Professor feels at home for kindergarten

Tekst Michiel van Nieuwstadt - Onderwijsblad - 12 november 2020 - 10 Minuten om te lezen

Picture: Type tank

They seem like extremes in education: the university and kindergarten. In one place, a professor explains dizzying formulas. On the other, the kindergarten teacher counts candles on a birthday cake. And yet, professors feel a bond with the natural curiosity of very young children.

Astronomer Vincent Icke, professor of theoretical astronomy at Leiden University, remembers a lesson he gave years ago in the class of his daughter Julia, a combination group 3/4 at primary school De Haanstra in Leiden. That lesson made an impression, I saw as an intern at that school the next morning. Children excitedly gathered around a picture of the universe on the IWB, trying their best to spell that word correctly. Apparently, Icke had managed to appeal to the children's curiosity and imagination.

pallets

Sure, there are differences in teaching preschoolers or students, but the basic principle is the same, Icke explains. “You have to access another person's head. And in that head, someone already lives there. You have to take that into account. In the past, that didn't happen at my primary school in De Bilt. There the knowledge was thrown over you like a bucket with the message: just see that you make it. ”
How do you do that, meaningfully teaching about tough subjects to very young children with hardly any background knowledge? “Of course you need knowledge to gain insight,” says Icke. "But you can't shove pallets into someone's head with knowledge and then expect to be welcome."

If we don't equip our children with knowledge, you send them defenseless into the world

Keith Boeke

From a little bit of knowledge, Icke takes a step towards understanding with very young children. In his lessons for the very youngest, but also in his guest lessons for groups 7 and 8 of the Leiden weekend school JES Rijnland, he uses pictures, inspired by Powers of ten, the book from 1957 in which Kees Boeke zooms in step by step; from the universe to the earth, to humans and ultimately to molecules and atoms. Icke: “Children see in those pictures that the earth is a sphere, but hey. So are the sun and the moon. How could that be? ”

Don't overwhelm children with information

It seems like a question that goes beyond pre-schoolers' minds, but Icke knows how to avoid that from a tangible example: “For a young audience, I sometimes start talking with a whimsical piece of modeling clay in my hands. I slowly turn that into a ball. That spherical shape is created by the pressure I exert with my hands. To achieve a nice regular shape, that pressure must be the same everywhere. It is no different with the earth. But what is that power on our earth? What force compresses it? That is gravity and we all know that force. It's the force you feel under the soles of your feet when you stand and on your butt when you sit on a chair. ” This is how the universe comes close.

Reading sessions by Professor Harold Bekkering with toddlers usually resulted in a good conversation. Picture: Type tank

The youngest age at which Harold Bekkering has teaching experience is at the daycare center. Bekkering is professor of social cognitive neuroscience at Radboud University Nijmegen. His reading sessions with toddlers usually resulted in good conversation. About witches, for example. Bekkering: “They tell you: A witch lives in our street. But how do you recognize a witch? To her broom. The neighbor has a broom. Is she a witch then? You teach children to think critically on the basis of such a question-answer conversation; because a witch, what is that actually? The difference with thinking about such a question and thinking about facts in science is not that great. ”

Like astronomy, brain science isn't an obvious kindergarten food

Just like astronomy, brain science is not an obvious kindergarten cost, but Bekkering also believes that a lack of knowledge should not be an obstacle to reaching depth with children. The fact that the brain is made up of a hundred billion neurons is certainly beyond the understanding of young children. Pelvic therefore shows them a picture in which one brain cell is connected to a thousand others. “You explain that those neurons together form a network,” he explains. "That's how they develop an awareness of such a large number."

Kindergarten teacher

“Actually, I always wanted to be a teacher,” says Beatrice de Graaf, professor of modern and contemporary history at Utrecht University. "And I still really enjoy teaching younger children." While Icke is careful not to slide in pallets full of knowledge, De Graaf uses the closely related salami tactics: “If children have already taken a slice, offer another one,” she says. "You shouldn't overwhelm them with information."

Terrorism, De Graaf's area of ​​expertise, seems just as unsuitable for very young children as astronomy or brain science, but the subject has presented itself.
After the attack in a tram on the 24 October square, many Utrecht children were locked up in their school eighteen months ago. “Children knew something about terrorism because they themselves came into contact with it,” says De Graaf. “They were scared. Some because they feared that a terrorist was walking through the neighborhood, others because they thought Geert Wilders would throw them out of the country. ”
De Graaf had three children in primary school and was asked for help: “Teachers were at a loss. They didn't even know if they could use the word terrorist in class. There was a lot of disgust about it, like in the past about sex. They were shy. ”

Preschoolers already understand the difference between things that happened a long time ago or just recently

The linguistic approach expressed in Bekkering's question-answer conversation about witches appeals to De Graaf. “Terrorism is a loaded word. One child belongs: The Moroccans are terrorists. You hear from another child: White people say that other people are terrorists, but they are themselves. ”

Just as with a subject such as sex, making the subject a subject for discussion was De Graaf's first goal. “You want one inclusive setting create, in which everyone dares to speak: what is terrorism to you. ” Just like Icke and Bekkering, De Graaf compensates for the knowledge gap of very young children by directly linking a manageable piece of facts to insight. After she has made it clear to children that a topic like terrorism is not a taboo “it is there and you can talk about it”, she takes them a step further by making them aware of some basic historical realization “it was there and again”.

