Illume uses learning strategies that respect each student's culture & socio-economic background. Do not be surprised when your child comes home & says “Bonjour” or “Vannakkam”. The global diverse culture is translated inside the classroom by celebrating various events there by encouraging children to respect cultures.
Ms. Shyama Kittur & Ms. Alka, Early Childhood Educators say “The curriculum integrated through celebrations & festivals fosters better learning & a lasting one at that.”
ILLUME uses techniques that promote & enhance the critical creative thinking capabilities of children. Next time when you are kneading the dough do not be surprised if the child starts making models from the same dough & his / her imagination to put together animals at your feet. “Archana Jamdar as ECE expert validates the above saying the holistic approach used in Kidzee is reflected in the daily actions of the child.”
During the free play the child selects his / her own activities & interacts with other children. The variety of options created be it blocks for building a city, a kitchen for cooking up, a sandpit for exercising his / her fine muscle, develops imagination, decreases stress, develops social skills, encourages language building & the ability to make choices thereby developing their unique innate potential. Dr. Usha Murugan: Principal Surajba College of education, Juhu, an expert in the field of education with over 30 years of experience as a Teacher Educator, secretary of the Mumbai Autonomous board of Early Childhood Education says “The interspersing of concept time with free play & movement is an ideal learning method for children in their early years.”
“Adds Ms. Bimlesh Vadhwa Professor NIE Singapore that this method is being deployed in our Kidzee center, which is been approved by the Ministry of Education of Singapore as the children learn with ease & enjoy the process.”
Illume uses effective communication techniques with parents & all other stakeholders, to child’s development thereby creating a conducive environment where parents are effective partners. A typical conversation in a Kidzee preschool would be as follows. “Mr. and Mrs. Sharma : I am so glad you could come in to chat with me about Rohan today. He is a fortunate boy to have such committed parents. I know you want to encourage academic achievement, which is great; but we need to begin, by developing readiness skills. The things he is doing now are a very important preparation for formal learning that includes things such as learning to listen & to share and get along with others, to wait their turns for snack, to play cooperatively, to listen to a story being read”. Here you will find the parent is being heard & guided.
Monisha Sr. Coodinator from Teacher Foundation says “Effective teacher training enables the teacher to execute a well chalked programme which is balanced between active & passive activities. The teachers are enabled to identify the needs of each child & organize their teaching methodology for each child. All the teachers of Kidzee are thus enabled through Illuminaire.”
Kidzee Parents will see the above lines in action when their children come home & say mama I built blocks to learn One, Two, Three whereas Divya painted One Two Three & Anand moulded clay to form numbers. This reflects that ILLUME is custom designed to your child’s learning style. This is the corner stone of Illume, which lights the path for KIDZEE METHODOLOGY.
“All children have the right to learn & every child must be enabled to achieve his / her unique potential through the methods best suited for him / her.”
Friday, February 6, 2009
Illume- Discovering the Miracle called “The Child”
There is a climate of high expectations, which includes the core belief that all students can learn and the teacher has the capacity to teach all children – KIDZEE schools.
Illume is an approach that helps parents and teachers spot the potential in children, one on one. Illume facilitates them to spot the unique quality in each child and helps them unleash that infinite potential within and strive with all their might to help the child realize it. Every time they spark a new insight, a new ray of hope, however small it may be Illume helps unfold the miracle.
Illume is a competency based curriculum with the end in mind. For every learning outcome expected from the child, there is a well-defined objective in place. For example, to facilitate children’s encyclopedic knowledge on the concept of elephant – the facilitator will show the poster of an elephant, introduce a puppet of an elephant who interacts with the children, a song about the elephant for the children to sing and creative movements for the children to imitate. This will be followed by an art activity / game on the following day to reinforce the concept combined with a field trip to the zoo.
This way most of the concepts across the curriculum are delivered in what Glen Doman would quote as “the joyous, honest and factual manner” covering the different learning styles of children thereby reaching every child through his / her way.
