Understanding Oracy in Early Childhood Education

We are beginning to have a lot of visitors to our Nursery. Recently, a teacher came from a school in Thailand and asked to come and see how we work, we were talking together about the concept of developing respect for your environment in the early years, and how important it is we support these thought patterns . 
 

It got me thinking about how independence and respect are sometimes used in educational settings, and how respect is often defined more as subservience than true respect, a show rather than a true empathy or regard for a person, animal, place or object.   
 

When I was Primary Head, I taught Grades 4, 5 and 6 at different points. I was often struck by how children who joined us from schools where they were seen as receivers of information, as opposed to active engagers with education, they struggled with the balance of respect for their environment versus meaningful use of it. They were often so afraid of being seen as disrespectful that they would not dare to touch anything or ,conversely, so disenfranchised from it that they did not see a reason to care. I remember having to explicitly teach, and constantly remind some of them, that if they needed to use a dictionary they did not need to ask, they could get up quietly and just take one from the range of resources I always had on hand in my classes to support their learning. On the other hand, I also had some who were not respectful of the environment and resources because they did not have any sense of belonging, and so their appreciation of the impact on themselves and others when they broke, borrowed, or left things lying around was not well developed (if at all).   
 

The biggest challenge is that by the time you reach eleven or twelve years old it is very difficult to change established habits and thinking (although not as difficult as it is in adults), and a huge window of opportunity has been missed. It is crucial that this is developed in early childhood so that children can learn how to navigate challenges and make judgements based on their own understandings. If children feel a sense of belonging, if they feel that they too 'own' an environment, then they become not only confident to 'help themselves' but also, they naturally treat it with respect. When a child is told 'Don't touch that, show some respect!' in a learning environment without meaning or context they will internalise it in different ways and they will not grow in their understanding. For some, they will be too frightened to follow their own curiosity because they do not want a reproach, and for others they (being very young) will not be able to hold back their impulses and their natural curiosity for something interesting, and will do it anyway, and they the voice saying no just becomes background noise. 
 

When children hear explanations and are involved in the conversation they then feel both included and respected themselves. When you know how it feels to be genuinely respected yourself then you begin to develop self-respect, and when you have self-respect, you also begin to understand how respect is 'earned and not given' (as we say in UK). Then you are in a position to extend that to others, including through the way you treat your environment and objects in it. 
 

In our Nursery, we encourage children to respectfully challenge us, to see the bigger picture of respect for the environment in which we learn, and to have a solid feeling of self-respect that they can transfer into adulthood - being able to grasp  opportunities with both hands and with the desire to ensure that others can also benefit. Habits, outlooks, and moral and emotional compasses are all established during the first few years of life and reinforced as children grow and age. It is far better for us to take time to start them on their roads and help them to navigate their journeys than it is to drop them at the finishing point and to expect them to know how to continue to the next the part. Who will be the better drivers of their moral and emotional cars do you think?