Essays and longer write-ups. For the short stuff, see Notes.
Aug 8th A couple of weeks ago, Janet Lansbury reposted a story from a RIE parent, the gist of it was, the mom calmly sets boundaries and consequences, when her 2 year old son threw sand at her face, she acted, allowed him to cry and released his emotions, and then took him home. 5 hours later, after he had slept and was all rested up, he came to apologize to her out of the blue.
Read MoreAug 5th Today, we went to a birthday party at ART JAM, a kinda snobbish painting studio in an expensive mall! Like, why let your kids paint at home when you can pay 10 times at much to come paint at ART JAM and feel like an artist? Anyways, it was actually a great event! L was asleep when we arrived so we let him sleep, when he woke up, we let him wander around before he finally showed interests in what everybody else was doing – painting! We helped him get some paint (he chose the colors) and then just let him do whatever with the brushes, sponges and paint. (Except we had to stop him from painting on the window! Not too much anyway :)
Read MoreAug 3rd At the farm expo, we found out about this organization that does a lot of events to let kids reconnect with nature. Unfortunately, they don’t have an outdoor space that we can visit, what they have is a well designed indoor playroom with 4 main spaces, an open space with lots of train tracks, a mock supermarket, a huge web that spans an entire room and finally an arts & crafts room. Each room has a towering structure for kids to climb almost to the ceiling!
Read MoreMontessori is a popular education system developed by Maria Montessori in 1897. It seems to be gaining popularity here in Hong Kong, many parents know about it but very few know about the Reggio Emilia approach. Recently, the Montessori playgroup L goes to started to have troubles with him, and it made me think more about the difference between Montessori and Reggio. I thought I’d share a bit of my own experience in the two in this post.
Read MoreAug 1st, today’s playgroup can be summarized by one word. Calmness. Both L and C played very well together at my apartment. They shared snacks together and L, who was having problems turning over plates and throwing foods, even helped cleanup the table for both of them!
Read MoreThis morning we went to play at the park again. It seems like it was only a few weeks ago that L wasn’t able to reach these steering wheels machines, or at least wasn’t able to turn them, thus losing interests in them fast. Today, not only was he able to turn them, he discovered a new way to play with it, by hanging off of them like they’re monkey bars. With his feet clear off the ground, he looked at me triumphantly! As if telling me: “Look! I conquered gravity!”
Read MoreLast week we went to a farm expo where there were many hands-on crafts making workshops, bigger kids can try their hands on wood cutting, drilling, painting, planting, milking (a mechanical cow), feeding goats… etc. At one of the woodwork area, I worked on making a charm, beside me was another family, the boy was about 10 years old, and while he was trying to saw a tree branch, his grandma stood in front of him and mocked him loudly in front of everyone.
Read MoreL has been doing very well at our new apartment, having a child safe, “Yes” environment (a place that you don’t need to constantly say “No” to your children) is one of the best things you can do to help your child (and you)! I used to get upset when L was in my mom’s place, where he was bored with the plastic “one-way” toys. He would dump and throw things everywhere, so we had to constantly follow him around and snatched things out of his hands. This in turn created his habit of throwing things away quickly as we reach our hands out, because he had learned that we were always taking his things away! So then we adults had to move even faster! It was a downward spiral to madness!!
Read MoreMy wife posted our playgroup info on one of the local Chinese baby forums and got like 5 moms interested in joining us! So we’re happy to report that today we welcomed 2 new families joining the fun!
Read MoreDoes your 2 ~ 3 year old toddler give you any of these troubles? Says NO automatically when you ask him anything Doesn’t listen to or ignore what you are saying or asking (multiple inconsistent messages)
Read MoreToday, there was a “July babies 2 yr old birthday party”, about 40 ~ 50 families cramped into this little Chuck E. Cheese minus the food & giant mechanical rodents store in the mall to have a great party! L had a lot of fun because he loves those ball pits and they had 3!!