Mission of every teacher in Kidzee is to “Reach each child everyday” in his / her unique way. Illume ensures that the teachers have the knowledge of child development as well as the skills in teaching young children through Illumnaire. (Illumnaire is an exhaustive 60 hours training program through which every teacher (2000+ at Kidzee schools across India) learns the modalities of executing Illume. This is the corner store on which the edifice of ILLUME rests.
The program has an early childhood environment that enables children to learn according to their own development and learning styles. Every child is given adequate opportunity to master the required concepts and those who struggle are given more time as needed for example, a specific concept for instance an apple is taught on a particular day. The children are then provided an opportunity to reinforce and revise the same concept through puzzles, books, games, rhymes, art and craft, stories on apple during free play the following day
The ambiance of the classroom nurtures the children’s innate need to enquire and discover in their own unique ways. It thus facilitates the children’s quest for identifying their learning style. .
The play and learn equipments are carefully chosen with specific objectives in mind and what is most important teaching a particular concept. These equipments reinforce the competence for manipulation and recapitulation of concepts by the child. Relationships, memories and connectivity are a big part of what children take away from KIDZEE schools and are a vital contributor to the child’s achievement and an integral part of Illume.
Illume fosters a positive Home- School connection through a structured, well planned, face to face sessions, be it a Parent Teacher Meet, workshops, seminars, open forums where parents discuss not only the development of the child but also the contemporary issues in child development.
Continuous, comprehensive and competency based evaluation is much more than the usual annual standardized testing. It is an ongoing review of the child’s progress accompanied by timely feedback and appropriate intervention. Illume thus ensures that no child is left behind.
KIDZEE puts its ear to the ground and listening to what stakeholders wanted in our schools provided valuable insights into what needs to exist to make it an efficient and an effective system, which is realized through e-KIDZEE. e-KIDZEE enables us to have greater accountability with respect to data regarding logistics, enrolment, fees, and other administrative activities.
Each school must place its own signature on its strategy to make it a success. And the signature of KIDZEE schools is ILLUME.
Illume is an approach that helps parents and teachers spot the potential in children, one on one. Illume facilitates them to spot the unique quality in each child and helps them unleash that infinite potential within and strive with all their might to help the child realize it. Every time they spark a new insight, a new ray of hope, however small it may be Illume helps unfold the miracle.
Illume is a competency based curriculum with the end in mind. For every learning outcome expected from the child, there is a well-defined objective in place. For example, to facilitate children’s encyclopedic knowledge on the concept of elephant – the facilitator will show the poster of an elephant, introduce a puppet of an elephant who interacts with the children, a song about the elephant for the children to sing and creative movements for the children to imitate. This will be followed by an art activity / game on the following day to reinforce the concept combined with a field trip to the zoo.
This way most of the concepts across the curriculum are delivered in what Glen Doman would quote as “the joyous, honest and factual manner” covering the different learning styles of children thereby reaching every child through his / her way.
Mission of every teacher in Kidzee is to “Reach each child everyday” in his / her unique way. Illume ensures that the teachers have the knowledge of child development as well as the skills in teaching young children through Illumnaire. (Illumnaire is an exhaustive 60 hours training program through which every teacher (2000+ at Kidzee schools across India) learns the modalities of executing Illume. This is the corner store on which the edifice of ILLUME rests.
The program has an early childhood environment that enables children to learn according to their own development and learning styles. Every child is given adequate opportunity to master the required concepts and those who struggle are given more time as needed for example, a specific concept for instance an apple is taught on a particular day. The children are then provided an opportunity to reinforce and revise the same concept through puzzles, books, games, rhymes, art and craft, stories on apple during free play the following day
The ambiance of the classroom nurtures the children’s innate need to enquire and discover in their own unique ways. It thus facilitates the children’s quest for identifying their learning style. .
The play and learn equipments are carefully chosen with specific objectives in mind and what is most important teaching a particular concept. These equipments reinforce the competence for manipulation and recapitulation of concepts by the child. Relationships, memories and connectivity are a big part of what children take away from KIDZEE schools and are a vital contributor to the child’s achievement and an integral part of Illume.
