The analogy of the washing machine

We recently attended a session about the new Early Years Learning Framework where Joy Lubawy (a renowned Australian Early childhood Practitioner) presented an analogy about the differences between a front load washing machine and a top loader. She spoke about how a front loader has significantly better wash results but once a cycle has started it cannot be interfered with as you can’t open the door and add more clothes. With a top loader you can keep adding to the machine mid-cycle as you can simply open the door and add more washing to the load. You can’t hurry the front loader and have to wait until a cycle has fully finished and everything is clean, whereas with the top loader you can stop the machine, if you can’t wait as you have somewhere else to be and need to get the washing onto the line or into the dryer, and put the load of washing onto the line even though it is not completely clean. While with the front loader the cycle can’t be interrupted, with the top loader you can change the settings with the flick of the dial or a button to hurry the cycle through.

The presenter, Joy Lubawy, then paused as everyone attending started to think about how this relates to young children and early childhood practice. Do we give young children the time they need in order to be able to develop their learning further and let them ‘finish the cycle’ or do we keep opening the door and adding more clothes to the load and bombarding them with information or ‘teacher directed’ activities? Do we allow them the time and space to be young children or are we so concerned with rushing them through life to reach the next stage that we keep opening the door and taking the load out of the machine before it is clean? Do we let children think and do things for themselves along the road to becoming independent or do we constantly interrupt them, think for them and take away their control by changing the settings on the dial ( and in the long run making them less able to think and to inquire into their world).

We found that the analogy relates well both to the new curriculum ( EYLF) and to our practice in preschool where we are not concerned with rushing the children through the cycle and ensuring that they know ‘their letters and numbers’. The children will learn these as part of their development and engage with literacy and numeracy within their everyday life, both at preschool and elsewhere. Our main goals involve equipping the children with life-long skills – the ability to think and to inquire into their world, to develop a sense of ‘belonging’ to part of a group, to develop dispositions for learning such as curiosity, cooperation, confidence, creativity, commitment, enthusiasm, persistence and imagination to name a few. This is exactly what the Early Years Learning Framework is about and it’s very title ‘Belonging. Being and Becoming’ encourages educators, families and all involved with young children to incorporate these aspects into their practice. Or course our role as practitioners does not involve just standing back and letting the cycle run. The machine has to be adequately loaded, properly checked and maintained and therefore our work in setting up the preschool environment and maintaining this together with the children and families, takes on a central role in what we do every day. We constantly search for ways to collect rich and meaningful information that depicts children’s learning in context, describes their progress and identifies their strengths, skills and understandings (using our knowledge about young children which we too are constantly building upon). This is why the documentation of children’s learning is such an integral part of our work as this drives the curriculum further as we observe what it is that is important to the children and their needs, then build upon this in our daily work by providing the children with the challenges they need. Having high expectations is desirable and necessary, provided those remain reasonable and achievable as well, but it is essential to give children the time they require to achieve those too.

There was one other very suitable comparison. “You must approach front loaders with respect” Joy said when she bent down, pretending to open an imaginative front loader.