Independent games, showing different scenery

Independent games, showing different scenery

—— The Curriculum Reform of Preschool Education in xinghua city, Taizhou, Jiangsu Province

One by one, the children boarded the "platform", simulated divers, jumped from the "springboard" and cheered and enjoyed the challenge. After landing, they bounced off the cushion, wiped the sweat from their foreheads, and scrambled to board the platform with a smile …

This is a video of outdoor games in Zhaoyang Central Kindergarten, xinghua city, Taizhou, Jiangsu. As the experimental area of "Anji Game Promotion Plan" of the Ministry of Education, in recent years, xinghua city has actively implemented the national preschool education reform policy. Under the guidance of "Guide to Learning and Development of Children Aged 3-6" and "Guide to Evaluation of Kindergarten Conservation Education Quality", Anji Game and Jiangsu Curriculum Gamification Project have been integrated and implemented, which has comprehensively promoted the curriculum reform of preschool education and greatly improved the quality of preschool education.

Children in the central kindergarten of Dainan Town, xinghua city are playing a slide game on the hillside. Photo by Ji Ling

Back and Wait: Seeing Different Children

The "platform jumping" in the video consists of two Anji boxes, a ladder and a long board. The protagonist in the game is Shun Shun, a big boy.

An outdoor game in November, 2022, I like to climb the challenge smoothly, and I think it is too easy to climb the Anji box, so I decided to build two boxes. He called his companion Xiaojun, but the box was so tall and heavy that it was really impossible to build it.

Liu Xiaoqin, a teacher in Shunshun’s class, said, "In the past, as an observer and supporter of children’s games, I would’ can’t help’ helping them solve the problems in the game. The "Guidelines for the Quality Assessment of Kindergarten Conservation Education" puts forward the requirement of’ not rushing to intervene or interfere with children’s activities’. Faced with this scene, I chose to stand back and wait, leaving children with more opportunities for trial and error, exploration and reflection. "

In the subsequent "game story" characterization and "one-on-one listening record", Liu Xiaoqin learned about Shunshun’s troubles, and asked Shunshun to introduce his plans and difficulties in the collective sharing session, which aroused the interest of the children in the class, and they made suggestions and offered suggestions one after another.

The next day, Shunshun called his friends and found boards to put on the bottom box, forming a slope. Everyone joined forces to build the second box with the help of the slope. The high platform was put up, and the children had a whim, played new tricks, built a "springboard" and played "diving" …

"From the practice of building a base box to the representation record, and then to the platform change, in the independent game, children have achieved effective development in many fields such as health, language, society, science and art, and cultivated good learning quality and personality quality." Fan Henghua, a researcher at xinghua city Teacher Development Center, said, "Teachers have found different children in the process of retreating and waiting patiently, and realized that children are active and capable learners, which has reshaped their views on children and education."

It is a microcosm of curriculum reform in xinghua city that teachers stand back and wait to let children develop and grow in autonomous games.

The reporter learned that there are 94 kindergartens in xinghua city. Influenced by the unique topography, economy, population and other factors, preschool education in the city is scattered, started late and developed slowly. For a long time, there have been some problems: the renewal of teachers’ ideas and the lag of professional development; Kindergarten curriculum relies too much on teachers’ books and ignores children’s dominant position; Children in kindergarten environment have insufficient vision and are not suitable; The development between urban and rural areas, regions and gardens is unbalanced.

In order to promote children’s all-round development and happy growth, xinghua city Education Bureau thoroughly implemented the two Guides and deepened the reform of preschool education. In 2020, it successfully applied for the project of promoting curriculum gamification in Jiangsu Province, and in 2021, it became the experimental area of "Anji Game Promotion Plan" of the Ministry of Education, which accelerated the pace of promoting kindergarten curriculum reform in the region.

Children in the central kindergarten of Zhuhong Town, xinghua city play punting games with foam floating boards and PVC pipes. Wang weishe

Listening and observing: approaching real children

"Unexpectedly, in just a few months, the children in our class have become talkative and lively." Fan Jianqin, a kindergarten teacher in xinghua city, said.

Fan Jianqin’s class is Class 2. In her impression, in the past, kindergarten was mainly based on collective teaching activities, and children’s imagination and creativity were limited by the teacher’s perspective and the operation of high-structure game materials. Some children are quiet in the class group, but they are considered as symbols of obedience and understanding, and their real voices are not fully heard. With the deepening of curriculum reform, these children are awakened and discovered in the "one-on-one listening record" of teachers, and they become willing to express themselves and get personalized development.