Illume fosters a positive Home- School connection through a structured, well planned, face to face sessions, be it a Parent Teacher Meet, workshops, seminars, open forums where parents discuss not only the development of the child but also the contemporary issues in child development.
Continuous, comprehensive and competency based evaluation is much more than the usual annual standardized testing. It is an ongoing review of the child’s progress accompanied by timely feedback and appropriate intervention. Illume thus ensures that no child is left behind.
KIDZEE puts its ear to the ground and listening to what stakeholders wanted in our schools provided valuable insights into what needs to exist to make it an efficient and an effective system, which is realized through e-KIDZEE. e-KIDZEE enables us to have greater accountability with respect to data regarding logistics, enrolment, fees, and other administrative activities.
Each school must place its own signature on its strategy to make it a success. And the signature of KIDZEE schools is ILLUME.
Introduction of Illume
We now know that early childhood is the most important phase of our life. Brain activity is at its peak and what we assimilate till age 6, significantly impacts our adult outlook and inclinations.
India is witnessing a change from joint family and single income households to nuclear families and working moms. As the traditional network of family elders and extended peer group disappear, parents need alternatives for their children. In addition, research over the last century in Europe and the US has improved our understanding of how children develop. It is here that pre-schools play an important role by providing a diverse peer group, a rich & stimulating environment and an expert care-giver.
What happens in a pre-school depends, to a large extent, on its guiding philosophy & approach of child development. Professionally run pre-schools are based on the teachings of one of the many Early Childhood philosophers and educators. The most prominent among them is Maria Montessori. But there are others who had an equal, if not bigger, impact. These were Jean Piaget, Friedrich Froebel, Rudolph Steiner, David Kolb and Howard Gardner. World over, there are pre-schools and schools based on the teachings of Montessori, Froebel and Steiner. In addition, there is the eponymous model from the Italian village of Reggio Emilia.
Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development influences most education approaches. He believed that a child constructs his / her understanding of reality through experimentation, assimilation and categorization. By repeating his / her actions in various settings, s/he is able to achieve new knowledge and insight. Piaget thus emphasized the importance of recapitulation.
Froebel schools believe that child learns best through play. The child is presented with a series of well thought through equipment (called Froebel gifts) and activities (group games and songs), that call forth his / her abilities, stimulate his / her mental activity and produce inner organization.
Steiner pre-schools (called Waldorf) emphasize learning through practical activities. Extensive time is given for free play in a natural, home-like environment that provides examples of productive work. Emphasis is given on nurturing the child’s imagination and providing experiences that gets him / her in harmony with nature.
Montessori pre-schools are based on child directed learning. Teachers are meant to be passive observers who present new activities when the child has either mastered the previous one or got bored of it. They use Montessori materials, each having a specific and well defined purpose. Montessori classrooms provide an atmosphere that is attractive and comfortable for children to explore at their own pace.
Reggio Emilia is a more democratic form of pre-school education, where the child is given a lot of freedom to choose what s/he wants to learn. Also, the whole community participates in the development of the child with parents playing an integral role. The role of adults (teachers and parents) is to indirectly activate the meaning-making competencies of children.
Most of the above are more than a century old – Froebel was born in 1782, Steiner in 1861 and Montessori in 1870. Even Reggio schools came up after World War II to help Italian children cope with the aftermath of war. Since then, we have learnt a lot more on how children learn and express. In the 1970’s, David Kolb postulated that people have different preferences for learning. Based on this, he defined four basic type of learners. In 1983, Howard Gardner proposed that children use at least seven relatively autonomous intellectual capacities - each with its own distinctive mode of thinking - to approach problems and create products. This is popularly called Theory of Multiple Intelligences.
So the situation today demands a contemporary approach that retains the best of the classical practices of Froebel, Steiner, Montessori and Reggio but presents them in a manner that is consistent with Kolb and Gardner’s theories. That’s because while some children will learn well through a Montessori approach, others might benefit from Froebel’s methods. A flexible approach is required that lets children choose based on their learning preference. Illume, a unique pre-school approach does exactly that.
