The Practicalities of Slow Pedagogy
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[00:00:00] Hello, hello, and welcome to the next in our or the next episode in our slow pedagogy series. And this episode, we're going to be talking about practical strategies to implement slow pedagogy in the long term. So I don't ever think that you can ever just put something in place straight up. I think it's always going to be a process that you need to build upon and slow pedagogy is exactly the same.
Like you can't just jump in. It goes even against the word flow. You've got to be able to embed these things over time. You might be able to make a transition to something like this really quickly, but the children may need time to unwind and be given space to allow these new ideas and ways of being, uh, filter into their every [00:01:00] day, into the day to day.
So that's what we're going to be breaking down today. Uh, buckle up friends and let's get right into it.
Hello, hello and welcome to the Big Hearted Podcast. My name is Victoria Edmond and I am your host. Our aim here at the Big Hearted Podcast is to nurture a community of heart centered educators to change the perception and delivery of early childhood education and care in Australia and ultimately around the world.
We want you to be inspired by our guests and the topics we bring to you to think of new ways of being as an educator. We want you to feel a sense of belonging via this podcast so that you can engage any time of the day or night in any place that suits you. We want you to become an educator that delivers education from the heart as we believe this is how we create great change within our world.
So join us as we discover new ways to inspire each [00:02:00] other here. On the big hearted podcast
Okay, so just like the name Slow Pedagogy, uh, Even just sounds like slow pedagogy, it tells you straight away that it's a slow practice. It's a slow, like being slow, being calm. We've talked about being mindful in these processes, so it's really bringing it all together. I've given you the like the reasons why I think slow pedagogy is a really valuable tool to implement into your own family daycare.
Now we're going to talk about what that looks like in the practical sense. So slow pedagogy, what I think you'll find that you start to do once you begin to really deeply observe the children and look at what they do and how they utilize the spaces that they're in. I think you'll find that that less is more [00:03:00] approach is totally something that you will naturally gravitate towards because you'll find that the things that The things that the children don't play with are the things that they can only do one thing with.
They get frustrated with them, they get bored. It's, it's, you know, we're not in that time and space anymore. Like, I don't know, humankind seems to have evolved somewhat, uh, in how we do things, how we use things. And I think children are no different in that regard. Those things that you can only do one thing with.
Yeah, you might play with them for a little bit once the novelty of that has worn off, um, and they've explored it and they've done everything they can with it. And that's the nature of learning. Once you've mastered something, you move on from it. But if there are [00:04:00] multiple ways that you can use something, and engage with something, you find more use for it.
And you are inclined to put it back down where you can easily reach it again. So, what I think is a really great part of the process of really, like, implementing slow pedagogy. Excuse me. would be that next step of decluttering your environment. Because we don't need all the noise. The visual noise, we don't need all of the clutter which makes us feel like we're providing a great environment for the children.
But is that really for the children? Or is that to appease Parents maybe and the notion that we think that the Department of Education thinks we have to have all of this stuff because they absolutely don't. They don't. They've, they've been up to my environment when I was a family daycare educator and I [00:05:00] operated out of a converted single garage.
It's all like part of, it's under the same roofline and not that that matters, but it's, it's part of our house. You know, I can see into the kitchen from here, from here. Uh, so it's just another room now, uh, in, in our home. Big glass window at the front and another window on the side. It's lovely and bright and, um, It's all I had and I had no additional outside storage.
I had a double door cupboard and then a single door full length cupboard and under the double door cupboards there were three big drawers so that was Like pretty much the bulk of the storage I had for my family daycare. I had a couple of things in a small laundry cupboard but that was it and a basket of stuff outside.
So it is a lie that we need to have sheds full of resources. We really don't. If you curate your [00:06:00] resources with thought and mindfulness, you'll begin to realize that you actually really don't need a massive amount. What you do need is, is a cleverly designed set of open ended play resources. Uh, so, you know, I, I talk about this again in the essential elements.