In the process of curriculum reform, seeing children, understanding children, respecting children and believing in children are important prerequisites for effectively carrying out educational activities and supporting children’s meaningful learning, and are also the key and difficult points for improving teachers’ professional level. In practice, Xinghua preschool teachers find that observation, listening and dialogue are important ways for teachers to know children, especially "one-on-one listening record", which is easy to operate and has obvious effects, and is a "fast track" for teachers to know children and build a good relationship between teachers and children.

According to the actual situation of teachers, xinghua city Education Bureau puts forward three requirements for kindergartens in the city: First, from the level of curriculum implementation, we should give free support to children’s independent games, and thoroughly implement the "game story" representation, one-on-one listening and recording, collective sharing and other links to help teachers understand children’s thinking, experience and needs face to face in listening and dialogue, and approach real children. Second, from the teaching and research level, teachers are required to use mobile phones and other equipment to record children’s game activities, and then through various levels of teaching and research activities, the real game scenes of children are presented, and the interest, learning and development level behind children’s game behaviors are interpreted. Third, from the training level, through regional alliances, famous teacher studios and other platforms, we will promote the professional reading and training of principals and teachers, promote teachers to constantly update their concepts, and improve their theoretical level and professional ability to observe and interpret children’s behaviors.

At the same time, the preschool teachers and researchers of the Municipal Education Bureau went deep into kindergarten research and guidance to help kindergartens find, analyze and solve problems, carry out reflective practice, and promote the transformation of kindergartens in practice and reflection.

Xiao Yiyun, a kindergarten teacher in Dainan Town Center, said: "I began to learn to squat down and observe, sit down and listen, observe, listen and record every day, understand children’s real interests and needs, reflect on the development contained in children’s game behavior, interpret children’s game stories, and give further adjustment and support based on this."

Through study, practice, reflection and communication, teachers’ ideas are gradually clear, their understanding of children is deeper, and they respect, trust and follow children more sincerely.

Optimization and burden reduction: finding great children

Recently, a video of children playing outdoors in township kindergartens became popular on the Internet. In kindergartens with flowing bridges and reeds, children wear red life-saving vests, some paddle and paddle in the river, some swim and climb on banks, docks and bridges, and laughter fills the whole playground.

This video was taken by a parent of Zhuhong Town Central Kindergarten in xinghua city. In order to meet the children’s demand for games, the park has carefully built an outdoor activity venue with the characteristics of Xinghua water town, and built artificial canals with local wild interests and arch bridges, suspension bridges and single-plank bridges with different shapes. There are ecological planting areas of reeds, arrowheads, lotus roots, water chestnuts and water chestnuts, as well as sand ponds, mud ponds, gullies, sloping fields with different heights and flat land and passages with different materials …

"These can bring different experiences and feelings to children during the game, and stimulate children’s interest in continuous exploration." Director Shen Lei said.

Environment, materials and time are the basic conditions for children’s play. In order to solve the problem that the environment creation is not suitable enough and needs to be optimized urgently, xinghua city has increased the financial guarantee, set up pre-school education development guidance funds, and guided and supported old kindergartens to carry out suitable transformation of indoor and outdoor environment. After the transformation, the outdoor environment of kindergartens in the city is more natural and wild, the playground is more open, the game materials are less structured and challenging, and the optimization of the external environment gives children more room to release their nature and explore challenges.

Children in Zhaoyanghu Kindergarten in xinghua city are playing graffiti games. Photo by Lu Juan

"The children in the newly rebuilt sand in our kindergarten are so cute that I can’t write more recent stories." A teacher in an feng Central Kindergarten said with emotion.

Behind the repeated adjustment and updating of environment, materials and time are the in-depth thinking and exploration of managers and front-line teachers. Zhou Hua, deputy director of Dainan Town Central Kindergarten, said: "Every adjustment and optimization is the embodiment of the spirit of Anji Game and the process of teachers’ growth. We deeply understand that there is no end to curriculum reform. Only by taking children as the foundation, following and supporting children and creating a suitable and secure environment for them can children live happily and meaningfully. "

In fact, at the beginning of the implementation of "Anji Game", kindergartens encountered a lot of "distress" because of lack of understanding and understanding. For example, some kindergartens pay too much attention to the writing of observation notes, game cases and other copywriting, and value quantity over quality, which is regarded as a main indicator to assess teachers’ work performance; Some kindergartens ignore the actual situation such as teacher-child ratio and teacher’s proficiency in operation, and mechanically implement the daily requirement of "one-on-one listening record" … All these reasons lead to heavy workload and pressure for teachers, so they can’t let children play their own games and record their representations, listen to their children one-on-one attentively, and have no time for retrospective reflection.

