Totally Worth It

Hi, I'm Greg & I am an Early Childhood Teacher from Australia. I write a blog called Males in Early Childhood which you can find by clicking here.

When asked why I became an early childhood teacher there are numerous  reasons I could rattle off. All quite valid and all very personal to me. others might site similar reasons that could sound exactly the same, but they would mean something different to them.

To make a positive impact on children's lives. To ensure the next generation have the best possible start in life. To be able to release the child within on a daily basis. Too feel worthwhile in what I do. To do what I love rather than what I have to. These are some reasons I have told to others in the past.



However, the other day something occurred that put all those other reasons into perspective. One of the children in my room had been away for several weeks with an ongoing illness. On his first day back he interrupted me as I was reading a story to say, "You're the perfect teacher Greg." Now how can you top that? What other reason do you need than to be told that by one of the most important people around you?

Needless to say it made my day and I will remember that moment for some time to come.

Would You Rather.....

Hi, I'm Greg & I am an Early Childhood Teacher from Australia. I write a blog called Males in Early Childhood which you can find by clicking here.

.....have children produce perfect replicas of a set design so that your wall displays look fabulous, or leave children to create how their imagination and abilities enable them?

.....get to the end of the day relieved that nothing went wrong, or regret that the day is over as you've embraced all the highs and lows?

.....ensure the children keep out of the dirt, paint and other substances that might soil their beautiful clothing, or encourage them to be hands on with all that they do and celebrate that their beautiful work is evidenced by their soiled clothes?

.....have children remain quiet and listen to you because you're the teacher and you're the boss, or have them want to listen to you because you always have interesting things to say?

.....the difficult child/ren have a 'good' day so that it's not too stressful for you, or be the one that enables those same children to be the best they can be?

.....parents and colleagues ask you why you teach the way you do, or have those same parents and colleagues ask you how you teach the waay you do?

.....regulatory authorities were happy with your methods, or that those authorities held you as a glowing example of best practice?

.....receive a compliment from an inspector, or a child?

.....stick with what you know as it's worked up until now, or continue to change and evolve in order  to be the best you can be?

I asked similar questions on my own blog recently. These are all simple questions with seemingly simple answers, yet if we don't ask them of ourselves from time to time how can we hope to grow and develop as individuals and as professionals?

Passing The Torch

 Hi, I'm Greg & I am an Early Childhood Teacher from Australia. I write a blog called Males in Early Childhood which you can find by clicking here.

One of the things that I appreciated most of all while studying was the support and guidance offered by experienced educators while I undertook my professional experiences during my studies. These placements can be quite daunting for beginning teachers and if the environment is not willing to accept you as being at the beginning of a journey then it can go terribly wrong.

Fortunately I was lucky enough to have some amazing mentors who I could observe paracticing high quality education to young children and who supported me in so many ways. from providing constructive criticism, promoting my individualism and encouraging me to take on roles above and beyond my comfort zone.

As a result I embrace my duty to the next generation of educators and want to give them the opportunities to become the best they can be for themselves and the future children they will be charged with.

On my own blog I interviewed an intern I supervised last year. That experience showed me how far I had come since my graduation, but beyond that, it highlighted my delight in helping the next generation of teachers on their way to the joys of early childhood education.

Recently I had the privelidge to mentor a 2nd year student. I rememberr my time at the same point in my studies feeling insecure and not very confident in my abilities to do what was expected at an acceptable level. I got through it however, with flying colours as it turns out.

My student confided in me that she had similar doubts leading into this placement. However, those doubts soon passed as she quickly settled into our world. I am full of praise for her as she demonstrated skills beyond what I would ever had exxpected from a 2nd year student. The children loved her, the staff loved her and I found myself thinking that I could easily have left her alone (if regulations allowed) to run my room without any hesitation and be confident she would have coped brilliantly.

What I disccoverd from her was that I had given her the confidence, tools and freedom to be able to display that level of competence. here I was thinking my job was quite easy, yet I had done so much without even knowing it.

I hope that this future teacher will look back at this time as a key landmark in her career. What I do know is that each time I have the task of overseeing a student teacher, it provides me with excellent opportunities to reflect on my own teaching practices and philosophy. There's no better time to be introspective then when someone full of new ideas, knowledge and enthusiasm is around you.

I can't wait for the next opportunity to join someone on their journey into early childhood teaching.

