TEACHING

HOLISTIC EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AT A DISTANCE – A CONTRIBUTION OF THE NURSERY SCHOOL IN PANDEMIC TIMES

Fecha: May 19, 2021

Escrito por: Sonia Zamora

Strategies such as a virtual recess where children show some of their favorite objects to their friends from home are some measures implemented by this institution to continue contributing to the full development of the pupils.

Only a month and a half of on-site classes before March 2020, was enough to characterize the children who are part of the Nursery School of Universidad Pedagógica Nacional to recognize their ways of being and communicating and modify the curriculum activities adequately according to the possibilities given by technology but not affecting their development process.

Evidently, “that was the challenge”, Nubia García says, who oversees coordination of this center created more than 16 years ago with the purpose to educate children under four years as critical, creative, autonomous, independent subjects, capable to express themselves freely. A task that could not be stopped even amid a pandemic.

Thanks to the work of five UPN graduates in Early Childhood Education and two graduates in Psychology and Pedagogy, four assistants, a nurse, a psychologist, and a nutritionist, we could meet through the Classroom platform to share videos on different topics, among other recommendations to ensure the welfare of the little children at home.

"We were against the screens, but now we have been forced to use them," García says about the paradoxical situation that teachers around the world have found themselves over the last few months due to the measures taken amid the Covid-19 pandemic, but they have had to adapt themselves.

Some of the strategies were recognizing the children's families through a letter written by their guardians, making recipes, telling stories and disguising themselves. They were used to preserve the pedagogical intentionality despite the virtuality with the purpose that little children continue exploring sensations, oralizing their thoughts, and enhancing their motor skills.

In addition of the virtual recess, there was an assembly of agreements to establish ways to carry out the virtual sessions. These were tools with which the children could watch their classmates through the computer and understood the importance of coexistence with others, even at a distance.

Another critical issue was the support of 15 teachers in training process who have carried out their internships at the Nursery School during this time: 5 of them from the Bachelor's Degree in Early Childhood Education, 5 of the Bachelor's Degree in Music Education, and 5 of the Bachelor's Degree in Visual Arts.

The teachers in training process have put their knowledge at the service of the infants, their parents and families, devising new ways of teaching their classes while observing the teachers who work there to learn from their experiences.

In addition, the health of each child's family group was monitored due to the situation, and feeding tips were shared with parents and guardians to increase their children's defenses during the pandemic.

"We sought a holistic development of early education", Professor García says, who assures that the learning accomplished during this time has been vital and the challenge was to follow up on the progress of each of the children.

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