Read MoreLast weekend, we went to the Kadoorie farm for our playgroup, the place takes up an entire hill side, with lots of trees and homegrown vegetables, animals and even a river to supply its drinking water! It was awesome! But since it was the first time L has been there, he was keen on running around exploring the whole place, so that didn’t leave him and C much “uninterrupted play time”. As a result, I couldn’t observe any breakthrough in his learning, hence no diary was written. (Diary entries are only written when “events are considered to have new significance, when it arouses surprise in its characters and is likely to increase knowledge.”)
Read MoreAnother interesting (and powerful) excerpt from The Diary of Laura, reflections from an American educator. An American visitor used the terms caregiver and provider in asking question about infant care practice. The pedagogista at Reggio Emilia asked why she used those terms and said:
Read MoreIn the morning, I sometimes let our helper look after L while I catch a few more minutes of sleep. Today, L came back inside the room, I sort of remembered him playing with my glasses and when I woke up, my glasses was gone! I asked L where my glasses were and to my surprise, he was hesitant to answer with his baby talk! He had that guilty look in his eyes and avoided my question! When I pressed on, he then tried to show me what he was playing and gave some baby talk about balls. I asked one more time and he finally walked to the end of the bed and pointed toward a plastic bag there, then he went to climb up the crib, trying to get into it. I checked the bag but didn’t see my glasses (I couldnt see very well), I looked around the room and then finally, I went back and picked up the bag and lo and behold, my glasses, with one arm broken off. I was a little mad, I showed it to L and asked him why he did that, and that I was not happy about what he had done. (I got a feeling that I shouldn’t be asking “why did u do that”, coz I myself didn’t answer this question truthfully as a kid! Why did I do it? ‘Coz I wanted to explore! So I think I should just stick with telling L my own feelings – sadness, frustrations, etc.)
Read MoreThe Diary of Laura is a small book published by the municipality of Reggio Emilia in 1983 that represents a milestone in the experiences of Reggio Emilia educators and stated many principles of their educational philosophy. I’ve just finished reading “The Diary of Laura – Perspectives on a Reggio Emilia Diary” and I would like to share some of the key points (to me) of the significance of a Diary or Documentation in Reggio Emilia. Almost everything below is excerpt from the first 2 chapters of the book, the actual diary is for you to discover yourself if you find the excerpts intriguing.
Read MoreSorry about this late blog post, I just came back from Cambodia for the first Startup Weekend SE Asia Organizer Summit. Before I left for Cambodia, we had our first parent organized Reggio playgroup in my apartment in Prince Edward on the 23rd of June. I was lucky enough to have found a Reggio Emilia educator, Sarah, who is also a mother and has been teaching with the Reggio Emilia Approach for over 6 years. Like me, Sarah worries about her own 2.5 yr old boy C’s education, so we both have good reasons to do the “parent organized playgroups”. This post is my first “diary” post for documenting the “relationships” in the playgroup.
Read MoreI grew up in Hong Kong in the 70’s & 80’s, back then, almost all playgrounds were covered in concrete! My most “precious” memory of it was I tripped while running up some metal bars, fell, and my new mechanical pencil, which I kept in my pants pocket ‘coz I loved that thing soon much, poked into my thigh and hurt like hell!! (I was seriously worried about dying from lead poisoning afterwards, I was may be 6 years old!) Anyways, nowadays they use soft rubber mats instead, which to me means kids are wussy these days! Either way, I think kids would like to play more on a lawn or on tree bark (used in playgrounds in Seattle area) than on concrete or rubber mats, but how about mud and dirt? For sure the parents won’t be liking the aftermath - mud soiled clothes! So when I was living in Japan, I was really surprised to learn that kindergartens in super clean Japan actually have a “Doronkoasobi”, literally “mud play” activity for little kids to play in the mud!
Read MoreIt rained heavily yesterday morning so I brought extra clothes for L and went to the soccer field. At first he did his usual thing, chasing the birds and checking out the flags. Eventually he stumbled into this big puddle of water, it was deep enough to submerge up to the top of his feet! He stood there for a few seconds, experiencing the new sensation. He moved his feet in the water, first slowly, then faster, until he found out that he could make a BIIIIIIG splash by stomping into it! Boy did he have a great time! I stood there and watch him stomp around in the puddle for over 15 minutes! Afterwards I had to change his clothes before we could go home!