The Challenges That Lay Ahead

Hi, I'm Greg & I am an Early Childhood Teacher from Australia. I write a blog called Males in Early Childhood which you can find by clicking here.

We are in the midst of an overhaul of the early childhood education and care sector in Australia. It includes better educator:child ratios, higher qualification requirements for caregivers and a new national Early Childhood Education Framework that guides practice and informs curriculum. These changes have been ongoing for the past two years or so and will continue for another few years.

While all this is great for the profession and the sector in general, there has been a negative result of all these measures and other factors. Fees are increasing far beyond the rate of GDP and therefore many families are struggling to afford quality formal care for their children.

Now this cannot be attributed solely to the changes being implemented, but did anyone seriously think you could increase the number of staff required, increase the qualifications required and therefore the wages, increase the number of university trained teachers (the highest paid educators in the sector) and not affect the price centres need to charge families in order to cover these costs.

The sad thing is that Early Childhood Education and Care is one of the lowest paid sectors in Australia and in many other countries. There is a current campaign to get more pay for all childcare workers. yes we deserve more money for one of the most important jobs in society. But this will impact of care costs even further, making it unaffordable for even more families.

The answer our Prime Minister has to this is to provide more monetary support for families and there is also talk of capping fee increases. While seeming effective on the surface these are floored and short-term solutions. Capping fee increases will make many services unviable and pressure them to close their doors, which will provide an even greater burden on a struggling industry. Likewise monetary assistance will only work while fees remain the same. As soon as they increase some more this extra money will be swallowed up.

Personally, I don't want to see the private sector come to the rescue as it was private enterprise trying to make a profit out of childcare that cause many problems in this country not so long ago. Having said that, one possibility could be for workplaces to partially meet the cost of parents returning to work by assisting in childcare fees. This presents problems in itself as not all workplaces would be able to meet such costs. It is however, one idea to get the ball rolling.

I don't know the answers and won't pretend to. The purpose of this post is to spark debate and engage parents and colleagues the world over into putting ideas forward that may help meet all the challenges we face. I have provided one idea, however unlikely it might be. The challenge now is to see how many feasible ideas we can actually come up with. Who knows, we may even be able to forward these ideas to Governments around the world.

Talking About Death With Preschoolers

 Hi, I'm Greg & I am an Early Childhood Teacher from Australia. I write a blog called Males in Early Childhood which you can find by clicking here.

Usually when I post here in the collaborative blog I create a new post that either talks about a topic I haven't covered before on the Males blog, or tackle an issue already addressed from a different angle. This post however, will be slightly different. This post will be partly self promoting, something I normally avoid as much as possible. It will be partly a revisit of a recent post on the Males blog, also something I try to avoid. And finally, it will partly be a call to arms, a challenge if you will, to all the early childhood professionals, parents and other interested parties.

The Males post I refer to spoke about how I discussed the subject of Maurice Sendak's death with a group of preschoolers. I won't go into the details of the post here as you can visit it and read it for yourself by clicking on the link provided above, or to make it easy for you, here.

What I do want to talk about here is the reasons I believe this is not only an acceptable subject to raise with young children, but a necessary one from time to time. I don't expect everyone to share my views on this and respect your position either way. All I ask is that as you read on you do so with an open mind. For if we are to truly be the best we can be for our children we need to consider new ideas, approaches and theories with openness in order for us to be able to develop as professionals, parents and individuals.

For so long death has appeared to be one of the unspoken taboo topics for so many early childhood educators and parents. Many believed that young children are not ready to either cope with the strong emotions or deep subject matter such a topic would unveil, or that the children would not fully understand what was been talk about. These are real concerns by real people. However, in my humble opinion they don't give enough credit to the children of the person who might broach such a subject with them.

First of all I would say that many, if not most adults do not fully comprehend the emotions or subject matter when it comes to dealing with death, yet we still talk about it with them. If we are to have a view off young children as being capable, resourceful and resilient then we should honour them by being open and honest with them in all our dealings with them.

Now while death may not be easy for you to even talk about, there are times when it be beneficial for all, including yourself, to introduce the subject. I chose to use the death of the author of one of our favourite books. It made it relevant and I was able to use the book as a way to connect the obscure news with what they were familiar with. It then turned into a celebration of his life, in particular that book and the memories of lost beloved pets.

