What is "Pedagogy"?

In 2015, Ontario’s Ministry of Education replaced the Day Nurseries Act with the Child Care and Early Years Act as the legislative framework regarding child care in Ontario. One of the prominent goals for the Child Care and Early Years Act (CCEYA) is to help foster quality child care programming and experiences for children and educators alike.

 As mentioned before, How Does Learning Happen? Ontario’s Pedagogy for the Early Years is now the professional learning resource for the entire early years community. This living document not only re-imagines how we view children, but also the role of educators, families and the relationships between them.

 A big part of this learning process is the idea of pedagogy or “the understanding of how learning takes place and the philosophy and practice that support that understanding of learning”. This doesn’t mean that there is a specific formula to create pedagogy, but instead, educators and children are co-learners in an ongoing journey of knowledge. At Kindertown, our approach focuses on the unique characteristics of our families, neighborhood, and students. We believe that everyone and everything around us is an important and influential part of a child’s early years, and we incorporate that into our everyday learning.

At it’s very core, our pedagogical approach hopes to instill within our small community, a sensibility towards environmentalism, sustainability and democracy. Through an emphasis on communal cooperation, we are developing an approach to growth where neighbors, friends and families rely and learn from one another to create a better future for all children.