#HandsOffFDK

In 2009, the Ontario provincial government announced the implementation of Full Day Kindergarten in all publicly funded Ontario schools, to be carried out over a five year period from 2010 - 2014. Each kindergarten classroom would be staffed by a kindergarten teacher and an Early Childhood Educator, except classes of less that 16 students which would be staffed by a teacher only.

The Draft Full Day Early Learning Kindergarten Program document, which was released in 2010 detailed the program expectations and pedagogy which was a play-based, student inquiry driven model which supported student learning in language, mathematics, science, physical education and health, the arts, and social-emotion domains.

Research conducted by the Ministry's own staff in partnership with Queen's and McMaster University  as well as research by others has shown that the FDK program has had a positive impact on student learning and achievement"

Yet, in spite of all of this evidence, Premier Doug Ford recently announced that his government will not guarantee the future of FDK beyond the 2019-2020 school year. In mid-February, my former school district will begin kindergarten registration for children beginning school in September 2019, welcoming parents to Open House and Registration events.  Yet parents who are registering their child to begin a two year kindergarten program in September have no idea what the program may look like by the time their child reaches senior kindergarten in September 2020.  Educators who are welcoming these parents to their programs have no idea what the kindergarten program will look like in another year, or if they will still be the ones staffing the program.

Immediately following the initial announcement there was a huge response from media, parents and educators denouncing the government's plan to cut FDK and outlining the importance of the program to children, to families, and to society. We know that the earlier we can intervene in a child's learning, the greater the chance of changing their trajectory.

A few days later, the government issued a clarification and stated that they are "committed to full day learning."  What does that mean for the future of the program, for the educators, the families, and the children? No one knows.

What can you do?

• contact your MPP and tell them Hands Off FDK
• share your stories on social media using the hashtag #HandsOffFDK

Share your ideas for action in the comment box.

Articles:
Experts call Ontario's full-day kindergarten visionary
With Our Best Future in Mind - the Pascal Report and additional research and resources
FDK: Why it works (ETFO)
FDK: How it works (ETFO)

Ontario considers removing kindergarten, primary class size caps

Most Read Blog Posts of 2017

Blogging is a great way to reflect and share my learning about education, self-regulation and other topics. Putting my ideas out there into the world wide web is a bit unnerving - will anyone read this? Will anyone respond? Will my thinking resonate with someone? Will it cause them to rethink or reflect on their own practice?

My main goal is not to generate a huge readership for the blog. I like to use writing as a way to think my way through things and decided why not share my wonderings and writings.  But it is gratifying to see the readership numbers grow when a post really resonates for some reason. So thank you to everyone who took a moment to read my blog posts and especially to those who responded.

My top three most-read posts for 2017 were:


3. Kindergarten Graduation Alternatives  It's interesting to me that this post was so widely read when it probably has a very narrow audience of kindergarten teachers and ECEs.  I shared several research articles about why kindergarten graduation is not developmentally appropriate and provided a range of alternatives that are more child-friendly. I'm not saying don't celebrate the end of the school year, but let's find a way to do it that is appropriate for five year olds.
Feedback on this post was divided.  Some people were so thankful to have research and ideas to share with their colleagues and administrators to help them in their quest to move on from kindergarten graduation ceremonies.  And others shared their belief that kindergarten graduation is something that parents and administrators expect and enjoy. That conversation took place as responses to my post of this blog on Facebook in the Ontario Kindergarten Teachers group so it wasn't captured on the blog.

2. Self-regulation: Not just for kids So much of what I read about self-regulation talks about how teachers and parents can help to teach students/children how to use self-regulation.  But what I've found is that learning more about self-regulation has changed my own behaviour and my understanding of those days when my self-control seems to have deserted me.  In this post, I shared an example of how my husband lent me his calm when I was too overwhelmed by stressors during a very long trip.  I had so many responses to this post that I wrote a follow-up post that generated just as much traffic.  If I combined the two posts, they would be my most read topic.

And the most read post of 2017 on the Opening Doors for Learning blog:
1. ETFO Kindergarten Conference - April 2017. I used Storify to summarize and share two days of fantastic learning at the ETFO Kindergarten Conference in Niagara Falls. I was sad when I got an email just a few weeks ago, letting me know that Storify is no longer going to be available after the May 2018.    Time to find a new strategy. What are you going to be using instead of Storify in the future?

Happy 2018 to everyone!  Thanks again for reading these posts, responding, sharing, retweeting and letting me know that you're out there!

Image from PRpeople.blog

ETFO Kindergarten Conference - April 2017

Two days of amazing learning at the ETFO Early Years Conference: Seeing, Engaging and Empowering our Kindergarten Learners are summed up in this Storify:

Know Thy Impact

A colleague and I were chatting the other day about how it can be challenging for central office staff like coaches and consultants to be able to see the impact our work has on educators, administrators and students.  As a classroom teacher I think it seemed easier to gauge our impact, especially since I mostly taught primary grades.  As a kindergarten teacher, students might arrive with no pencil grip and by October they were printing their name!