For others it may be a little more difficult. Someone shared with me how one of their children's siblings had died. Now while some may have found this a time to divert the children's attentions away from this tragedy and cheer them up, this professional used it as an opportunity to enable the children to explore their real feelings and share their empathy with their very unfortunate peer. It was real to them because it affeccted someone close to them and therefore them.

Now while most people won't have to deal with such traumatic even as this with preschoolers, that doesn't mean that those same children haven't already experienced death. Whether it be the death of a pet or a family member. I was astounded to discover when talking to families about this that four of the children who were part of this experience have attended funerals for family members.

No matter how open we are with families there will be things we don't  know about them for one reaon or another. We shouldn't assume that the children have no experience with this or that. Even if death haas never been something they have had to even think of, I truly believe they are still entitled to talk about it in the right circumstances and in a caring and respectful way.

As I said to my preschoolers, "Death is  a part of life. We will all die sometimes and we will know people who will die. Some of us have even hadd pets that have died." That's how we got onto the whole pets who have died topic. Go read the post over at the Males blog. I hope you find what we plan to do to follow up with inspiring. As for you, you may or may not wish to discuss such a matte with your children. That's toatally up to you. Just keep in mind that a something simply doesn't go away if you don't talk about it. Respect the children and the families, but most of all, respect yourself no matter what decision you make.

Finally, I think this article may prove worthwhile for those who want some tips on how to tackle this sensitive topic with young children, particulaly one on one.

Where Are All The Men?

Hi, I'm Greg & I am an Early Childhood Teacher from Australia. I write a blog called Males in Early Childhood which you can find by clicking here.

Where are all the men? This is a recurring question I hear when the subject of the lack of males in the early childhood sector arises. Most people agree we need more men, but are unsure of how we go about attaining that goal. There are also mixed reason for having such a goal in the first place.

However, that is not the purpose of this post. There are opportunities galore to address those topics. Right here and now I want to help each and every one of you discover all the men that already play a part in children's lives, or at least have the possibility to.

Think about the men in your immediate and extended family. The brothers, uncles, grandfathers, pops, cousins, nephews, etc.

Think about those in your neighbourhood. The neighbours, shop owners/proprietors, local youth, etc.

Think about those within your local and wider communities. The police officers, ambulance officers, fire fighters, bus drivers, postal workers, taxi/cab drivers, librarians, school teachers, etc.

Think about community helpers. The public gardeners, community volunteers, retirees, community group members.

Think about those involved in sporting clubs. The coaches, other dads, older brothers, grounds personnel, first aid officers, etc.

Think about every man that touches your life in one way or another. if they have a positive influence in your life, no matter how small then there is the possibility that they may be able to have a similarly positive impact on your child's life.

Men make up half of society and therefore every child should come into contact with men from all walks of life from a very young age. Encourage interactions. Help dispel a fear of men that some children develop. Of course not every man you come across will want to engage with you or your child, just like not every woman will. Nor will every man be a wise choice for your child to look up to, just as not all women would be either.

If your child has the opportunity to engage with any of these people and they are men then please be brave and encourage an interaction, even if it's simply to say hello. Remember that positive encounters in their everyday lives will help children develop dispositions that will foster trusting and respectful relationship throughout their life, both with peers and with significant adults.

Even if you think that your child has no significant male in theiir life, there are far more opportunities than you might first think for a man to have a positive interaction with your child. And who knows, it may be the start of a new found respect and admiration for males.

Of course, this also applies to females. I have simply concentrated on men here as there are more and more children without significant men in their lives. Not to mention that the title of my blog is a bit of a giveaway. Nevertheless, the underlying message here is that rather than being fearful of strangers in your community and society at large, it may often be beneficial to see these people as conduits to children's development of healthy attitudes towards their fellow humans.

Author Birthdays

Hi, I'm Greg & I am an Early Childhood Teacher from Australia. I write a blog called Males in Early Childhood which you can find by clicking here.

There is a great deal to be said for celebrating birthdays, whether they be for children or adults. It's often a milestone that is greeted with anticipation and more often than not a joyous occasion. However, this is not about celebrating the birthday of those around us.

Some time ago I came across a blog that celebrates birthdays throughout the year. Authors' birthdays. Coincidentally, it is called Happy Birthday Author. As a result I celebrated Eric Carle's birthday last year with my group of toddlers. This year I thought I would do this more often with the preschoolers I have this year.

