September 2009


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As the society reels from its violent wounds, there seems no immediate way to staunch the torrents of blood. Many of the perpetrators of violent acts are barely out of their teens and several citizens have succumbed to the temptation to dismiss that generation as lost, but not everyone is so pessimistic about the present or the future.

Commenting on the mental state of the society in our last issue, psychiatrist Professor Gerard Hutchinson contended that more should be done to help these young people.

“I think a lot of them could be reached if we had systems and structures in place to reach them, it is not that they don’t care but they have been taught or conditioned not to care. Once they’re taken out of that environment, they become concerned again about the things that most people in society are.”

Mentorship at many levels was an important aspect of reaching them, he said.

“People recognise that the younger people in whichever context, professional, school, religious, need that kind of guidance. The key thing there is stability, as many people have said, single parent homes are not a new phenomenon, he said, noting that single parent homes in the fifties and sixties didn’t produce children who could be branded as “bad” on the same scale. The School of Education’s Head of Department,

Early Childhood Education, Dr Carol Logie, shares that outlook, believing that the earlier a child is surrounded by a nurturing, warm environment, the more likely they will feel valued and build a sense of belonging to the society.

Both UWI experts also agree that the high degree of instability at every level has contributed significantly to a practically dysfunctional society, but do not feel that all is lost for a recovery project.

This issue, we feature the School of Education’s Family Development and Children’s Research Centre (FDCRC), where Dr Logie is administrative director, and its distinctive approach to early childhood education, which stresses a “loving” environment that empowers children to develop critical thinking and responsible behaviours as they learn from very early how to take charge of their lives.

Early Pioneers of Childhood Education
“Parents don’t understand the importance of being a role model,they think children only pick up best practices.”

One of the areas appearing to withstand the rigours of a shrinking economic pie is early childhood education. In the recent national budget presentation, the Minister of Finance announced that the 50 Early Childhood Care Centres (ECCE) promised in the last fiscal year would be completed in this new one, and that an additional 50 would be started.

The focus on early childhood education has been so politically marked that one could easily imagine that its foundation stones had been laid only when the first ECCE came to pass a couple years ago.

It goes way back actually, 21 years ago this month, to the pioneering days of 1988, when the School of Education of The UWI opened up its first “learning lab”, formally known as the UWI Laboratory Pre-school, at the current site at St John’s Road in St Augustine.

Back then, the School of Education (SoE) enlisted the help of two Fulbright scholars from the US to design an educational system for the region that recognised that the first seven years in a child’s life were crucial in terms ofdevelopment.

The current administrative director of what has since been renamed the Family Development and Children’s Research Centre (FDCRC), Dr Carol Logie, was a fundamental part of this daring new initiative in earlychildhood education and she speaks with a creator’s pride of its evolution.

To explore new ways of learning, new ways of teaching had to emerge. No tertiary level programmes existed regionally, so the SoE busied itself with designing and introducing first the Certificate in Early Childhood Care and Development and then the Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.). In 1996, when the B.Ed. was introduced, there were nine students, today, with the degree offering two separate specialties—Primary and ECCE—student enrolment is at 120.

“We’ve been able to tie what we’ve been doing with the growth and development in the region,” said Dr Logie, as she explained how they could expand to the post-graduate level and offer masters and doctoral degrees as well as post graduate diplomas in education.

The FDCRC, as part of the SoE, is more than a school for young children, it is actually a training centre for students of education, many of whom will actually be employed at the State-run ECCE centres. Within an environment carefully designed to appeal to all of the sense, teachers and students interact in a marvellous routine that enables both parties to learn from each other.

The notion of learning communities forms the theoretical foundation of the Centre, based on psychologist Lev Vygotsky’s theory of social interaction’s role in the development of cognition. The Centre encourages everyone—parents, teachers, students, family members— who moves within the orbit of the child to see their relationships as opportunities for two-way learning at every level. Theoretically, people become each other’s students.

Thus, the approach at the Centre emphasises early empowerment of children to make decisions and take responsibility for decisions and to find socially appropriate ways of interacting with each other.

Dr Logie, who has been working at various levels in the area of early childhood education, has a broad and uniquely detailed knowledge of its complexities and its relationship to national development. In conversation, she connects every strand of thought to development, and it is as clear that she has had to make the case several times as it is that she firmly believes in the link.

People don’t quite see that link, she says, don’t realise that the state of Trinidad and Tobago, which everyone complains about, and the behaviour of the youth which they lament, are connected to their own misbehaviours.

The children are looking at the adults, and we have to look at the state of parenting, the values you carry, she said. “It’s not about whether you’re single or not,” it’s about the values you communicate.

Dr Carol Logie, FCDRC’s Administrative Director, has served on various boards and organisations related to early childhood education. She has chaired the National Council for Early Childhood Care and Education (NCECCE). She is part of the Bernard van Leer Foundation-sponsored Caribbean Support Initiative, and sits on the Executive Board of the World Forum for ECCE. She has been an international education consultant to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and worked with the World Bank to develop he first survey of early childhood provision in Trinidad and Tobago. She is the Head of Department, Early Childhood Education, School of Education, UWI.

“Parents don’t understand the importance of being a role model, they think children only pick up best practices,” she said. “We can see it on the roads, we can see it in the way they relate to children at home,” we can see it in the poor relationships that children witness. “We have to stop as a society and examine what we are doing,” she said, citing the use of corporal punishment as one sure way to perpetuate violence. “Children have to understand that they have to find other ways to deal with problems,” she said. “We need our children to understand [what it means to have] a caring, loving, warm environment, and to bring a new learning experience to them.” Under The Microscope “We live in a fishbowl,” says administrative director, Dr Carol Logie, repeatedly, as she guides a tour of the facilities at the Family Development and Children’s Research Centre (FDCRC) on St John’s Road in St Augustine. Although most people refer to it as the UWI Pre-school, it is much more than a school, as its formal name indicates. Founded by The UWI’s School of Education in 1988, the FDCRC is practically a learning lab in many ways. While its design and ongoing upgrades are meant to integrate and express a specific philosophic and theoretical approach to early childhood education, it is also an active classroom for trainees in the field. The physical structure has been recently upgraded, presenting a charming façade that is idyllic to a fault. The serenely cheerful spaces—areas earmarked for every possible activity, all built on the scale that suits 3-5 yearolds— must make parents wish that they could transpose this completely into their households. The Centre is not, as many people think, exclusively for the children of UWI staff, and although the waiting list is long, Dr Logie says people are welcome to come and have a look at it to see whether its “distinctive approach” appeals to them. They have an annual open day and a book fair which provide ideal opportunities for exposure. “Parents have invested heavily in their children,” she says, adding that they see it as a site of investment (instead of a carnival costume) and so they do what it takes to pay for enrolment. It was just a few days into the new term so the children were all fresh at it, but they seemed very able to adapt to the expectation that they set their own places at the table, washed up after themselves, chose their own activities and took responsibility for their choices. Even so, amidst all the freedoms and ownerships on offer, it was obvious that it wasn’t a free-for-all and the adults were guiding and monitoring them constantly. The children are kept within adult supervision of a 10:1 ratio, and there is a discreet overhead observation deck where students can study the children from behind a glass window without interrupting their activities. Everything is worth studying in this laboratory of ideas. It’s a fishbowl in there.