Read MoreRecently, our 22 month old boy L has been throwing tantrums before meals. He cries and demands milk, and would throw away the spoon and swipe at the bowl if you try to force food onto him. Our helper doesn’t know what to do so she would promise him milk after the meal, give him fresh milk in a cup to go with the meal, and sit there painfully spoon feeding him! Trying to get him to eat.
Read MoreHailed as the best pre-schools in the world by Newsweek magazine in 1991, the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood education has attracted the worldwide attention of educators, researchers and just about anyone interested in early childhood education best practices.
Read MoreThe name is a combination of two ideas - “The Hundred Languages of Children”, a poem written by Loris Malaguzzi, the creator founder of the Reggio Emilia Approach, and the expression “It takes a village to raise a child”. My hope is to help enable parents from all over the world to form “villages” and raise their children to be creative and able to think for themselves!
Read MoreI cannot say it any better than Sir Ken Robinson, if you haven’t watched his TED talks, please watch them here: The current system of education was conceived during the intellectual culture of the enlightenment, and in economic circumstances, the Industrial Revolution. It’s modeled on the interests of Industrialization, based on a social structure of “a few elites at the top of the pyramid and a majority of low class laborers at the bottom”. Hence schools are all about conformity and standardization, getting children ready to be a slave in the system.
Read MoreMy name is Nicholas Wang. I was born in Hong Kong and went through its dreadful education system until I was 15, when I moved to Washington State in the US of A. I attended high school in a small town called Issaquah, and then went on to study at the University of Washington. For 8 years, I worked at 2 of the largest internet companies in the world, MSN.com and Yahoo.com, until 2007 when I successfully outsourced my own position to India and I was laid off. This marked the end of my corporate life, working as a “gear” in the grinding machine.
Read MoreI cannot say it any better than Sir Ken Robinson, if you haven’t watched his TED talks, please watch them here: The current system of education was conceived during the intellectual culture of the enlightenment, and in economic circumstances, the Industrial Revolution. It’s modeled on the interests of Industrialization, based on a social structure of “a few elites at the top of the pyramid and a majority of low class laborers at the bottom”. Hence schools are all about conformity and standardization, getting children ready to be a slave in the system.
Read MoreAug 8th A couple of weeks ago, Janet Lansbury reposted a story from a RIE parent, the gist of it was, the mom calmly sets boundaries and consequences, when her 2 year old son threw sand at her face, she acted, allowed him to cry and released his emotions, and then took him home. 5 hours later, after he had slept and was all rested up, he came to apologize to her out of the blue.
Aug 5th Today, we went to a birthday party at ART JAM, a kinda snobbish painting studio in an expensive mall! Like, why let your kids paint at home when you can pay 10 times at much to come paint at ART JAM and feel like an artist? Anyways, it was actually a great event! L was asleep when we arrived so we let him sleep, when he woke up, we let him wander around before he finally showed interests in what everybody else was doing – painting! We helped him get some paint (he chose the colors) and then just let him do whatever with the brushes, sponges and paint. (Except we had to stop him from painting on the window! Not too much anyway :)
Aug 3rd At the farm expo, we found out about this organization that does a lot of events to let kids reconnect with nature. Unfortunately, they don’t have an outdoor space that we can visit, what they have is a well designed indoor playroom with 4 main spaces, an open space with lots of train tracks, a mock supermarket, a huge web that spans an entire room and finally an arts & crafts room. Each room has a towering structure for kids to climb almost to the ceiling!
Montessori is a popular education system developed by Maria Montessori in 1897. It seems to be gaining popularity here in Hong Kong, many parents know about it but very few know about the Reggio Emilia approach. Recently, the Montessori playgroup L goes to started to have troubles with him, and it made me think more about the difference between Montessori and Reggio. I thought I’d share a bit of my own experience in the two in this post.
Aug 1st, today’s playgroup can be summarized by one word. Calmness. Both L and C played very well together at my apartment. They shared snacks together and L, who was having problems turning over plates and throwing foods, even helped cleanup the table for both of them!
