the use of a learning framework and criteria around the environment are new aspects of the national standards."
Knowledge is ever changing and evolving, but only to a point. There are some basic laws of life that remain unchangeable and immovable. One basic unchanging requirement in life is food. We all need food to survive. The education system explores a variety of disciplines or subjects across early learning, primary, high school and tertiary fields. Yet the growing of food, the most fundamental of life's requirements is explored only to a limited extent in primary and early learning and is an elective in high schools. This is a clear indicator of the low stature food education occupies in the educational hierarchy.
Having the knowledge and ability to grow food is and always has been essential to human survival, or at least since the rise of subsistence farming. The growing of food and being able to feed oneself is surely an important survival skill. And isn't the ability to survive (and hopefully) thrive into adulthood one of the reasons we shuffle our kids off to school each day?
And it's not just the growing of food that is important either. Another important benefit for children is understanding the value of food and the effort that goes into its production. When New York City hosted The World’s Fair in 1964, Isaac Asimov the prolific sci-fi author and professor of Biochemistry at Boston University took the opportunity to imagine what the world would be like in 50 years he is quoted as saying:
"Mankind will suffer badly from the disease of boredom, a disease spreading more widely each year and growing in intensity. This will have serious mental, emotional and sociological consequences, and I dare say that psychiatry will be far and away the most important medical specialty in 2014… The most glorious single word in the vocabulary will have become work in our society of enforced leisure."
Although it may seem otherwise on the surface, teaching children about sustainability is not about bending to ever changing government legislation nor is it a passing fad. It’s about common sense. It will create a sustainable future for future generations, enable children to understand issues surrounding healthy eating and living and more importantly enable us finally to broach the subject of entitlements with our children. Entitlement is where a person expects to prosper from the toil of another’s sweat.
In this post-industrial revolution modern throw away society, we as early childhood educators are in the unique position of having access to our young people while they are still forming their foundational likes, dislikes, wants needs and desires. We have it within our reach to instill different principles to those which were imparted to the Baby Boomers, GenX and GenY.
So to all educators out there, I invite you to join me on this journey. What you do in your classrooms day in-day out does and will continue to have an impact and often in ways you will never know or be able to explicitly attribute to yourselves.
I recall a quote by Ebenezer Brewer (1810-1897) little drops of water little drops of sand make the mighty ocean and the pleasant land. Starting something small you can go to great extents. Without those little drops of water how can an ocean exist at all? All those tiny drops collected together make the ocean. Be that individual drop and together we can be that ocean.
Being a licensee myself I am familiar and sympathise with the plight of the small business owner operators. I started Backyard in a Box because of my own difficulties training staff in maintaining sustainable systems in my own EcoPreschools in Sydney since 2004.
The important thing for me was to get the kids exposed to the natural world and begin them thinking about their role and impact on the environment. In order to do this, I had to first teach my staff. The most effective way, I found was through plants and animals, and so began the process of establishing systems which act as a road map for staff in their move towards implementing programs which support sustainable practice.
Backyard in a Box is a Training Resource for educators and a Classroom Resource Kit that can be used by educators with the kids and by the kids. The Backyard In A Box Series is comprised of seven Boxes covering Resource Recycling, Worm Farming, Composting, Raising Guinea Pigs, Keeping Chooks, Organic Gardening and Water Recycling.
Backyard in a Box and its associated Themed Professional Development Programs explore how the environments that educators create impact on a child’s being, belonging and becoming and how these environments influence the outcomes for children set out in the NQF as well as exploring outdoor physical environments.
Educators are also encouraged to seek inspiration to create learning spaces that reflect the existing landscape and available resources, infrastructure and budgets. They also inspire educators to support children’s learning by nurturing exploration, curiosity and wonder, motivating educators with fresh ideas. We cover positive guidance and principles of inclusion and explore ways to encourage parent participation and community involvement. Portions of the Box can be purchased by parents for use at home to create continuity between home and school. Backyard In A Box resources are easily woven into the fabric of everyday life and will hold the interest of the youngest child in the household to the parent and grandparent.
As training organisations continue to struggle to keep up with demand for course work which is relevant and effective, the following Units of Competency in the Certificate 3 and Diploma Training Packages are currently mapped across to Backyard In A Box, CHCECE012 - Support children to connect with their world. CHCECE025- Embed sustainable practices in service operations and CHCECE025 - Embed sustainable practices in service operations
I would like to see Backyard In A Box used in early childhood, primary and secondary schools, in home schooling environments and where the effects can be seen in every backyard across every suburb in Australia.
For more information visit Backyard in a Box or check out Kiri's video on how to set up a worm farm in your service.
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