I mean, I come back to this all the time, but that's where the bulk of my teaching is. Um, and if you really want to, investigate these topics further. You can jump into the Essentials Italics, the doors open again in March. So we talk about this, this open ended. I mean, everyone knows, if you're in early childhood education, everyone knows about open ended resources, it's just a given, right?
But sometimes we click off to this stuff and we just do what we've always done because it's what we know how to do. Instead of going, well hang on, what are some resources [00:07:00] that I could put into my environment that the children are going to engage with and really benefit from? Um, and, you know, one of the favourite things was the round wooden curtain rod.
You know, the thing that slides over the curtain rod, the rings. Um, you know, and your second hand gift store, a second hand store is full of kitchen utensils and stuff like that that could be utilised in your environment for a really reasonable price and you're not precious if they get broken through, you know, normal, regular use.
So, These are things that you can put into your environment because children love mini things. So if you find all the little mini milk jugs and little cups and tiny cheese forks and things like that, those are ideal for within your, for use within your service. But they have multiple uses because they can be Taken around into different areas of play and utilized.
Children will thread [00:08:00] things through the curtain, through the curtain rings. They will tie things onto them. They'll stack them up. They'll make them as part of their food when they're in home corner. They'll put things inside of them. And all, like, the amount of things that I've seen children do with round curtain rods is just outstanding.
Sticks from outside. Get some nice sticks where you take all the or leave the bark on some of it, like that makes for interest as well. But some of them you'll get with that, um, it's some kind of gum, I don't know what it is, but it doesn't sort of seem to have a bark on it and it's quite smooth. So you can get some of those sticks, they fall down out of the trees all the time.
Cut them up and into different sized pieces and get the children out on the concrete, like rubbing the edges so that they're no, not sharp and splintery. And have a basket of sticks in your care. The children will utilize them in a million different ways [00:09:00] and that could be a fantastic observation for you to put a basket, a series of, you know, three or four different baskets with just random objects in them and see what the children do with them.
So this is. that mindfulness because what you're doing is you're just putting them there and seeing how the children will utilize them in their in their work and it's mindful because You're allowing their creativity to bloom and blossom and you aren't having input into it. So someone may ask you what things are or how, what to do with them and you go, well there's lots of things to do with these.
I would, my brain immediately goes to doing this and this. What does your brain think? And, and open that pathway for them. It's, it's mindfulness in your approach to How you can say things in a way that are also open ended. My brain thinks this. What does your [00:10:00] brain think? It's a great question because it makes them have to think for themselves.
And this is what we want to do. We want to help children to become critical thinkers. And it's really important that we do that through mindfulness in ourselves. And we talked last week about. being very aware of what you say and how you say it and why you're saying things and is it reaction from your own past trauma or wounds or is it because your cup is empty and you, you are lacking that patience and that ability to actually be mindful in those moments and I don't, I think it's going to take time to continually pick yourself up on that and go, Oh, Oh, I'm doing it again.
Oh, hang on. Let me rewind that and share that with the children because what you're demonstrating to the children is how to go, Oh, hang on. I made a mistake. Let, let me rewind that. And, and, and let me [00:11:00] try again because we all make mistakes and it is something that we can learn from, but we only learn to own up to our mistakes and not be shamed by them.
If we have someone showing us how to do that. And this is where it's so important that you're not off thinking of a million other things that you need to be doing, or could be doing, or feeling bad about yourself because you don't understand how to program, or you're confused by programming cycles and things like that.
If you're Not present and you're thinking about other things, the children are going to be aware of that and that's what they are going to do as well. So when you can catch yourself doing it, you can go, oh, oops, oops, daisies. I actually wasn't being very mindful about being here with you right now. I was thinking about something else.
Let me bring my attention back to you right now. It's as simple as that. So [00:12:00] this idea and this practice can be embedded into our everyday routine. It does require you to be aware though. It does require you to be picking yourself up, but also not shaming yourself at the same time. So if you want to look at shame and investigate some of that work, Brene Brown is in the business for this conversation.