I began this month by acknowledging the birthday of Dr Seuss as many of you out there did. I had a multitude of stories to choose from and had decided to go with "Ten Apples up on Top" and "To Think That I Found it on Mulberry Street." My reasoning for the second was to provoke a discussion with the children about what they see on their street. Instead, a discussion arose about where some of the children had been over the weekend so I went with "Oh, the Places You'll Go!" instead.

Some of the children followed up the "Ten Apples up on Top" Story by attempting to stack our own small play apples. While they were initially unsuccessful some quite ingenious ideas came to them, such as using Blu Tack and playdough to hold the apples in place.

Meanwhile one boy was keen to build the house from "Oh, the Places You'll Go!" with the wooden blocks. He was trying to place the book open beside where was working so he could refer to the picture as he was building, but the book kept closing. So I placed a block over part of the book to keep it open for him.

 

 

This seemed to work rather well for him and he was well on the way to constructing a rather elaborate structure when it came tumbling down. Although he didn't want to rebuild and therefore the end product did not eventuate, the process was the important aspect of this experience and that is what provided him with the greatest benefits.

 

While on the subject of process, there's a great collection of posts on this very blog by Debbie Clement on process versus product. If you click here you'll find the latest that will also have links to the others.

 

 

The next day we celebrated the birthday of renowned Australian children's author Mem Fox. We read "Magic Hat" and used a jester's hat as a prop to get the children involved.

 

 

As the hat landed on each child it turned them into a different animal, one of their choosing. While this meant we didn't follow the story completely, the purpose was to celebrate the ideal that stories are fun and we can become involved in them in many ways.

 

 

Following the story I left the book at the drawing table to see if it might inspire some creativity in honour of the occasion. before I had a chance to even set the book down there were children sitting in chairs ready to draw pictures from the book. A group of them began on the title page and as the day went by they made they way through to about two thirds of the way into the story.

 

There are many advantages to celebrating the life and creations of authors, including a greater appreciation of the books they have enjoyed for so long; opportunities for literacy and language development in so many different ways; Becoming more confident and believing in themselves more as they explore these texts in a range of ways; and most importantly for me, they become increasingly aware of the literary culture of their world, and in particular,

their own country. Afterall, we will be celebrating other Aussie authors in the future such as Pamela Allen, Graeme Base, Jeannie Baker and Jackie French to name a few. 

Stereotypes Have No Place Around Here!

Hi, I'm Greg & I am an Early Childhood Teacher from Australia. I write a blog called Males in Early Childhood which you can find by clicking here.

Over at the Males blog I recently posted about breaking gender stereotypes in preschool. That post was more focused on the children. Here I want to focus my attention more on the stereotyping associated with those working with children. I try to encourage children to explore non typical experiences by providing resources that foster engaging in non-typical play experiences.

It helps immensely if there are examples available for the children to encounter, such as this puzzle depicting a male ironing.

Photos of people doing non-typical jobs such as male nurses or female mechanics. Children having access to books that involve characters engaged in such roles also encourages breaking these stereotypes. Examples of such books are Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch and William Wants a Doll by Charlotte Zolotow.

Who knows if we have a female engineer in our midst, or the next male hairdresser to the stars. There may even be a male preschool teacher or two among them. But even if there isn't, these children will have far richer encounters by having the choice to engage or not in such experiences. Broadening the range of experiences children engage in also provides more opportunities of incidental learning in a number of key developmental areas such as language and communication, social interaction, exploration and discovery, sense of self, and an acceptance for who they are.

So whether it's what the children do, what they choose to play with or how they choose to interact that ignores such stereotyping, or their appearance. Such as when I recently took some nail polish to work and painted the children nails a different colour each day. There is simply no good reason why children cannot have access to the same experiences as any other child, regardless of whether they possess a y chromosome or not.

Of course I always try to lead by example and therefore would never ask a child if they wanted their nails painted if I hadn't done so myself first. I think they looks simply divine. Besides, I'm a walking talking everyday example of a broken gender stereotype.

An Australian Flavour

 Hi, I'm Greg & I am an Early Childhood Teacher from Australia. I write a blog called Males in Early Childhood which you can find by clicking here.

As it seems the vast majority of contributors to this blog are American I thought it might be a good idea to give everyone a better understanding of what takes place here in Australia, including the spelling of 'flavour' in the title. Yes, we do spell many words differently to North America, but that's something for another time. Now of course I can only speak in general terms about various types of services around the country, but will be more specific in relation to where I work.