Pre-schoolers and professors seem to have a surprising connection

“Toddlers already understand the difference between things that happened a long time ago or just recently,” says De Graaf. She shows children a timeline. She marks the date of birth of children, say 2011, but also, for example, previous attacks. “The attack on William of Orange by Balthasar Gerards, in 1584, shows that terrorism is something that has existed for much longer. It comes and goes in waves. If you mark recent attacks on such a timeline, you can see that the number of attacks has decreased since 2015-2016. ”

Pre-schoolers and professors seem to have a surprising connection. A passionate professional is quite capable of bridging their knowledge gap and thus achieving a good conversation. With which the professors do not want to say that knowledge is unimportant. “If we don't equip our children with knowledge, then you rob them,” says Icke. "Then you send them out into the world defenseless."

Class discussion

The basic principle of a good class discussion is that every voice is allowed, explains Beatrice de Graaf. Nevertheless, a teacher will also have to set boundaries at some point. “Maybe a child shouts through the class that you have to shoot back. Then you have to explain that we have all agreed that violence is not allowed. ”

It is not easy to discuss violence and terrorism in the classroom and it is best not to do that alone, thought De Graaf. “We turned it into a project and involved educators and other scientists. On our site, ter-info.nl, my colleagues now work daily on articles about terrorism and its context. ”

Bullies

De Graaf, Icke and Bekkering each have their own tricks to bring their field of expertise closer to young children. For example, De Graaf sought to join the Whooper training. “Terrorists have black caps,” she explains to the children. “They are the bullies. They try to scare us. In this way I connect with their environment. Or I show a picture of Lego figures: many friendly ones with one angry one in between. ” Icke lets children experiment with mechanical principles by shooting a water rocket or by pelting each other with a homemade glad, the medieval name for a catapult.

Making children curious means that you keep asking the question: Why?

You don't have to be an astronomer, terrorism expert, or brain scientist to meander along with the twirls of thoughts of young children. A good teacher or kindergarten teacher makes time for it, but according to Bekkering it does not happen often enough. “Making children curious means that you keep asking the question: Why? We don't ask questions enough in education. Or we ask a question and say: This is the answer. While we want to teach children to be curious and critical. You observe how children react and think about their answers. ”

Bekkering helps children with profile assignments. “There are no uninteresting topics,” he says. “A girl who loved horses wanted to talk about it, but that was not allowed, because the teacher didn't like it. While you can think of so many interesting questions on that topic. What kind of horses do you have? Are horses the same all over the world and what kind of brains do horses have? Very nice that a child is seriously wondering about this. ”

World of experience

Connecting with the experience world is a starting point at many teacher training colleges. At the same time, teachers are faced with curricula full of learning objectives that they keep a close eye on, sometimes from an early age. Those learning lines are important.

Vincent Icke had already taught himself to read before he went to school. If he got up nicely to ask, he was allowed to take a book and sit quietly in the classroom to read and not have to listen to the teacher. But not every child comes to read reading. Most young children benefit from systematic instruction that helps them associate signs with sounds. Whether you start at the age of four, five or six does not seem to make much difference, New Zealand scientist Sebastian Suggate concluded, based on a comparison of the reading performance of adolescents and their school age in 54 countries.

I also believe in the benefits of two teachers for one group

In addition, reading instructions alone do not make children good readers. The basis for this is laid by young children listening to stories, songs and poems. That they sing, rhyme, talk and discuss. And children who are too far behind on that point benefit from age support. Seasoned teachers know that. In the circle discussion in kindergarten, they move along with their thoughts every day, although there is not always space and time for this. “Let children work together in groups,” says Bekkering. "And I also believe in the benefits of two teachers for one group."

Anxiety

At the end of the hour reading at the daycare center, Harold Bekkering had not finished the book, but that was no objection to him. “It goes wrong when you consider as a teacher: this book has to be published. Only when you let go of that do you come to understanding. As a teacher, it is not your job to finish the book, and maybe half of them give up. We fall short in assuming that we have to present material in a certain order at a certain age. In kindergarten, children already hear how many letters they need to know. Let everyone learn at their own pace and match their curiosity. "

Want to read more about teaching young children? All Education Magazine articles can be found in the online archive. For example this article which links some scientific research to the daily work of the daily work of teachers and kindergarten teachers.