Mixtures, Magic Beans and Marigolds
Biddy Leigh, left, and Susie Bassett with some of the kindergarten children. Photo: Neil Wilson.
Delivering a presentation to an internationally significant conference in Melbourne was an interesting highlight of Labour Weekend for two local teachers.
Biddy Leigh and Susie Bassett’s presentation was called Mixtures, Magic Beans and Marigolds, and they delivered it as part of an international Early Childhood Education conference on environmental education and sustainability.
“The conference had three themes – Engage, Empower and Enact,” said Susie. “We submitted our proposal last Easter because we thought that our presentation about the importance of the gardens at our kindergarten was relevant to all three of the themes.”
As Golden Bay’s kindergarten is new and purpose-built, the design of the outdoor spaces was able to proceed in a planned and purposeful way. The staff consulted the children about the things they wanted in their garden and then took those requests very seriously.
“We were interested to see what it looked like when the children owned it and the ways that they get what they need from the garden. The focus was on the children’s relationships with the environment. They have an ability to advocate for the environment and when they understand that they will be listened to, they know that they can make a difference,” said Susie.
“As far as the living things that went into the garden were concerned, our children wanted a forest, some bugs, lizards and berries, a banana tree and some fairies. If anyone has a fairy or two they could lend us we’d be grateful.”
Susie pointed to the rapidly growing native forest outside the kindergarten’s window, and explained that it is becoming part of the classroom, providing resources for teaching and learning.
“The children also go there and elsewhere in the garden—like the chamomile lawn—to collect themselves or sustain themselves in other ways,” said Susie. “The garden here fosters sustainability in a very broad sense. At different times the children eat things that have grown there, but we’re also interested in sustainable people and sustainable relationships too.”
Golden Bay Kindergarten’s conscious integration of the design and use of their gardens into the learning programmes of their children impressed the 30 or so conference members at the presentation. One of them was Dr Jenny Ritchie, the Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education at Unitec in Auckland.
Dr Ritchie, who has particular expertise in bicultural education, said she enjoyed the presentation by Susie and Biddy very much.
“It represented to me the potential of our early childhood community, and Te Whariki, our curriculum, to create healing relationships with our whenua and those who hold the mana over that particular whenua. Programmes such as that generated by Biddy and Susie, and their community of parents and other supporters, provide children with models for living not only harmoniously across cultures, but also in our environment.” Neil Wilson