So she's got a Netflix special. She's got several books. You can investigate some of that. Um, and that's, you know, a positive thing to do for your work as well. So decluttering your learning space. I think once you start to become a mindful educator, who's in, has an interest in slow pedagogy, I think that you'll find that that is a natural progression, um, that you'll start to want to go, why?
Why do I have all this stuff here? It's also something that you can manage while the children are playing. Like, you don't have to do this outside of your [00:13:00] work hours. And it's a, again, it's a perfect opportunity to say to the children, look, these are things that we actually don't use anymore. Shall we put them in the bin or should we, you know, is it worth keeping?
Should we put them in the bin? Or do we take them to pass on to the second hand store so that somebody else might be able to get some use out of them because it seems as though you children are not playing with them anymore. Now we've all had the child who will absolutely lose their lolly when you chuck something.
So if you can demonstrate how easy it is and we don't have to attach ourselves to material objects, that is a wonderful life lesson to pass on as well. So, We, we've talked about like Z cluttering and how that will be a natural progression. One of the other things that I think you can do to really implement this idea of slow pedagogy, and we've talked about it, is to [00:14:00] simplify your programs.
Make it easy on yourself. Stop doing so much for the children because they don't need you to. They absolutely do not need you to be doing things for them. It's imperative that these children have opportunities to have large chunks of time where they can be deeply engrossed and engaged in their creative play.
It takes about 45 minutes for children to drop into true So if you only give them half an hour because you've got to do this and you've got to do that, you're not allowing them to ever truly drop into their creative play. So this is why I suggest that it's one thing that you do in a day, one intentional teaching moment that you have focus on in the daytime.
And that's it. So, my day, [00:15:00] and I go right into this in, uh, Ebb and Flow, the first module in Essential Elements, but my day would be, I started at 7 o'clock, I had children at my door at 7 o'clock, and those children would come in and we would have creative play for about 45 minutes before we had to go up to the bus stop to take the children to the bus.
So we would go up there and we would come back and well, we, when we came back we'd slowly meander back because we would walk, we would slowly meander back and sometimes it would take us an hour to get back to care. So. You know, 40 minutes, uh, to an hour, depending on what we were looking at and who we bumped into and what animals we were watching and what things we saw happening and how many times the baby had to sit down and all these sorts of things come into it, but there was never any rush.
So we would come back, uh, sometimes by 8. 30 ish. And we would [00:16:00] be getting ready for morning tea. So the children would continue to play and I would get morning tea organized and ready. And then we would begin the transition to morning circle connection time. And then it would be hand washing morning tea.
And while the children were after morning tea. Once we had a, we had a wash station, children would wash their dishes, and then they would move on and go and play. And so, once that had happened, I would clean up the rest of the thing, sweep under the table, wipe the table over, if someone hadn't already done it, and then I would take the dishes in, put them away, and blah blah blah, do whatever, what I was doing.
And then I would get our organized, planned activity out, and, and I would either do that as a group, or I would individually invite the children. Uh, but meanwhile, Play is still occurring, if it's not a group thing. Um, if it's a group thing, these, these tasks and these, these things that we would do would last max, max, 15 to 20 [00:17:00] minutes, depending on how engaged the children were.
If they wanted to continue doing it, then we did it for as long as they wanted to. However, I, that was the maximum time frame that we would sort of sit there and do those things. So, again, they would go and play, and then it would be another hour before it was lunchtime. So while the children were playing, I would be getting lunches set out.
Now, I, um, when the children are little, And before they're going off to school, so when they're still little enough, I would put their lunches on their plates for them. Uh, I would look at what their parents had sent for them, and I would choose what was going to be the best thing for lunches, because I always made morning tea and lunch a protenous meal.
Uh, sometimes there wasn't much to choose from, uh, but I would put the best, most nutrient dense foods in the morning sessions, um, especially [00:18:00] before lunch, so that they had something nice and filling and satiating in their tummy before they went to sleep, because it helps them to sleep better. Uh, and then anything else would be given at afternoon tea time.
