Children are the Center
Children are the Center
On a recent trip to Montreal I visited the McCord Stewart Museum’s Indigenous Voices of Today exhibit. I was so struck by this quote:
“Children are at the heart of our cultures. Our love for them is expressed in many ways: the care with which the objects that ensure their well-being are made, the rites of passage of which they are the focus on the path to adulthood, the place they occupy in our daily lives, the special funeral rites they are given. As soon as Europeans arrived in our lands, the remarked on the considerable freedom and absence of punishment that define the way we rear our children. Rather than authority, it is our close relationship with them that is the basis of our teaching methods. It is by observing, listening and experimenting alongside us that our children learn.”
It made me reflect on my ongoing discussions with early childhood professionals. Our children need close, nurturing relationships with their caregivers to thrive. We must stop the narrative that young children need their caregivers to be an authority over them. Instead, we must focus on creating supportive environments where children learn alongside us. This school year, I challenge you to develop a learning environment where the adults and children can observe, listen, experiment, learn, and grow together.