Inspired by Gardner and Kolb, Illume believes that early childhood is the time when a child discovers his / her learning style and the intelligence(s) s/he is strong at. To facilitate this, s/he should be given diverse opportunities and a flexible environment. In Illume, multiple pathways are provided for a particular learning outcome– each child is free to take the path s/he prefers. Equipments and activities are borrowed from the best practices of Montessori, Froebel, Steiner and Reggio. Songs and movements are collected from diverse resources to create a rich, multi-cultural setting. Based on Piaget’s belief in recapitulation, a pre-determined pattern reinforces the concepts learnt.
Illume is a result of experience gained from more than 100,000 children all over India. Feedback and inputs from over 10,000 preschool parents, 2000 early childhood educators and scores of teacher trainers across India went into developing Illume. Observations revealed that while pre-schools engaged the attention of majority of children, some were left behind and others lost interest due to boredom. Parents shared that they wanted more individual attention and an accommodation for their child’s unique preferences. They also wanted an approach that was contemporary and global to meet the needs of today’s child. Teachers felt the need for increased interactivity in the classroom and more holistic concept development. Teacher trainers felt that any approach is as good as its delivery and hence wanted tools to equip the teacher to take care of each child’s unique learning style. Based on these learnings, the Illume team developed an approach that was holistic in design and flexible and adaptive for the child.
Illume offers the child the freedom to choose her way of learning and facilitates reinforcement and recall. This creates a unique learning approach that incorporates the best of the time-tested practices and latest research in the field of child development– a truly potent combination to boost early childhood education. Illume believes in the infinite potential that lies within each child and facilitates the realisation of that potential.
India is witnessing a change from joint family and single income households to nuclear families and working moms. As the traditional network of family elders and extended peer group disappear, parents need alternatives for their children. In addition, research over the last century in Europe and the US has improved our understanding of how children develop. It is here that pre-schools play an important role by providing a diverse peer group, a rich & stimulating environment and an expert care-giver.
What happens in a pre-school depends, to a large extent, on its guiding philosophy & approach of child development. Professionally run pre-schools are based on the teachings of one of the many Early Childhood philosophers and educators. The most prominent among them is Maria Montessori. But there are others who had an equal, if not bigger, impact. These were Jean Piaget, Friedrich Froebel, Rudolph Steiner, David Kolb and Howard Gardner. World over, there are pre-schools and schools based on the teachings of Montessori, Froebel and Steiner. In addition, there is the eponymous model from the Italian village of Reggio Emilia.
Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development influences most education approaches. He believed that a child constructs his / her understanding of reality through experimentation, assimilation and categorization. By repeating his / her actions in various settings, s/he is able to achieve new knowledge and insight. Piaget thus emphasized the importance of recapitulation.
Froebel schools believe that child learns best through play. The child is presented with a series of well thought through equipment (called Froebel gifts) and activities (group games and songs), that call forth his / her abilities, stimulate his / her mental activity and produce inner organization.
Steiner pre-schools (called Waldorf) emphasize learning through practical activities. Extensive time is given for free play in a natural, home-like environment that provides examples of productive work. Emphasis is given on nurturing the child’s imagination and providing experiences that gets him / her in harmony with nature.
Montessori pre-schools are based on child directed learning. Teachers are meant to be passive observers who present new activities when the child has either mastered the previous one or got bored of it. They use Montessori materials, each having a specific and well defined purpose. Montessori classrooms provide an atmosphere that is attractive and comfortable for children to explore at their own pace.
Reggio Emilia is a more democratic form of pre-school education, where the child is given a lot of freedom to choose what s/he wants to learn. Also, the whole community participates in the development of the child with parents playing an integral role. The role of adults (teachers and parents) is to indirectly activate the meaning-making competencies of children.
