By: Ms. Maya Vinay - ECE Educator - SILICON
Before and after of Finnish Early Years
I love this quote from Benjamin Franklin “Tell me and I Forget, Teach me and I may remember, Involve me and I learn”
At SILICON Bangalore - academic year 2021-22, Kindergarten teachers followed a ready-made software to conduct their online sessions with the age group of 3-6 years. Some of the limitations of this software was limited scope of teacher’s creativity and child’s interaction.
Association with CCE Finland and their training programs were eye opener and gave us a much needed glimpse of Finnish Early years and all teachers learnt the basics of “Play Way Method”, “Spiral Learning” & “Theme Integration”. Most importantly the weaving of all the themes along with circle time just made this whole online learning a joyous experience for teachers and children.
Here I sight example of K2 - the main theme " pet animals". This theme via Spiral learning connects back to topics such as: My body, My family. My home, Healthy me.
In the first week we followed the concept 'Less is more' while teaching pet animals. We showed our pet and asked them to name it. Children participated enthusiastically and were also eager to show their pets. Even some children were insisting their parents bring pets. In this way children got experiential learning. Art time became more of a child's expression of what they learnt during this pet theme - they all enjoyed drawing a dog which also integrated numbers.
As a early childhood educator - here are some reflections that I can came across which differentiates the before and after of the Finnish pedagogy implementations:
In Finnish curriculum we are not assessing the children by conducting test, but strongly believe in “Each Child is Unique”
In the X seed curriculum we had 5 lesson plans in each block. Everyday new topics are covered. As a teacher we were rushing with our lessons to complete the portion.
In Finnish curriculum we are doing theme integration and also, we are revisiting the topics that have already finished. Students do not forget as spiral learning is done.
In X seed Teacher does the activity and each topic /activity we have to finish within a given time. Because of this we cannot interact with everyone.
In Finnish curriculum students do hands-on activities and the curriculum itself is not time bound. Students get plenty of time to express their thoughts.
In X seed students are assessed daily and only one language is taught.
Students learn and apply the concepts in day-to-day life. Other than English two languages (Hindi& Kannada), music, dance, art, story and rhymes are integrated.
While conducting through Xseed - teachers are busy completing the portion. If a student is absent he will miss that topic because we are not revisiting the topic.
In Finnish curriculum students are happy because we are involving them in all the concepts that are being taught in a play way method with an active learning environment.
If one week of LIVE implementation of Finnish Pedagogy can bring in so much transformation - we can’t wait for other amazing revelations of GO LIVE at our school.
Thank you for reading about our journey of learning @ SILICON ECE.
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