Today was the group’s first trip down to Little Wings, and I could definitely sense that the rest of the group was feeling nervous yet excited, just as I was. Though we came prepared with our proposals and having in mind roughly what we wanted to ask, we did not know what we were going to be in for. And we all understood, which made us all the more tense, was that first impressions do count.
As we walked into the kindergarten, I began to notice that compounds were extremely clean and there was a very conducive learning environment. So we began our discussion with Mdm. Bettina Heng and we explained our proposal. We were pleased to find out that she liked our ideas, and she willingly shared with us all that she knew, so as to facilitate with our project development. But what I remembered most vividly was the mini test which she conducted with us, the one requiring us to draw a house and a tree. After we drew them, we compared our pictures and it dawned on me that most of our houses were largely similar! They were just drawn plainly with a large door, windows and a chimney. Why did we draw them this way? It was because when we were younger, we were taught that a house would have to look like that and so we copied that image. The point that she was trying to drive at was that she did not want us to tell the children that we were going to work with, that an object must not be necessarily drawn that way, or things must be done in a certain way. Essentially, they do not want us to suck out the creativity out of the children, but rather, let them develop and grow. Our jobs would just be to provide them questions, to understand why they did certain things certain ways, but not to dampen their creativity.
We also talked with and explained our ideas to Mrs. Tan, the principal, and after some minor changes and editing, we refined our idea, and now got a feel of where we were to direct our project towards. She also brought us into the classes and we got to see their classrooms, ‘study’ corners and the pieces of work that they did. I noticed that the students were actually quite well behaved, and I was quite impressed by their capabilities, and they brought back many fond memories of when I was in kindergarten as well! Suddenly, I felt much more at ease. I thought, this would not be as an ‘impossible’ as task as Mrs. Lim had portrayed it to be!
After this first trip down to Little Wings, I have a good feeling. I am not so worried about our project’s prospects anymore. I am more confident that if we were to stick to our schedule and planning, coupled with our hard work, we can definitely make this a success! At the same time, as I get a better understanding of who our target audience are (the children whom we will be working with), and it is of utmost importance that we learn to think from their perspectives so as to create appropriate lessons. Time would also be of the essence as we would have limited time to go down to conduct the lessons. I do understand that this will be a challenge and would require each one of us to put in lots of work. Though all of us are bound by our own personal commitments, I believe that we will all set aside some time to give back to the society, something that is of higher order.
Yeo Jon-Hann