This morning we went to play at the park again. It seems like it was only a few weeks ago that L wasn’t able to reach these steering wheels machines, or at least wasn’t able to turn them, thus losing interests in them fast. Today, not only was he able to turn them, he discovered a new way to play with it, by hanging off of them like they’re monkey bars. With his feet clear off the ground, he looked at me triumphantly! As if telling me: “Look! I conquered gravity!”
Last week we went to a farm expo where there were many hands-on crafts making workshops, bigger kids can try their hands on wood cutting, drilling, painting, planting, milking (a mechanical cow), feeding goats… etc. At one of the woodwork area, I worked on making a charm, beside me was another family, the boy was about 10 years old, and while he was trying to saw a tree branch, his grandma stood in front of him and mocked him loudly in front of everyone.
L has been doing very well at our new apartment, having a child safe, “Yes” environment (a place that you don’t need to constantly say “No” to your children) is one of the best things you can do to help your child (and you)! I used to get upset when L was in my mom’s place, where he was bored with the plastic “one-way” toys. He would dump and throw things everywhere, so we had to constantly follow him around and snatched things out of his hands. This in turn created his habit of throwing things away quickly as we reach our hands out, because he had learned that we were always taking his things away! So then we adults had to move even faster! It was a downward spiral to madness!!
My wife posted our playgroup info on one of the local Chinese baby forums and got like 5 moms interested in joining us! So we’re happy to report that today we welcomed 2 new families joining the fun!
Does your 2 ~ 3 year old toddler give you any of these troubles? Says NO automatically when you ask him anything Doesn’t listen to or ignore what you are saying or asking (multiple inconsistent messages)
Today, there was a “July babies 2 yr old birthday party”, about 40 ~ 50 families cramped into this little Chuck E. Cheese minus the food & giant mechanical rodents store in the mall to have a great party! L had a lot of fun because he loves those ball pits and they had 3!!
Last weekend, we went to the Kadoorie farm for our playgroup, the place takes up an entire hill side, with lots of trees and homegrown vegetables, animals and even a river to supply its drinking water! It was awesome! But since it was the first time L has been there, he was keen on running around exploring the whole place, so that didn’t leave him and C much “uninterrupted play time”. As a result, I couldn’t observe any breakthrough in his learning, hence no diary was written. (Diary entries are only written when “events are considered to have new significance, when it arouses surprise in its characters and is likely to increase knowledge.”)
Another interesting (and powerful) excerpt from The Diary of Laura, reflections from an American educator. An American visitor used the terms caregiver and provider in asking question about infant care practice. The pedagogista at Reggio Emilia asked why she used those terms and said:
In the morning, I sometimes let our helper look after L while I catch a few more minutes of sleep. Today, L came back inside the room, I sort of remembered him playing with my glasses and when I woke up, my glasses was gone! I asked L where my glasses were and to my surprise, he was hesitant to answer with his baby talk! He had that guilty look in his eyes and avoided my question! When I pressed on, he then tried to show me what he was playing and gave some baby talk about balls. I asked one more time and he finally walked to the end of the bed and pointed toward a plastic bag there, then he went to climb up the crib, trying to get into it. I checked the bag but didn’t see my glasses (I couldnt see very well), I looked around the room and then finally, I went back and picked up the bag and lo and behold, my glasses, with one arm broken off. I was a little mad, I showed it to L and asked him why he did that, and that I was not happy about what he had done. (I got a feeling that I shouldn’t be asking “why did u do that”, coz I myself didn’t answer this question truthfully as a kid! Why did I do it? ‘Coz I wanted to explore! So I think I should just stick with telling L my own feelings – sadness, frustrations, etc.)
The Diary of Laura is a small book published by the municipality of Reggio Emilia in 1983 that represents a milestone in the experiences of Reggio Emilia educators and stated many principles of their educational philosophy. I’ve just finished reading “The Diary of Laura – Perspectives on a Reggio Emilia Diary” and I would like to share some of the key points (to me) of the significance of a Diary or Documentation in Reggio Emilia. Almost everything below is excerpt from the first 2 chapters of the book, the actual diary is for you to discover yourself if you find the excerpts intriguing.
