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Is risk-taking on your list of skills to be taught and learned? It should be. When you
think about the 3-R's, what comes to mind? Does reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic sound
familiar? Well, with this suggestion from Betty Jones, ECE CompSAT asks you to reconsider
another set of 3-R's - Relationships, Risks and Rewards. This video focuses specifically
on the topic of helping children and teachers learn how to be risk-takers, as we explore
the competency area of Health, Safety and Nutrition. We explore how the 3-R's - Relationships,
Risks and Rewards work together to help children grow in confidence and competence.
Yesterday, at the dog park I met this mom from New Zealand who was telling me how unhappy
she is with all the limits her child is facing at the childcare program. She told me that,
in New Zealand child development programs, kids climb trees, use real tools, and often
go barefoot all day. I could hardly believe it! So I'm looking online to check it out.
I think it is true, Maggie. I went to a session at the California Association of the Education
of Young Children (CAEYC) Conference last year called "International Perspectives on
Early Childhood Education (ECE)," and I remember being really surprised. People in other countries
seem to trust children more than we do here.
Take a look at these pictures I found of different child development centers in New Zealand.
I think parents and teachers would freak out if they saw this. We are just so fearful of
everything here.
When you look at the details in these pictures, you can see how it benefits the kids. They
are not only developing physical skills, but real confidence.
It says here, that in New Zealand, they create questions to imagine the child's perspective.
Questions like, "Do you know me?" "Will you let me fly?" Isn't this fantastic? Can you
imagine how different our programs might look if we had the goal of children learning how
to fly?
What would we need to have in place to get comfortable with kids taking more risks?
Well, we would need to have good relationships with the parents, so that they would not think
that we are negligent. I think the teachers would really have to understand the value
of risk-taking. We would have to have good relationships among ourselves to help each
other closely observe and recognize when kids are capable of taking risks that might challenge
our comfort level.
Look, I found a quote from Betty Jones. "Risks, like other learning, can be scaffolded, monitored,
and guided, just as a gymnastics coach practices spotting on a balance beam by being close
in case of a slippage. Then she says, "Risk-taking should be on our list of skills to be taught
and learned as a whole new way of thinking about keeping kids safe."
The challenge we face is to allow young children to take physical and emotional initiative,
while guiding them to pay attention to ways to be safe, too. It is really rewarding for
children to master skills that require some challenge and risks.
I wish we could get back into giving kids opportunities to practice cutting with real
scissors, and use real tools, not just toy ones. It really makes kids proud to be trusted
with adult tools. We just need to make sure they are closely supervised.
Well, back to my question. What would it take to let children fly?
That is a great question.