Most of the above are more than a century old – Froebel was born in 1782, Steiner in 1861 and Montessori in 1870. Even Reggio schools came up after World War II to help Italian children cope with the aftermath of war. Since then, we have learnt a lot more on how children learn and express. In the 1970’s, David Kolb postulated that people have different preferences for learning. Based on this, he defined four basic type of learners. In 1983, Howard Gardner proposed that children use at least seven relatively autonomous intellectual capacities - each with its own distinctive mode of thinking - to approach problems and create products. This is popularly called Theory of Multiple Intelligences.
So the situation today demands a contemporary approach that retains the best of the classical practices of Froebel, Steiner, Montessori and Reggio but presents them in a manner that is consistent with Kolb and Gardner’s theories. That’s because while some children will learn well through a Montessori approach, others might benefit from Froebel’s methods. A flexible approach is required that lets children choose based on their learning preference. Illume, a unique pre-school approach does exactly that.
Inspired by Gardner and Kolb, Illume believes that early childhood is the time when a child discovers his / her learning style and the intelligence(s) s/he is strong at. To facilitate this, s/he should be given diverse opportunities and a flexible environment. In Illume, multiple pathways are provided for a particular learning outcome– each child is free to take the path s/he prefers. Equipments and activities are borrowed from the best practices of Montessori, Froebel, Steiner and Reggio. Songs and movements are collected from diverse resources to create a rich, multi-cultural setting. Based on Piaget’s belief in recapitulation, a pre-determined pattern reinforces the concepts learnt.
Illume is a result of experience gained from more than 100,000 children all over India. Feedback and inputs from over 10,000 preschool parents, 2000 early childhood educators and scores of teacher trainers across India went into developing Illume. Observations revealed that while pre-schools engaged the attention of majority of children, some were left behind and others lost interest due to boredom. Parents shared that they wanted more individual attention and an accommodation for their child’s unique preferences. They also wanted an approach that was contemporary and global to meet the needs of today’s child. Teachers felt the need for increased interactivity in the classroom and more holistic concept development. Teacher trainers felt that any approach is as good as its delivery and hence wanted tools to equip the teacher to take care of each child’s unique learning style. Based on these learnings, the Illume team developed an approach that was holistic in design and flexible and adaptive for the child.
Illume offers the child the freedom to choose her way of learning and facilitates reinforcement and recall. This creates a unique learning approach that incorporates the best of the time-tested practices and latest research in the field of child development– a truly potent combination to boost early childhood education. Illume believes in the infinite potential that lies within each child and facilitates the realisation of that potential.
Parent’s focus for their children’s growth has to turn on its head
What is the most important question in Indian parents’ mind regarding their child? What will he become when he grows up! Linked to this question is where he will graduate from. For, where a person graduates from, is seen to be directly linked to his career. Parents obsess over the IITs, IIMs and other esteemed colleges and universities. This notion is set to be turned on its head. Parents are slowly waking up to a notion that has been known to child psychologists and child development experts for long. That it is the first 6 years of a child’s life that pretty much determine what he will become in his life. So which college your child graduates from and what career he chooses gets pretty much determined in the first six years of life!
Brain research has clearly laid out the pattern of neuron development during a human being’s life span. This research shows that brain development is at its highest from the time of conception to age six. The brain develops as different neurons make connections to form a neural network. Or as Marcus Buckingham, author of First, Break All the Rules puts it, brain development is like building roads between neurons. This ‘road building’ activity is at its highest in the first six years of a man’s life. As more and more stimuli is given to the brain, these roads become wider and smoother – in effect creating a highway in the brain for life. Those areas which are not stimulated remain stunted, in effect creating narrow streets or none at all. As the synaptic activity starts slowing down from age 6 onwards, the brain’s highways and barren areas start to settle. This is what determines what you are good at and what you’ll lean towards in your later life. The time to build highways in the brain is till age 6!
Now compare this body of science to the practice of today. Most parents wake up to their child’s development when it is time for him to go to a school. By this time, the child is already 5 years old. In effect, 80% of his developmental time is behind him! What he will learn here on is more like incremental improvements, not fundamental development. We simply have to do better before the child turns 6 years of age.
