Celebrities and College Graduates

I believe there is a special place in hell reserved for ‘bloggers’. In a world where celebrities are considered credible authorities on major social issues and every 21-year old university graduate considers themselves an ‘expert’ on something, what the world doesn’t need is more opinions.

That might seem like an interesting and, no doubt, hypocritical introduction to a blog, let alone a series of them, but please allow me to explain why we are embarking on a journey using a medium that I have such clear disregard for.

Please, let's all listen to what celebrities have to say about global warming

Firstly, blogs are a type of documentation. Often we as educators consider ourselves, in theory at least, as ‘co-learners’. We don’t present ourselves as living encyclopedias – we learn alongside the children, sharing ideas, testing theories, reflecting on learning, supporting them to come to their own conclusions about the world around them. Parents of our Service will be familiar with our documentation of our children’s learning through media such as Storypark and Stream Displays – but where is the documentation about our learning? What are we discovering through children’s eyes? What are we uncovering about the children as we build relationships with them? How does our understanding of what it is to be an educator change as life experiences and exposure to growth opportunities occur? These blogs are an attempt to document, on some level, our reflections on this role called Educator.

Secondly, it’s an opportunity. Earlier in the year, several of our educators indicated a desire to stretch their own knowledge, and to research outside of the confines of our industry in order to bring new ideas and approaches into it, evolving and refining our approach and ensuring we stay on the cutting edge of best practice. This blog will serve as an opportunity for them to present their findings, sharing how it has developed their personal philosophies and impacted the implementation of their program.

He will be perfectly suited to his new role as Foreign Affairs Policy Consultant for the government

Lastly, it is our hope that this Blog series will allow us to engage more deeply with our community of professionals and families - sharing our journey, revealing our motivations, and exposing our heart to connect with children relationally and walk beside them as they grow, play and learn. It is not our desire to publish a series of pretentious blogs commenting on how parents could do things better or why we are adopting the latest industry trend (inevitably developed by the aforementioned ‘experts’) as the answer to the world’s problems. It is our desire to open up our world to you, perhaps to inspire, perhaps to challenge, perhaps simply to reveal more about who we are: people who love children, love learning, and believe that joy should permeate it all.

Hope you enjoy what is to come,

Nolan Furnell