In order to solve these "troubles", xinghua city Education Bureau starts from the root causes and takes many measures to reduce the burden on teachers. For example, resolutely cancel the teaching books used by children, minimize the collective activities preset by teachers, and replace the original lesson preparation notes with retrospective reflection records; According to the actual situation of kindergartens, the number of teachers’ "one-on-one listening records" per day should be weakened; Replace the original decorative environment with children’s real records and representations; Optimize and adjust weekly plans and monthly plans, and cancel mechanical duplication, numerous and unnecessary paperwork …

"Without the director’s letting go of the teacher, there would be no teacher’s letting go of the children." Teng Yan, deputy director of the Education Bureau of xinghua city, said with deep feelings, "In the initial stage of curriculum reform, only by effectively reducing the burden on teachers and slowing down the convergence slope can teachers have more time and energy to observe, listen, talk and reflect every day, so as to really and effectively approach children, find children and understand children."

"Xinghua’s preschool education has developed so fast, it is not worse than big cities at all. My child is in kindergarten with you! " In the autumn semester of 2022, a parent who brought his children from Beijing to his hometown and entered the park nearby said that the independent games implemented by the kindergarten made the children free and happy and reluctant to leave.

"Entering a new era and embarking on a new journey, Xinghua preschool education should continue to improve its connotation quality, stick to the position of children, take project construction and curriculum construction as the starting point, renew its concept, discover and develop children in open and diverse and spiritual educational activities, and push forward the’ education for young children’ to’ education for young children’." Gu Xiaobin, director of xinghua city Education Bureau, said. (Correspondent Cai Weihua Gu Risheng Our reporter Ji Xiujun)

short review

Reform does not need short theory, but real practice.

Xinghua city is located in the north of Taizhou, Jiangsu Province. As the experimental area of Anji Game Promotion Plan of the Ministry of Education, it also faces many questions in the early stage of reform: If the kindergarten curriculum reform is implemented, will teachers really not use books and teach collectively? With these questions, along the way, Xinghua preschool teachers continue to gain surprises and self-confidence, which makes people sigh their courage and courage to turn reform ideas into reality.

Reform should firmly grasp the policy direction and "national position." The choice of national education policy in different periods must have its background, and we should consider who to train, who to train and how to train people at this historical stage. Xinghua preschool teachers carry out the practical action of "children are capable self-learners", giving full play to children’s potential and initiative, which embodies the position of universal development of preschool education in China. This pattern and position are determined from the height of national education. At the same time, Xinghua preschool teachers take the initiative to find the common ground between Anji Games and Jiangsu Province’s curriculum gamification projects, and find the combination of curriculum reform ideas on the premise of "freedom, autonomy, pleasure and creation". The leader of xinghua city Education Bureau made a decisive decision: "If you have an argument, you can do it first! Without practice, you can’t see the development of children in the game, and adults have no right to speak. " This guiding measure ensures the implementation of the "children-oriented" game concept.

Reformers should have educational ideals and feelings. In Xinghua’s reform, we can see that the teacher-oriented "teaching material goal" and "high-control game" have gradually withdrawn from the stage and been replaced by "true" games that can give children the right to play. Behind this word "true", it is to "reduce the burden" for teachers and contains the educational pursuit of "getting rid of falsehood and seeking truth". In the face of a "game revolution", many "breaks" and "stands" are also innovations in many pre-school education concepts and elements. The courage of reformers comes from their persistence and persistence in educational ideals and beliefs. A group of reformers with educational feelings have gradually formed an internalization and understanding of the "game spirit" in more than two years’ practice, have a sense of responsibility for children’s development, and firmly believe that "the castle peak will not relax", constantly sum up experiences and lessons from setbacks and disputes, and usher in a brand-new realm of "a village with a bright future".

The reform has brought about changes in the "professional development ecosystem". The administration, teaching research and kindergarten teachers of xinghua city Education Bureau unite and cooperate with each other, complementing each other’s advantages, and jointly stay in the "game reform scene" to discuss "understanding children" and "discovering children"; Front-line teachers constantly change their views on children and education in game observation and one-on-one listening and dialogue, breaking the previous context of professional growth of teachers led by "experts". Facts have proved that the cooperative partnership based on "real" scene and solving "problems" has reshaped the teaching and research community, spawned practical wisdom and cracked the dilemma of separating educational theory from practice.

In the practice of Anji game education, Xinghua preschool teachers have initially found the way to improve the quality of education, but they should also be soberly aware that any reform can not be achieved overnight. Facing the practical problems such as unbalanced development between urban and rural areas, regions and gardens, and scattered distribution, how to embody fair, just and balanced development for all needs to be continuously explored and deepened.

(Author: Zhou Xin, a professor at the School of Preschool Education of Jiangsu Second Normal University)

Source: China Education News.