Earlier, the first 5-6 years of a child’s life was spent in a rich environment of joint families where a large peer group, presence of grandparents and the uninterrupted attention of the ‘home-maker’ mother ensured that the child developed through instruction and observation. With nuclear families, smaller family sizes and working moms, that traditional net of child development has slowly disappeared.
Thankfully, help is at hand. There are various options now available to ensure the child gets the right developmental exposure in his early years. Pre-schools, mother-toddler groups, activity centres have come up to ensure parents have access to a research based and scientific approach to child development.
Pre-schools play an important role here. Traditionally, parents have considered pre-schools just as a place where there child can ‘prepare’ for a school and spend some time away from home. Neighbourhood pre-schools also prompted this impression since they were set up by a well meaning aunt who would put together a collection of toys and colourful interiors – in many cases a pre-school passed off for a daycare centre.
This expectation from pre-schools misses a bigger and more fundamental role they play in a child’s development. A pre-school can provide the child a diverse peer group to develop his inter-personal skills. It can offer an age-appropriate environment to stimulate his sensorial development. It can provide professionals trained in child development to guide a child in discovering his unique inclinations. What a parent cannot do on his own, a pre-school can supplement. In effect, a modern pre-school retains the advantages of the traditional system but adds the benefit of research and modern knowledge.
If the first 6 years are so critical and the right pre-school can make all the difference, how can parents select the right pre-school. The next article will carry suggestions on how to select the right pre-school.
Brain research has clearly laid out the pattern of neuron development during a human being’s life span. This research shows that brain development is at its highest from the time of conception to age six. The brain develops as different neurons make connections to form a neural network. Or as Marcus Buckingham, author of First, Break All the Rules puts it, brain development is like building roads between neurons. This ‘road building’ activity is at its highest in the first six years of a man’s life. As more and more stimuli is given to the brain, these roads become wider and smoother – in effect creating a highway in the brain for life. Those areas which are not stimulated remain stunted, in effect creating narrow streets or none at all. As the synaptic activity starts slowing down from age 6 onwards, the brain’s highways and barren areas start to settle. This is what determines what you are good at and what you’ll lean towards in your later life. The time to build highways in the brain is till age 6!
Now compare this body of science to the practice of today. Most parents wake up to their child’s development when it is time for him to go to a school. By this time, the child is already 5 years old. In effect, 80% of his developmental time is behind him! What he will learn here on is more like incremental improvements, not fundamental development. We simply have to do better before the child turns 6 years of age.
Earlier, the first 5-6 years of a child’s life was spent in a rich environment of joint families where a large peer group, presence of grandparents and the uninterrupted attention of the ‘home-maker’ mother ensured that the child developed through instruction and observation. With nuclear families, smaller family sizes and working moms, that traditional net of child development has slowly disappeared.
Thankfully, help is at hand. There are various options now available to ensure the child gets the right developmental exposure in his early years. Pre-schools, mother-toddler groups, activity centres have come up to ensure parents have access to a research based and scientific approach to child development.
Pre-schools play an important role here. Traditionally, parents have considered pre-schools just as a place where there child can ‘prepare’ for a school and spend some time away from home. Neighbourhood pre-schools also prompted this impression since they were set up by a well meaning aunt who would put together a collection of toys and colourful interiors – in many cases a pre-school passed off for a daycare centre.
This expectation from pre-schools misses a bigger and more fundamental role they play in a child’s development. A pre-school can provide the child a diverse peer group to develop his inter-personal skills. It can offer an age-appropriate environment to stimulate his sensorial development. It can provide professionals trained in child development to guide a child in discovering his unique inclinations. What a parent cannot do on his own, a pre-school can supplement. In effect, a modern pre-school retains the advantages of the traditional system but adds the benefit of research and modern knowledge.
If the first 6 years are so critical and the right pre-school can make all the difference, how can parents select the right pre-school. The next article will carry suggestions on how to select the right pre-school.
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