SUNDAY 21ST FEBRUARY, 2016 – UWI TODAY
13
MAKING OUR MARK
The young students
atTheUWI-Children’s Centre are never
given connect-the-dot sheets, the art exercise where you
make shapes by drawing lines fromdot to dot – clouds, fish,
flowers or puppies. It seems a harmless enough exercise, but
the risk of following the dots is that you stop following your
own creativity. Spend enough of your life connecting dots
and you may even forfeit your capacity for critical thought,
for innovative thought. Such dire consequences for so simple
an exercise, it drives home just how vital is the education
of our children, vital for the child and vital for the society.
“There are no rules for art,” says Dr. Carol Logie at her
office.Through her windowwe can see the Children’s Centre,
an institution very much part of her own creative vision
for early childhood care and education. The pre-schoolers
under her charge could want no better ambassador for the
power of pioneering creativity. As amember ofThe UWI she
has built, without blueprint, a centre for children, families,
educators and advocates that has the potential to change
Caribbean society – children first.
Dr. Logie is an academic researcher and author, known
internationally in the field of early education, and is the
Administrative Director and one of the founders (the other
being distinguished academic and educator Dr. Edrick Gift)
of the UWI Family Development and Children’s Research
Centre (UWI-FDCRC). UWI-FDCRC began in 1988 as a
laboratory pre-school of the UWI Faculty of Education.
Nearly 30 years on, and an integral part of the Faculty
of Humanities and Education, School of Education
Department, it has grown from a small school of 50 young
children to include the Children’s Centre, which is a site for
innovation in teaching and curricula development as well
as for teacher training; and the Family Development Centre
(UWI-FDC), a hub for data collection, research, training,
counseling and advocacy. Almost as remarkable as FDCRC’s
growth and the scope of its ambition is how groundbreaking
was its initial conception. Thirty years ago, the landscape
for early childhood education was barren.
“When we started there were no early childhood
programmes at the tertiary level in Trinidad and Tobago,”
says Dr. Logie. “Early education programmes in Trinidad
and Tobago started atThe University of theWest Indies.The
School of Education (then Faculty of Education) offered the
first bachelors’ degree in Early Education. The first person
awarded a doctorate in early education at a regional tertiary
institution was my student.”
Dr. Logie is very much the driving force behind
FDCRC. A Senior Lecturer with UWI, she is also Chair of
the Foundation for the Development of CaribbeanChildren,
former Chair of the T&T National Council for Early
Childhood Care and Education and a member of National
Advisory Committee of the Ministry of Gender, Youth
and Child Development. Dr. Logie, as part of The UWI,
has been one of the region’s most persistent advocates and
policy influencers for children. In 2013 she won The UWI
Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Excellence for Service to the
University Community and Public Service.
“I just enjoy children,” she smiles. “But I like giving
them back to their parents at the end of the day!”
She says, “There is something about the purity of
giving information. There is something about valuing how
children see the world and what they say. Their worldview
is important to me.”
Last year her work was recognised by the World
Forum for Early Childhood Care and Education, through
its Exchange Leadership Initiative (ELI), an international
programme to find and connect leaders in the field. Dr.
Logie was recognised as an “Exceptional Master Leader” in
making a difference for children, families and community.
“It is quite an honour to be acknowledged by one’s peers
around the world,” she says. “It means now that those of us
who have been selected have a lot of work to do.”
The ELI leaders will address issues affecting young
children across the globe, including refugees and those
living in extreme poverty and adverse conditions.
“We will be finding ways to help caregivers and teachers
improve the lives of children. We see ourselves not only as
teachers but as community leaders who can help others,”
she adds.
Leadership is one of Dr. Logie’s consistent themes.
Her view of teacher and caregiver is someone who looks
beyond the act of teaching to one who sees themselves as a
leader in the community tasked with the nurturing of the
community’s greatest asset, its children. In her view, a leader
is an advocate. A leader is not bound by old methods but
innovates to meet the time.
“Education is about change as well,” she says. “We have
to be able to not stay within the box we have or say that
what worked for the last generation would even work for
this generation.”
The eldest of four children to a father who was one
of the first Afro-Trinidadians to hold a senior position
in a multinational energy company, by inclination and
circumstance, Dr. Logie found her inner leader from a very
young age.
It was as a young woman, while studying in Spain, that
she became a teacher. At first it was only to earn a living, her
ambition was to join the diplomatic corps. “But education
happened,” she says. As strong as she was, she had a soft
spot for children. More importantly, she was given the
opportunity to work with some truly top-level teachers at
a school for the children of the Spanish elite. She saw the
potential – in the children, in teaching and in the field of
early childhood education.
“I decided to blend it all,” she says of her big picture
interests in society (her first degree was in Politics) with
teaching, education innovation and advocacy. FDCRC
is very much the result of her own journey in personal
leadership. One of the newest and exciting aspects of the
FDCRC is The UWI-FDC, a self-financing project
funded by donor contributions, our Ministry of
Education and regional partners. Established in
2013, the FDChas already become a centre for
research, information and advocacy for early
childhood care and education. The centre
recently launched its research agenda
with the publication of “Childrearing
Practices in the Caribbean”, a book
based in part on the findings of a
national survey in Trinidad and
Tobago spearheaded by the FDC.
The centre is supported by
five adjunct professors from
institutions such as Syracuse
University, Pennsylvania State
University and the University of Cambridge, who assist in
research, publications and training. The FDC also provides
counseling services for parents and children, a social worker,
referral services to caregivers in need of support, and is at
present working on a resource manual for parents.
The FDC has also created the Caribbean Research
Empowerment Network (CREN) website (thecren.com),
the first virtual community of educators and administrators
in the child development field.
But what is the end goal? We want children to be
happy and healthy, well-adjusted members of society that
are able to make a positive contribution when they reach
maturity. Even with all this work and information, how do
we achieve that?
Dr. Logie says, “education is more than academic
learning. I see it as an intellectual undertaking. It is not about
the rigid instruction of children. At FDCRC we encourage
the development of values, citizenship, and intellectual
curiosity. An educated person understands life around them
and the best ways to make life happen for them.”
In other words, teaching children to think beyond
the dots.
First in Class
B Y J O E L H E N R Y
Dr Carol Logie, UWI-FDCRC recognised for
pioneering leadership in early education
