We Know Quality

I'm still thinking a lot about Valora Washington's keynote at the Vermont Association for the Education of Young Children's Conference back on October 20, 2016. Yes, that was a while ago, but she said one thing that I have been mulling over ever since that day

"We do know what quality is!" She said we have this tacit knowledge that is difficult to articulate what we know. 

Well, I keep thinking about that. We do know what quality is, and what it isn't. And Valora implored us to call out bad practice and advocate for quality. 

So what is quality practice and in early childhood settings? What does it look like? Here's what I have observed, practiced and learned in my years of teaching and advocating for our youngest learners. 



Space: I see a room that has well-defined spaces where children can readily access materials to engage in play and activities. There is a place to pretend, dress up, read books, draw and paint and create, explore with sand and water, build with blocks and manipulatives, do some music and movement, and puzzles and games. There is a place to be alone, and a place for one or two kids to work together. Somewhere in the room, each child should have a place for his or her own things. Art on the wall should be kid-made, hopefully reflective of everyone in the room. There are visuals for expectations and routines in the classroom, such as a picture of how many kids can play in an area at a time, or the sequence for washing hands or putting on outdoor gear. Classrooms should be designed to include children of all backgrounds and abilities. 



Schedule: The rhythm of the day has time for child choice, group activities, outdoor play, down time, snacks/eating, rest, and small group. The largest chunks of the day should be child-directed play. The schedule should be posted visually for the kids so that they know what is going to happen and they can predict their day. The schedule should be reviewed daily with the children, either as a whole group or individually, so that kids can be prepared if something changes. In my classroom, one of our jobs was the "secretary." That child used a pointer to "read" the visual schedule. Then, we asked, "Is today a regular day or a different day?" If something had changed, I asked the secretary to point to it on the schedule and then I would explain the change. Changes might be a field trip, a special activity, like cooking something or a party, or a special guest coming in to the classroom that day. The key was to make sure the kids knew what to expect. 





Interactions: Adults should be on children's level as much as physically possible, sitting on the floor at meeting, down when talking to children. Early Education is not great for your back, you have to learn to bend at the knees because you are down at three feet most of the day. Conversations should be positive and easy and caring. You should see a lot of smiling and laughter. Children should be allowed to sit in laps and get hugs when they need them. Adults should be involved in play, as well as taking time to step back and watch what the kids are doing on their own so they can figure out how to challenge and scaffold the learning that the children are demonstrating in their exploring. Conversations with kids should be about their interests and they should have several back and forth exchanges, rather than just quick question and answer or giving directions. Adults should give kids feedback for their creativity, good ideas, following expectations, helping each other, being friendly and solving problems. Kids should be hearing regularly what they are doing well. If they need to be redirected, they get directions that are phrased in saying what they should do (i.e. remember to walk in the classroom, use your words to ask, use gentle touches), instead of what not to do (i.e. don't run. don't hit). 

Materials: Kids should have access to all sorts of options and the materials available should be organized so that kids can get to them and understand how to put them away. For example, drawing materials should be on a shelf with picture labels and bins for supplies. There should be enough materials for children to play and share (think of how much fun it is to build with blocks, but what happens when there is not enough to build what you want). Materials should encourage child independence, such as the paint cups with the tops that just fit the chubby brushes in order to be somewhat spill-proof and long sleeved smocks. Teachers should also be thinking about all learners when choosing materials, making sure that everyone, regardless of ability, can meaningfully use materials. For example, making sure there are loop scissors (that bounce back) for children with fine motor challenges (or most three and under set), and slant boards (which can be a thick three ring binder) for positioning in writing. Children should also see themselves in the classroom materials. Posters, books, dolls, and pretend play materials should reflect kids with diverse backgrounds and abilities. 

Uknown Source

Activities: There should be a variety of low medium and high energy choices in a classroom. Kids should be able to choose to quietly draw, or play with others on a project, building with blocks or manipulatives (like Legos or Magnetiles), or be able to listen to music and dance, or move using their big muscles--inside!! The majority of a preschool day should be spent in independent choice time. Kids should have access to pretend play, blocks, toy vehicles, toy people, dolls, movement, science experiments, games, puzzles, building materials, coloring and art supplies, books, writing materials, and puppets. Materials should be switched out and changed with enough frequency to allow explorations of new things, but not so frequently that kids do not get enough of a chance to repeatedly explore materials. 