So, once the children were happily playing, I would be getting lunches organised. I'd call the children in to help. make their beds. Uh, and so I would make them for them if they were too little, uh, and once they got to the stage where they wanted to help, then they would be given ample time and opportunity to make their own beds.
And we would then have lunch after beds were made. We'd go on or wash hands, have lunch, and then come back and have rest time. Now, there's a few things that I'm not going to share that, uh, in the Essential Elements because I can't give everything away to you, but there's some beautiful lunch, uh, bedtime transitions that I share in the Essential Elements.
And so we would lay down, but I would read to the children, uh, my Enid Blyton books [00:19:00] and the children would choose which book we read from that day and I would read an entire story and then I would sit and help anyone else that was still not asleep. I would sit and read and pat them off or just be very quiet and mindful with them.
them and that was the time where I would sit and I would have 10 minutes of just sitting there quietly myself and re centering myself and just giving myself a pause and a break and then I would do my photos for the day and I have a booklet that I will put out for you soon. I haven't had a chance to finish it.
It's not exactly, it's not where I want it to be. I was going to put it out this week, um. But it's not where I want it to be, so I would rather have a little bit of extra time to work on it than, uh, and put something out that's beautiful than something that's sub par. So, that would be the time where I was sitting with the children, and still in the room with the children, on the floor, they're all sleeping around [00:20:00] me, and I would sort my photos for the day and create my, uh, journal.
journal prompt for the families that I would put beautiful pictures that I took throughout the day and a brief explanation of what was happening. And then I would print that out and it would go in my journal. I would also complete any of the observations that I wanted to complete in the day and I would update my planner to put the spontaneous events that had happened in the day.
Uh, and, and that was it. That was my documentation done. For the day, and I did it before my butt got off the ground, because if I didn't do it then, I wouldn't get it done. So, prioritising these times in the day is very important for an educator, because it gives you the chance to do your professional work too.
Now sometimes, I had children that didn't sleep because they were older, and their body didn't need that sleep time, but they rested on their bed, and they rested quietly without talking to me. or playing with toys, they just rested their [00:21:00] bodies. And I would put those children near the window so they could look out the window and just be calm and relaxed.
And I had children that were very busy during the day, that were very busy, very active children. And I taught them how to lay on their bed and look out the window for 20 to 30 minutes and let their bodies detune. And then that was enough time for me to detune and, and have a little moment where I could breathe and be peaceful and not have anybody asking me a single question.
And then I would get my professional documentation done, and then if those children were still resting, I would ask them, do you want to stay on your bed, or would you like to get up and do some quiet activities in the lounge room? And quite often they would opt to stay on the bed, and then they would come out when they were ready.
Because they, I taught them, and I gave them space to actually tune into their body, and [00:22:00] go, oh, actually this feels really nice, I'm just going to rest here now. So, if we don't give them these opportunities to tune in and to feel what peacefulness in their body feels like, they're never going to know.
They're never going to know, they're not going to experience it, and it's going to be a missed opportunity. So, once the That all the children were awake, we would pack the beds away, clean the beds and then we would get ready to go up to pick up the children from the bus in the afternoon. And again, that was a meander up to the bus and a meander home.
It was lovely because there was a number of other school children in the street that would be like, oh, and chatting to all the little daycare children. It was a real community event that we'd all walk home together. And they would sort of peel off as they got to their place and then we'd go down to our place and at rest time while the children were resting, I would have got the afternoon tea plates ready because I know by [00:23:00] the time we get back from the bus stop, everybody's hungry.
And so I'm preempting what's going to happen and what needs to happen. And I'm making these transitions easier. And so we would then sit down and have afternoon tea together. And it was more moments of creative play after that, until the parents came home. So. We don't have to make our day over scheduled and so flipping busy that the children are just running and going all the time.
Children need these spaces in their lives where things can be simple and relaxing for them. So, This is where you need to be mindful in how you run your day. If you're finding that you don't have time to do your observations during the day, something's amiss and there's a missing piece of balance and a missing piece of [00:24:00] saying to the children, I need to get some work done now and I'm going to ask you to rest on your bed.