Interestingly enough, only a few minutes after this conversation we received an email from a teacher thanking us for inviting her to attend a two day session facilitated by the Learning for a Sustainable Future organization that was held at one of our schools.  

She wrote:

I just wanted to thank you for putting my name in for the "Making Inquiry Authentic" workshop.  I feel like me again and completely have a rejuvenation for what I can do and what I will do with so many outlets and so MUCH positivity!  YOU are both fabulous and I APPRECIATE YOU!!!!  Thanks again for being apart of my crazy year and supporting me in so many ways!

The fact that a teacher took a few moments out of her day to send a quick email made a big difference to me and to my colleague.  I have resolved to do the same for others.  Today, I wrote two quick thank you notes to leaders in our teachers federation (ETFO) who have supported my work in so many ways over the year.

Years ago someone advised me to keep all the thank you letters and notes that I might get from colleagues, parents and others and to take them out and look at them when I had "one of those days!"  I don't often look in the box of letters, but it makes me feel better just knowing that they are there if I need them.

What to Tweet and When?

I joined Twitter back in 2008 after attending a workshop where it was promoted as a tool for connecting with other educators. But I wasn't hooked.  I used it for a few weeks and mostly connected with a few other teachers in our board who were using it.  After a month or two, I had drifted away from twitter and didn't use it at all.

Fast forward to 2016, and I'm giving Twitter another try.  Several colleagues had mentioned that they were finding it a useful tool for professional learning and networking.  I began to follow more educators, groups and organizations that were addressing issues that resonated with me.  And, after following others for awhile, I began posting interesting literacy and mathematics learning that I observed when I was in classrooms.

My big 'aha' moment came when I was live tweeting from the ETFO Learning Math in the Early Years conference in May 2016.  Educators from all over began retweeting and commenting on my posts.  I found myself thinking about which were the most salient 'nuggets' from each presentation to tweet?  What was a tidbit worth sharing that would spark conversation or inspire someone to try something new in their classroom?   It was a different way for me to process my learning at each session.

One tweet that really took off was this slide from a presentation by Dr. Juanita Copely:

People were intrigued by the student thinking - is it procedural understanding or conceptual understanding or is a combination of both?  Teachers used this as a prompt with their own students while others shared links to related articles about the children's developing understanding of the concept of equal.  Days after the conference had ended discussion linked to this tweet continued. It allowed me to engage in extended conversations and thoughtful reflection on this one slide, but it also lead me to think about the impact that one tweet had on so many educators.

While this tweet reignited my interest in using Twitter, I want to ensure that I don't become one of those people who are so busy taking pictures of an event that they aren't really present.  You know - you see people who are so busy recording a concert on their cell phone that they experience the whole concert through their phone and miss out on the bigger picture.  When I was at the Perito Moreno Glacier in Argentina I was walking down a trail, and there were constant sounds coming from the glacier that sounded like shotgun blasts in the distance.  I turned to look at the glacier and there was a crack that was so loud it sounded like a jet plane taking off as two huge sections of the glacier separated and crashed into the water.  The visible part of the glacier is about the height of a 23 story building, and the pieces that fell off were about 10 stories tall so watching them crash into the water was breathtaking.  However, I have no photos of this event.  I could have tried to grab the camera from around my neck and take a photo but it was happening so quickly that I decided to just 'be in the moment.'  I'm trying to approach Twitter in the same way - I want to capture and share ideas that I think will inspire other educators as well as celebrate the great learning happening in our schools, but I don't want to let it stop me from being in the moment whether I'm with students or with adults.   

Who is an educational leader?

This past weekend I had the opportunity to attend and present at ETFO's Learning Math in the Early Years conference in King City and we had wonderful keynote speakers - Dr. Juanita Copley, Dr. Ruth Beatty and Dr. Alex Lawson as well as fantastic breakout sessions by educators from around the province of Ontario.

At the same time, I am in the first year of my Doctorate of Education studies with the University of Western Ontario with a focus on Educational Leadership, and it got me to thinking - who is an educational leader?

Many of the research articles that we have been reading for our course seem to equate educational leadership with school administrator, but at this conference we were lead by teachers and Early Childhood Educators sharing their practice, curriculum consultants (like me) and instructional coaches and many 'knowledgable others' as Vygotsky would say.  So who is an educational leader?

In my mind, there are many people who are educational leaders - educators sharing their learning through social media or through conversations with colleagues; consultants and coaches co-learning with educators, professors in post-secondary guiding future educators, and administrators in our schools.

Have I forgotten any one?  Who do you consider to be educational leaders?

Visit Storify to see my summary of the ETFO conference.

                                               Image from venspired.com