Sorry about this late blog post, I just came back from Cambodia for the first Startup Weekend SE Asia Organizer Summit. Before I left for Cambodia, we had our first parent organized Reggio playgroup in my apartment in Prince Edward on the 23rd of June. I was lucky enough to have found a Reggio Emilia educator, Sarah, who is also a mother and has been teaching with the Reggio Emilia Approach for over 6 years. Like me, Sarah worries about her own 2.5 yr old boy C’s education, so we both have good reasons to do the “parent organized playgroups”. This post is my first “diary” post for documenting the “relationships” in the playgroup.
I grew up in Hong Kong in the 70’s & 80’s, back then, almost all playgrounds were covered in concrete! My most “precious” memory of it was I tripped while running up some metal bars, fell, and my new mechanical pencil, which I kept in my pants pocket ‘coz I loved that thing soon much, poked into my thigh and hurt like hell!! (I was seriously worried about dying from lead poisoning afterwards, I was may be 6 years old!) Anyways, nowadays they use soft rubber mats instead, which to me means kids are wussy these days! Either way, I think kids would like to play more on a lawn or on tree bark (used in playgrounds in Seattle area) than on concrete or rubber mats, but how about mud and dirt? For sure the parents won’t be liking the aftermath - mud soiled clothes! So when I was living in Japan, I was really surprised to learn that kindergartens in super clean Japan actually have a “Doronkoasobi”, literally “mud play” activity for little kids to play in the mud!
It rained heavily yesterday morning so I brought extra clothes for L and went to the soccer field. At first he did his usual thing, chasing the birds and checking out the flags. Eventually he stumbled into this big puddle of water, it was deep enough to submerge up to the top of his feet! He stood there for a few seconds, experiencing the new sensation. He moved his feet in the water, first slowly, then faster, until he found out that he could make a BIIIIIIG splash by stomping into it! Boy did he have a great time! I stood there and watch him stomp around in the puddle for over 15 minutes! Afterwards I had to change his clothes before we could go home!
Recently, our 22 month old boy L has been throwing tantrums before meals. He cries and demands milk, and would throw away the spoon and swipe at the bowl if you try to force food onto him. Our helper doesn’t know what to do so she would promise him milk after the meal, give him fresh milk in a cup to go with the meal, and sit there painfully spoon feeding him! Trying to get him to eat.
Hailed as the best pre-schools in the world by Newsweek magazine in 1991, the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood education has attracted the worldwide attention of educators, researchers and just about anyone interested in early childhood education best practices.
The name is a combination of two ideas - “The Hundred Languages of Children”, a poem written by Loris Malaguzzi, the creator founder of the Reggio Emilia Approach, and the expression “It takes a village to raise a child”. My hope is to help enable parents from all over the world to form “villages” and raise their children to be creative and able to think for themselves!
I cannot say it any better than Sir Ken Robinson, if you haven’t watched his TED talks, please watch them here: The current system of education was conceived during the intellectual culture of the enlightenment, and in economic circumstances, the Industrial Revolution. It’s modeled on the interests of Industrialization, based on a social structure of “a few elites at the top of the pyramid and a majority of low class laborers at the bottom”. Hence schools are all about conformity and standardization, getting children ready to be a slave in the system.
My name is Nicholas Wang. I was born in Hong Kong and went through its dreadful education system until I was 15, when I moved to Washington State in the US of A. I attended high school in a small town called Issaquah, and then went on to study at the University of Washington. For 8 years, I worked at 2 of the largest internet companies in the world, MSN.com and Yahoo.com, until 2007 when I successfully outsourced my own position to India and I was laid off. This marked the end of my corporate life, working as a “gear” in the grinding machine.
I cannot say it any better than Sir Ken Robinson, if you haven’t watched his TED talks, please watch them here: The current system of education was conceived during the intellectual culture of the enlightenment, and in economic circumstances, the Industrial Revolution. It’s modeled on the interests of Industrialization, based on a social structure of “a few elites at the top of the pyramid and a majority of low class laborers at the bottom”. Hence schools are all about conformity and standardization, getting children ready to be a slave in the system.