Marjorie Kostelnik, senior associate to the President and professor in Child, Youth and Family Studies, recently traveled to Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada to make a Keynote Address to 1,000 attendees at the First Nations Early Learning Conference, on the importance of play as a vehicle for early learning. She followed up with a workshop in which participants had a chance to put play principles into practice relative to educational goals. The conference was sponsored by the Manitoba First Nations Education Resource Center and was aimed at providing professional development training to early childhood professionals who support First Nations, Inuit, and Metis Nation children and families throughout Canada.
The theme of the conference was "Nurturing the Spirit of the Developing Child." Multiple speakers conveyed the importance of play as it relates to learning. Marjorie was invited to open the conference because she co-authored two textbooks used by college students training to become First Nations teachers. The two books are “Guiding Children’s Social Development” and “Developmentally Appropriate Curriculum: Best Practices in Early Childhood Education.” Other co-authors are Michelle Rupiper, former CYAF faculty member, as well as Anne Soderman and Alice Whiren of Michigan State University.
“It was impressive to see so many adults come together to support young children’s early education in ways that honor and respect First Nations traditions. Strategies such as storytelling, drumming, singing, employing materials from nature, and providing open-ended objects such as blocks and modeling clay were seen as a good fit for adults seeking to preserve long-standing ways of learning and knowing,” said Kostelnik. “I was also honored to have elders talk with me about the importance of maintaining First Nations, Inuit and Metis Nation languages as key to the professional education of teachers in their communities. In many ways, their goals mirrored those espoused by the long-standing and very successful Indigenous Roots Teacher Education Program developed through our own Department of Teaching, Learning and Teacher Education.” Kostelnik concluded, “As you might guess, I think I learned more from my hosts than they probably learned from me.”
To learn more about the conference workshops, click on the link > https://mfnerc.org/events/early-learning-conference/2018-workshop-descriptions/