Setting that up and having that as an expectation is okay. And in fact, the children's bodies need that, they need that time to be still. It also means that you prioritize not only doing the observate, like, like observing the children, but then having a space to document it. And once you can get that implemented in your day, it means that you are never behind in your work.
And that's a really beautiful feeling to have. To feel like you're actually on top of what you're doing, it brings so much mental clarity and space. So, planning your observations too, um, sorry, planning your program with intention, intentionality, it's so important. [00:25:00] And you get to do that. Because you've followed the prior steps, which is you've really created a space in your program which is flowing and easy and full of enjoyment, which then means you can do these deep observations of the children and really look at what's going on for the children and look around what's happening with the children.
Then you've also gone and created the time in the day where you can actually put those things in on paper. Right, so it means that you have, all of this is intentional. You have the space to create these spaces for this intentionality within your work. And it's professional. This is what we need to strive for is this professionalism.
So as you Embrace this slow pedagogy and you start doing less and you slow your own mind down. It means that you can focus on what really matters with the children and that's creating [00:26:00] these spaces where children can feel confident. You're nurturing their confidence. They feel capable in their learning.
They trust themselves because you trust them because you now trust yourself. And it means that there's less stress in the environment. So these are all the blueprints as to how you can actually implement all of this. Now, if you're interested to learn how I would be able to know what was what I was planning for each and every single day.
It's because I did the 12 week seasonal planning. It's because I put the effort in to look at what the children were doing, look at the milestone checklist where they're coming up to and go, Oh, I'm going to work on this and this and this, this. This next season with this child, well in order to do that, I want to, I could do that by having this happen on this day and this happen on this day and I plan it out [00:27:00] and there's a whole process.
I don't, it's a three hour session that we do. It's 39. It's as cheap as chips. But it's a three hour session and I go right into the nuts and bolts of it. And by the end of the session, if you haven't done too much chatting, and there's a lot of educators that will chat, but they love the connection. And it's a great time to problem solve and nut out things.
They can go and finish their planning later. But if you don't do too much chatting, you can get your entire 12 week season. planned out so that you know exactly what you're doing when you're doing it and most importantly why you're doing it and you get Opportunity to order anything you need to order to make sure that you've got those resources there because there's nothing worse than going.
Oh I would like to do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and go into your cupboard and go, Oh no, I don't have any of that left and I can't do it now. Whereas if you know that you're going to do blah, blah, blah, you can go to your cupboard at the end of your planning day and go, Oh no, [00:28:00] I've got enough to do that or, Oh no, I need to order more.
And then you can order it and then you don't get to that day and you're unorganized and you're like, oh no, I can't do that because I don't have the clay, done it, or the clay's dry. Oh no, if only I'd looked a couple of weeks ago. So this is what you get the opportunity to do. to do when you partake in seasonal planning.
So that is if you would like to do the seasonal planning. Gosh, I do this every single month when I go and do try to tell you where you should go to see to register for the seasonal planning. If you want to join us on seasonal planning, it's very simple for you to do. All you need to go is. To go to www.bigheartededucation.com/autumn-planning-twenty 25 and that will take you directly to where you can get your ticket for the [00:29:00] autumn planning.
We've got a regular group of educators that join in now and it's super fun. It's great to connect, uh, with other family daycare educators and educators who have done this planning for a while. who really are real ninjas at it and they are very open to helping you and sharing how it works for them. And it's just a really great community of people.
So if you would like to do that, uh, just go to www. bekindededucation. com forward slash autumn dash planning dash 2025 to get your ticket. All right, friends. Well, that's been another episode in our I don't want to say dive because it sounds like AI, but I do say dive quite a few times I've heard myself.
I don't want to say dive. What can I say into our deconstruction of slow pedagogy. So today was all about looking at the [00:30:00] practicalities of it and how you can implement it. So I hope that that has given you some ideas and I look forward to our next episode. Thanks for joining me. Have a great day. Big love.
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