Reflection on International Preschool Webinar

    On March 29th we had our second webinar this semester, which was on the topic of working in an international preschool with Ms. Marta Arkuszynska. It was very interesting to hear how such a place is organized and to be able to compare it to my experiences with Polish kindergartens. The presenter gave us an in-depth look into how their lessons are arranged and what makes their facility and system so special.

    Ms. Arkuszynka showed us the timetable of the Canadian preschool, which consisted of circle time, meals, garden play, French, rest time, and common room time. I was especially interested in circle time, which I was able to observe during my student practice. It is the part of the day, when the whole group sits together, greets, sings songs, talks about how they're feeling, shares their thoughts, and integrates together. What I loved is that the presenter mentioned that the part about feelings is quite extensive. In Polish schools we often hear "I'm fine, thank you, and you?" and it becomes almost automatic. In this preschool this answer is not accepted - everyone has to name an actual emotion and elaborate on why they feel that way. I love this, because it turns something that can become pointless or automatic into an engaging and conscious activity. I also loved hearing how in this preschool there are a lot of different sports the kids can do, such as skiing, swimming, or ground hockey. These seemed quite unusual for such young kids, but I love how this system incorporates movement in their curriculum. TPR is actually the main method used in their classes. It's a very universal technique, which can work for all ages, is fun and easy, works with different class sizes, as well as ability levels. Additionally, they learn literacy through the jolly phonics method, which combines stories, songs, and gestures. For example, for the letter 'A' the song goes 'a, a, ants on my arm', which is a very short, simple, and humorous way of teaching the kids. This method is not just used to teach singular letters, but also longer sounds like 'ng', which comes in useful for learning pronunciation of words. I also loved hearing about the kindness curriculum, which discusses personality formation, showing kindness, and the importance of helping. Finally, we also discussed sex education in pre-school, which entailed saying and respecting 'no', using real medical names of private parts, and respecting our bodies. At first I was quite shocked that such topics are involved in such young grades, but I think the topics are selected well and very important to teach since a young age. It was fascinating to compare these lessons, techniques, methods, and topics to what I remembered from my own kindergarten. It really made me want to reflect on how I can creatively involve different topics in my lessons to be able to teach my students as much about the world as I can.

    On a whole, I thought it was a very fun experience and we raised some interesting points, which increased my knowledge on very young learners. I am used to webinars, which have a specific topic, so it was a change of pace to just hear someone talk about their work. I am looking forward to the next webinar to see which area of education we will tackle next.