Technology: If you use iPads, know how to use the restrictions in order to allow children to use them without an adult needing to be present and consider a rule that kids always share with a friend so that screen time is not isolating. There are Applications that are great for two people working together. And even those designed for one, kids can take turns. Teach kids to take pictures and allow them to document field trips and their own interests in the classroom. You can use devices to take digital photos and short video clips of children that can be shared with parents in newsletters or at conferences, or on a private Facebook page for your classroom. 

This is, of course, not an inclusive list of all that is quality in a preschool classroom, but I would consider this a good starting point for anyone trying to get a sense of what a quality preschool program looks like. Teachers need to be trained in child development and developmentally appropriate practices for young children. They should be compensated for their training and have access to time and money to continue their professional development, just like teachers in the K-12 world. Velora Washington said another nugget in her address at the VT AEYC conference that I have been repeating when I am talking with people who don't want to pay for universal preschool. "We have to stop saying we can do things for a dime when they really cost a dollar." Adults who work in preschool are masters and stretching funding as far as possible, but, imagine the program quality improvement if preschool programs were funded for quality delivery...imagine. 

Vermont Guiding Principles Validation

I am posting this invitation as a member of the Guiding Principles workgroup. If you are a Vermonter and have any connection to early care and education please consider giving your input into this last draft of this document.

In March and April of this year, Vermont is asking individuals who work with, advocate for, and care about young children and their families to review and provide input to a new document. It’s called the Vermont Guiding Principles for the Full Participation of Each and Every Young Child and their Family, or the Guiding Principles for short.

The Guiding Principles are a set of explicit and intentional values and practices that can be used to support the successful, inclusive learning and development of children, birth through grade 3. This includes children with diverse cultures, languages, abilities, races, ethnicities, faiths, geographic settings, resources, and circumstances, and their families.

The Guiding Principles are reflective of, and responsive to, Vermont legislation, policies, and guidance. For example, they incorporate key concepts from Vermont’s Early Childhood Framework and Early Childhood Action plan related to promoting high-quality opportunities for all children. They were developed to provide clear, explicit, and intentional language to capture Vermont’s commitment to achieving each child’s promise and potential.

Everyone’s participation in the statewide validation of Vermont’s Guiding Principles will contribute tremendously to the authenticity and usefulness of the final product. Unlike other states in which guidance comes from above and is pushed down and out, this resource will be shaped by real people who work with, or on behalf of young children, as well as the families of those children.

To learn more about the Guiding Principles and provide input, go to https://unc.az1.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_0jr3ZzfXlnawtaB

Tell us about the words or phrases that you like and feel great about and tell us how to make the Guiding Principles stronger and clearer.

Please share this with the families you know, your colleagues, and any people who value an inclusive early childhood system in Vermont.  Thank you.

VT Early Childhood Day at the Legislature 2015

The Vermont House Chamber in Session on ECDL

Early Childhood Day at the Legislature in Vermont is one of those days that reminds my why I advocate for early care and education programs in this state and beyond. While the buzz in the room at the Capitol Plaza Hotel in Montpelier was all about how this was a tough budget year and there is no money for programs, there was still a feeling of optimism. The people in that room were still enthusiastic about getting the message out to the people beyond those walls about how important it is to let the world beyond providers understand the importance of high quality early care and education. 

Dr, Paul Dworkin

The Keynote Speaker, Dr. Paul Dworkin from Help Me Grow in Connecticut addressed ways in which we can pool our resources and blend and braid our funding sources in order to meet the needs of all kids, not just the kids who are "disabled and disordered," (his words), but those kids who are vulnerable to become disabled and disordered if we don't help build up their families' protective factors. 

He talked about the ways in which Vermont is already leading in integrating services through the birth to three service for families in Children's Integrated Services (CIS) and through the statewide network for children, Building Bright Futures (BBF) and the BBF regional councils network, as well as the passage of VT Act 166, the first state law in the country that provides for universal access to preschool for all 3 and 4-year-olds.

Gov. Peter Shumlin spoke to ECE providers. 

And, with the recent Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge Grant, Vermont has been able launch several initiatives to strengthen and integrate existing services to families with young children, including Strengthening Families, Early Multiple Tiered Systems of Supports (MTSS) and beefing up the Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS) in the state known and STARS. 

The conversation at our table with our legislator and lunch did focus on two key topics, money and implications of Act 166 going into effect next year. He asked us about ideas for funding. One idea was to consider what Louisiana did after hurricane Katrina when they had to rebuild their whole system. They gave 100% tax credits to any businesses who were willing to make donations to early childhood centers up to $5000. It's called the Louisiana School Readiness Tax Credit. This increased revenues to centers, improved quality, and was revenue neutral for the state. Businesses bought in because it was also an economic development issue. They were investing in their future workforce with a 100% tax write-off for it. Win-win! 

