Essential Questions for Educators Everywhere - Day One #eqfee

Prof Chip Bruce.

This is my last week before summer holidays and it coincides with the NCI Summer School which I am attending. The first day was an open seminar on "Natural Born Learners": Early Years Education and Inquiry Throughout Life. We started off by being asked to think of the earliest play activity we could remember - my choice was to tell the group about playing with my dog Dino as a small boy. Later we used Play Doh to create artifiacts from our earliest learning - I chose to make (a very poor) model of an inkwell and pen that was part of every desk in Carnew National School back in the early 1960s.

Later we were treated to a talk from Professor Nóirín Hayes of Trinity on early childhood learning, the importance of play, care, and opportunity for small children. The last talk of the evening was from Professor Chip Bruce who inspired us with the tale of the Paseo Boricua community in Chicago - learning in the community works boths ways. He told us about wheel-chair bound Mrs Lopez - school kids would stop by her window and "cheer her up", while she asked them "Are you learning your ABCs?". Both had a role in the children's education. Actions like this helped to improve self-awareness and also develop a community that was on its knees.

Lots more to think about and experience over the next few days!