Dr Deborah Harcourt

Episode 10 Is there a silver lining in the budget for early childhood?

In this episode, we look at the recent federal budget and try to look for opportunities to grow as a self-managed profession in terms of the quality of our work with children.

Episode 9 Educational leader as a respectful challenger

In this episode, we re-imagine the role of educational (or pedagogical) leader as one who is a respectful challenger in order to help us confront ideas and make the familiar strange.

Episode 8 Context as the third teacher

In this episode I explore the idea of moving away from "environment as the third teacher", to context as the third teacher and challenge the idea that environments for children need to be more of the same from a catalogue.

Episode 7 Are we documenting in an ethical way?

In this episode, we question the ethics of current documentation practices with a focus on a deeper consideration to involving children in deciding what is significant and what is made visible for others to see.

Episode 6: Is Reggio Emilia an unreachable star?

In this episode I try to explore the key tenets of Reggio Emilia and ask if in fact, makes this approach to early childhood education unreachable for most.

Episode 5: The family tree vs Identity

In this episode I explore the notion of children's identity and how it might be being railroaded by Familiy trees and portraits. 

Episode 4: Documentation fatigue

In this episode I examine what many educators are suffering from: "Documentation fatigue" and try to offer some solutions - loosely under the banner of what I call the 5 Ps.

Episode 3: Sacred cows

In this episode I try to explore and rethink some of the most common 'sacred cows' in early childhood - water, sand and playdough.

Episode 2: Identifying quality

In this episode I examine three questions around quality:

1. Can quality look like something?
2. Can quality be branded?
3. How easy is it to put on a mask to masquerade as quality?

Episode 1: The rush hours

In this first episode we look at "The rush hours: Reclaiming 11-2 for children" and how we might rethink meal and rest times for our youngest citizens in early childhood settings.