We also raised a concern over what could be a possible local backlash next year when Act 166 is fully implemented and local school budgets all have the impact of funding 10 hours a week of preschool for 35 weeks a year for all 3- and 4-year-olds. This mandate from Montpelier was not funded from Montpelier, so local budgets will be impacted. We had a concern that the voter anger over the increase in taxes may actually be levied toward the preschool providers, rather than the legislature, or school boards who did not do sufficient planning or community education this year for the increases. 

There is a sense that this law is short-sighted, if I am to believe some of the comments online I have seen on news stories about Act 166. However, I believe it is anything but short sighted. Being in the House Chamber during Early Childhood Day at the Legislature and  listening to the lofty proclamations about how important our work in the early care and education community is, just reminded me that this is the long-term solution we are talking about. We are working in order to secure the future of our state's and country's workforce, mental health, and security. It's that important work and what truly is worth local, state, federal and private dollars investment. 

Learning with Grown Ups

I just finished presenting my third two-day introductory training on Teaching Strategies GOLD® (TS GOLD®) to another group of of Vermont early childhood educators and, while I am a little tired, I am always thrilled at what I get out of these trainings as much as what I am teaching to the participants. 

TS GOLD® is a mandated assessment by Vermont for providers who are drawing down State Education money to pay for preschool children participating in their programs. As the number private providers who are doing this expands with the passage of VT Act 166, more will need to be trained in using this tool correctly. 

So, I am out there, training providers how to use the online assessment system for the children they have in their programs. Today and yesterday, I was with a group of teachers in the Northeast Kingdom both from private settings and Head Start who teach kids ranging from infants to 5 years old. It was an excellent variety of learners. Most of them had some familiarity with TS GOLD®, but at least three of them had never seen it before.

As we got to know the tool, the more experienced participants shared their knowledge with the newer learners. Thankfully, I was able to also show the veteran participants some new functions of the tool as well, so they walked away with new tricks.

One of the participants has made her own hand-held version of what is called the Objectives for Development and Learning (ODL) that she shared. It was a clever design that I plan on sharing with my Teaching Strategies trainer. It is pictured below. 

Another participant shared a set of infant and toddler activity cards called Mighty Minutes that her Head Start program had purchased from Teaching Strategies that could be a time saver when working with the TS GOLD® data system. While these are not cheap, they were a new resource that everyone in the room was able to get their hands on and open the box and look through, rather than just look at a picture on a website.

These two resources were new to me and to the other participants. They are just a couple of examples of what I love about sharing early childhood learning with others. I go in with my agenda and goals and learning objectives for the day, but I come out with new, unexpected knowledge and ideas from my participants that re-energizes me about my work and the whole early education field. 

Playgrounds for Everyone

Since 2012, in an amendment to the Americans with Disabilities Act, the federal government made it mandatory for all new and renovated public playgrounds to have accessible equipment. 

As I have been thinking and reading about accessible, it has been more clear to me that there is a big difference between accessible and inclusive. There is a link on the NPR website from their story about an inclusive playground in which you can find an accessible playground near you. When I used this link, some of the playgrounds simply had one ADA swing, and that counted as accessible by the new ADA mandate. Accessible really just means that you can get to the playground, or there is a few pieces of equipment that will accommodate a child with some limited mobility. They still may need a lot of help getting to that equipment, since the playground surface may not be wheelchair friendly.  The design says, "Yeah, we gave you a second thought, but we're not really playing with you."

The parents of Brooklyn Fisher, a girl with spina bifida in Idaho, wanted their daughter to be able to be included when she went to the playground. What they envisioned was a playscape that allowed their child to go up on the structure with her wheelchair with other kids, access all the equipment and join in with her friends without having to be carried by her parents. They designed and raised money to build Brooklyn's Playground, which opened in 2011 in Pocatello, Idaho. It is probably the most inclusive playground in the world. Parents of children with disabilities from all over the Rockies make special trips to give their children a playground experience like they have never had before.

In Salinas, CA, Shawn and Amanda Bakker raised money to build Tatum's Garden, another inclusive playground that they were inspired to raise money for and build after they visited Brooklyn's playground with their daughter. These inclusive playgrounds, with their rubberized ground surfaces that allow wheelchairs to roll merrily along them, do not come with a small price tag. In both cases, the families raised over $500,000. What did not go into the initial building of the playgrounds stays in a fund for maintenance. 