As opposed to the Northern Hemisphere, the Christmas/New Year period occurs during the Summer months. Hence,, schools have their summer vacations, or holidays as we say here, at this time and therefore are closed for an extended time. Many children's services are also closed for the same period, from about a week before Christmas until the end of January. Most preschools adhere to these holidays, but long day care settings, such as the one I work in vary in how long they break for.

I returned to work the first Tuesday in the new year. You can read about my return here. All I will add is that with Christmas still fresh in their minds we spent much time talking about what we had gotten. During this time I sprung a surprise on them, showing my favourite Christmas gift and didn't they love it?"

I sometimes regret not having the same holidays as the schools as I would be able to spend more time with my own kids. The break from the paperwork is a nice touch too. yet, I miss doing what I love too much and would most likely become unbearable at home for 6 weeks.

So there you have it. A little insight into the Christmas/New Year period in this Aussie's neck of woods.

Teaching Parents

Hi, I'm Greg & I am an Early Childhood Teacher from Australia. I write a blog called Males in Early Childhood which you can find by clicking here.

The title of this post may be a bit misleading. I am referring to those who teach & are parents, not parents being taught. Earlier in the year I published a series of posts about the similarities & differences between being a father & being an early childhood educator. This will be an abridged version of those 6 posts.

I became a parent before I became a teacher, at least professionally. We all teach in one form or another from time to time, whether it be teaching someone the ropes in their new job or how to tie their shoe laces. Becoming a parent was the proudest day of my life & I had to learn a whole new set of skills which meant I was of being taught by my baby.

This is a very important point as almost anyone who has had children would testify, you learn something new about them all the time, not to mention often something about yourself. As an early childhood professional I realise the formative years of a child's life are the most important for their growth & development, but it can also be a time when children can teach us the most - about themselves, the world around us & ourselves.



As my children have grown the way they interact with me & their attitude towards me have changed, especially my teenage daughter. However, I believe I still have some lessons to teach them & they definitely are able to teach me a thing or two. What I have come to realise is that being a parent has made me a better teacher & teaching young children has improved my parenting.

Early childhood education and care can be a stressful and challenging career, yet the rewards you get from it are, to me, only surpassed by the benefits of being a parent. So whether you teach young children, older children, adolescents, are a parent or none of the above, at some point in your life you are likely to teach someone some new skills and/or knowledge. If you can take something away from the experience that has helped you grow as well than I believe you've done your job well.

With that in mind I would like to think I'm doing a decent job as a father & a respectable one as a teacher. If I am right then I will be leaving this world in some good hands for the future.

Greg Harvey - Who is This Bloke?

G’day everyone! For those who don't know me let me share a bit about myself. My name is Greg & I am from the Hunter Valley near Newcastle, NSW, Australia. I am truly honoured & humbled to be a part of this collective blog amongst such highly distinguished & renowned professionals. Now onto the actual post.

I realise I am an anomaly being a man working in a very female-dominated industry, yet I believe that also gives me opportunities that may not present themselves to my female colleagues. I am often approached by parents & fellow professionals & told that they are pleased to see a guy working in childcare. Along with this recognition come some expectations; some realistic while others are less so.

Some of the more unrealistic expectations or generalisations are the following: I am the go to guy for any hard to handle child – “If you don’t start listening I’m going to send you to Greg;” I’m the solution to all boys as I can relate to them better so they’ll listen to me; You’re a man so you can do the heavy lifting.

By being a male early childhood professional I am already regarded by many as an oddity. This is closer to the truth than some may first realise. I am an unusual individual with a warped sense of humour & break gender stereotypes in many ways including preferring shopping to manual labour, chatting you ear off & remembering significant dates such as birthdays & anniversaries.

I feel I am a positive influence in children’s lives because of whom I am as a professional regardless of my gender & that anyone can impact young children’s lives in a similar fashion. I relish the one on one time nappy (diaper) change time provides, enabling strong relationships to be formed between myself & the children. I’m also humbled by the many positive words of encouragement & support I regularly receive from families  & colleagues.

Finally, if you would like to check out my Males in early Childhood blog then click here. The site was originally set up for a local Males in EC support group, but as everyone sort of went their separate ways I took it upon myself to use the blog for two purposes. To share my own experiences & hence I hope to provide positive examples of a guy working with young children. Also to highlight various issues concerning men in early childhood & the profession in general.

Hope to see you there. :)