Alberta´s Story
Alberta is an early childhood teacher for 29 years and she works in a private non-profit institution, Creche/ Pre-Escolar de Vermoim, in the North of Portugal. This institution has a long standing collaboration with School of Education of Porto (SEP) in the professional preparation of prospective early childhood teachers. Alberta is a cooperating teacher and has been involved in the supervision of practicum experiences of SEP’ s students for several years.
Rodrigo was 3-years-old and was selected to participate in this project. His parents agreed with his participation, motivated by the possibility of supporting their child in the preschool context, but also motivated by the prospect of helping other children and professionals that struggle with similar challenging problems.
During the first interview, previous to the P2G try-out, Alberta referred to social experiences that were particularly difficult for Rodrigo in the classroom: “Accepting others’ opinions, he has lots of difficulties in accepting others’ opinions, and in sharing. And also he has difficulties in accepting rules, he thinks that rules don’t have to exist, because if he wants, it is like that, it is his own will that prevails. He doesn’t feel the need for rules to exist, or to follow the rules. (..) And waiting for his turn and accept the others’ turn, very rarely is he able to give the turn to other child.” Meanwhile, in the same interview, when asked to choose three words to characterize the relation with Rodrigo, Alberta chose: affectionate (“Rodrigo is sweet, he is very sweet”), joy and encouragement (“he is now better than he was at the beginning of the year”). So, in spite of experiencing difficulties in dealing with some of Rodrigo’s behaviours and attitudes, Alberta characterized in a sensitive and respectful way her relation with the child. This sensitivity and respect showed to be very relevant for the success of the P2G try-out.
Throughout the training in P2G, Alberta noted a positive reaction on the part of Rodrigo to P2G competences and procedures. He enjoyed being with Alberta and started involving other children in their play. For Alberta, some challenges became particularly noteworthy: the struggle to use the competences in a natural, non-automatized, way, and the confrontation with her natural tendency to praise and stimulate children. The need to refrain from intervening and letting the child take the lead was one of the her most acute difficulties, as she highlights in the last interview: “Because I had the stimulation, for me it was very important, very important, and without the stimulation I felt lost during the filming, I was blocked, there were moments I didn’t know what to say.”
As for the impact of the experimentation of the P2G on Rodrigo’s experience, Alberta referred to higher levels of well-being, less conflicts with other children and more attention and empathy towards other children. In Alberta’s perception, the more salient gains in her own learning were accepting the child in a more authentic way (“(…) I really think these competences allow to accept the child in a really authentic way, without questioning her (…) that was one of the most important things that I’ve learned, really accepting the child without interfering with my assessment, with my stimulation.”), and also identifying and valuing positive feelings and well-being in a wider range of daily circumstances (“Sometimes we are not aware of the things we are doing and I reached the conclusion that I described feelings in situations of conflict, of discomfort or when we were meeting in a large group (…) I don’t know why, I had never reflected (…) and really it doesn’t make sense, does it? We should also describe feelings in other moments and it’s funny that Rodrigo starts to use… he says “I’m happy”, “This was incredible”. I didn’t value the more positive moments, the more pleasurable moments.”). Furthermore, Alberta stressed, in her last interview, that the involvement in the P2G was just the first phase of her learning journey and that further experimentation, observation and reflection were needed.
Click here to know Alberta´s story! Professional story.Alberta.Rodrigo