As communities around the country are considering updates to their playgrounds for their public, these two playgrounds can serve as models for how to include everyone in the play. As Brooklyn's mother said in an Aljezeera America article about her daughter's first time on the playground, "I saw her with all her best friends play like every other child," she said. "She wasn't on a different level, there was nothing different about how she was playing with them. They were all just enjoying play together and they did it for hours."

Accessibility is okay, it says I'll let you in here, but I don't have to interact with you, but true inclusion is when social ties and real connections happen for people. We can do better on the playgrounds for all of our kids. It will take community support for inclusion everywhere. 

Early Childhood's Future: What I Learned from Valora Washington

I listened to Valora Washington speak at the Vermont Association for the Education for Young Children Fall conference and she got me all fired up again. She pointed out that now that we have drawn attention to our field and that even President Obama is talking about the importance of universal access to early education in his State of the Union speeches, we can no longer hide in our bubble. 
She called on us to first imagine for our field. Come up with a unified vision of what is important. In Vermont, many stakeholders have been thinking about a unified vision and have settled on: "To realize the promise of every Vermont child." I think that is pretty nice. It is a vision many early care and education stakeholders can then carve out their missions. Valora (I feel I can call her by her first name since she greeted me with a hug when I picked her up at the airport) wants us to be "Smart Improvisors" as we imagine. Our new ideas can come on the fly, but they come from a deep well of knowledge and experience that we have in the field of early childhood education. 
Next, she asked us to know. We are in the midst of a field that has experienced a knowledge explosion in the last 20 years. We have to consider "What should early educators know and do?" as a question we need to answer. Valora says that we know more than we are doing. She also believes that we know what quality is. Our problem is that this is tacit knowledge in our field which makes it hard to articulate what we know. We also know that we do not have the funding to do quality work and for too long we have tried to uphold the myth that we can do for a quarter what really costs a dollar. One of our challenges as a field is to figure out how do we get better funding and then what would we do with it.
Her next step is that we have to act. We have to build networks among our groups. We have to all play in the same sandbox. We are a field that is compartmentalized and we often do not speak well of other sectors (who may actually be doing valuable work, if we could step back and look at the whole picture). She challenges us to figure out how to work together, combine efforts, and mobilize to focus on solutions. Part of this is that we have to be willing to call out bad practice when we see it. We are a field that is conflict-averse, so we have to learn to deal with conflict in creative ways.She also said she is looking for the Disruptive Innovators and the Positive Deviants. The people who are changing things because they know it can work and they are willing to act on their knew knowledge, or they see a new way of delivering an idea and go for it. Those are the people that change are field and pave the way for the rest of us. Change is not optional.
Lastly, she called on us to take personal responsibility. We often try to fly under the radar, when what we need to do now is focus on outcomes and build networks. Workforce qualifications are getting higher and this is a challenge for veteran teachers who do not have those credentials. How do we advance the field and serve the field? We need to take responsibility and unify and professionalize our field. 
Currently, Valora stated, there are 1.8 million early educators in the United States. In the often quoted Perry Preschool Project, the teachers were educated at the Masters level, the students had wrap around health services and the program had high family involvement. As we think about the good outcomes that high quality produced, we need to figure out how we can replicate it throughout our varied systems, whether it be home and family providers, Head Start programs, child care centers, or public and private preschool programs. Early care and education has many faces, but in order to realize the promise of every child, every child should have access to high quality early care and education experiences in whatever environment that child's for chooses.

Five Favorite Children's Books

Okay, limiting me to just five is really hard, so I am going to list the top five that come to my mind because there are SO SO SO SO many children's books that I love.

1. Piggie Pie by Margie Palatini - I love to use this book to introduce the word "problem" to the kids.
2. Stand Tall Molly Lou Melon by Patty Lovell - My favorite book about being nice to one another, grandmothers, and self-confidence
3. The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig by Eugene Trivizas - kids need a good grounding in the original story to appreciate this one, but this one cracks me up every time.
4. Can You Hear It by William Lach - this is a fabulous introduction to classical music and paintings for kids. I was so surprised how much the kids loved the pieces and following the prompts to listen for the specific instruments. They ask to hear this over and over again.
5. How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World by Marjorie Priceman - I just love this book. We take out my children's map of the world and find all of the places the little girl goes to collect the ingredients for her pie. We also talk about all of the kinds of transportation she uses.