A mini-mas camp has been created at the UWI Children’s Centre. Work stations have been set up at the stubby-legged tables, each with colourful and shiny mas materials, scissors and glue. And sitting in the stubby-legged chairs are the mini-mas makers, three-year old students constructing headpieces, armbands, masks and other items.
"We embrace our culture," says Dianne Phillip, Senior Administrative Assistant and Supervisor of the Family Development and Children’s Research Centre (FDCRC). "We have an appreciation day for everything."
Camelia Tsoi Afatt, senior teacher of the four-plus students, elaborates:
“Everything is celebrated. Everything that makes Trinidad and Tobago a unique country, we celebrate.”
The Children’s Centre, located off campus on St John’s Road in St Augustine, is part of the School of Education’s FDCRC. Founded in 1998 by then Dean of The Faculty of Education Dr Edrick Gift and Dr Carol Logie, a Caribbean pioneer in early childhood education, FDCRC is one of the region’s leading research, training and educational institutions focussed on young children. Both Tsoi Afatt and her fellow educator Roxanne Marcano worked at the centre from the beginning.
Appreciation days help to not only instil a sense of cultural identity, but also teach values such as tolerance and inclusion for those with different practices and faiths. It is one aspect of the Children’s Centre’s very different approach to education.
“It’s all about ensuring that the children cover all the learning domains - cognitive development, social development, creative development and physical development,” says Phillip. “It’s common to see only cognitive development (in schools). At our centre we focus on the whole child.”
Even the mas making at Carnival Appreciation Day is very different to what you see at a traditional school. The students aren’t being told what to make and how to make it. They are told to create. Both the three-plus and four-plus classrooms are covered in original student art. They also learn life skills such as cooking (following strict safety precautions), setting the table for meals and cleaning up after themselves. That’s right, three-year-olds are doing all of that.
The Children’s Centre uses a mixed methodology approach to educating students. They use aspects of learning centres, the Project approach, the High/Scope method and others that enhance learning by giving the children more opportunity to create, collaborate and initiate in the classroom.
“It’s a combination of curriculum models,” says Tsoi Afatt. “We adapt because we are in Trinidad and Tobago, and not everything that works outside of this country is best suited for our children.”
They are most concerned with effectiveness, she says. “Child initiated learning builds learning that much faster and it becomes more meaningful to them.”
The aim, a statement from the Children’s Centre says, is to allow students to become “active learners”, and develop “intellectual independence, self-reliance, and judgment”. The children learn “critical thinking skills when they are given opportunities for innovation, experimentation, and intellectual synthesis”.
The centre has been so successful that it has been adopted as the model for the Government of Trinidad and Tobago's early childhood centres.
The teachers (or “Aunties” as they are called) see the transformation in the children up close. Early childhood educator Caroline “Aunty Caroline” Olivier, says, “seeing how they grow and work together is truly amazing.”
Aunty Camelia agrees, “The most surprising thing is how much they can do, how much they can learn when given the opportunity. That is one of the most amazing things about working with children. It has kept me here for 30 years.”
The UWI Children's Centre is now accepting applicants for 2020/2021. Contact them at 1 (868) 662-2665 or 663-0488 or email uwi.fdcrc@sta.uwi.edu
