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Accommodation of Young Learners in "Make Way for Ducklings"

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Accommodation of Young Learners in "Make Way for Ducklings"

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Published in 1941, Make Way for Ducklings, by Robert McClosekey, is a children’s animal adventure story that takes place in the city of Boston. It follows the growth and journey of eight mallard ducklings in a fun, yet busy environment. An illustration shows traffic being stopped, four ways, to let the ducks pass, while people wonder at the neat line of ducks passing, and while one traffic officer looks over in concern (McClosekey). The traffic stopping to let ducks pass is, for the most part, an unusual sight in the city. It is rare to find traffic stopped to accommodate small creatures, or young learners, for that matter, and McClosekey makes the statement that this level of care should be more common, even in busy cities. A question for research is: What are some realistic and attainable ways for urban environments to accommodate young learners beyond the safety of their school grounds?

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Traffic is stopped, four ways, to let the ducklings cross the street in a fictional world in which young learners are a priority over busy adults. Robert McClosekey, Make Way for Ducklings, 1941, print.

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Children Benefit from Daily Physical Activity

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Children Benefit from Daily Physical Activity

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It is necessary for children to develop their social and cognitive skills, among others. A way for children to develop these skills is through daily physical activity. The study "Self-Perceptions and Social-Emotional Classroom Engagement Following Structured Physical Activity among Preschoolers: A Feasibility Study" by Vazou et al., finds that after daily physical activity, students show evidence of improved cognitive ability and social engagement. These findings show that children indeed benefit developmentally from physical activity, and therefore, that daily physical activity is necessary in preschools. Additionally, if children benefit from physical activity, and if children partake in physical activity while playing outside, then essentially, children benefit from paying outside. This means that the more chance children get to play outside, daily, the more beneficial to them, especially considering that the more space a child is given to be active, the more active he is able to be.

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Impediments to Daily Physical Activity Beyond School Grounds

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Impediments to Daily Physical Activity Beyond School Grounds

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What are the impediments to this? How to they can be resolved? In urban environments, the impediments to preschool children playing outside, are the following: a disregard for children in city planning, not enough teachers for children to leave the school supervised, and teachers’ own mistaken perceptions of school safety. This is an important research area because children cognitively and socially benefit from daily physical activity; increasingly, in urban areas in particular, it is more difficult for children to play outdoors any further than their allotted playground; and preschool children have opinions of and ideas for their outdoor environments.

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Children Making Decisions About their Environments

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Children Making Decisions About their Environments

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Children exercising their critical abilities and decision-making should be encouraged, particularly in a learning environment. In Creating Child Friendly Cities, Gleeson and Sipe note that children are intimately familiar with their environment, and if they are familiar with their environment, then they provide more accurate analysis of it, leading to more helpful ideas for their its improvement. Take as an example, Chen and Wang’s study, "Children’s Evaluation of the Physical Environment Quality in Kindergarten: A Case Study from China". It finds that kindergarten students are able to evaluate their physical environments by criteria including difficulty of use, functionality, layout, and more. Children evaluated their outdoor environments more positively than their indoor environments, suggesting that they either enjoy their outdoor environment or have challenges with their indoor environment. Children’s ability to critically evaluate their environments based on objective criteria means that they can and should be encouraged to participate in changing their environments, including and especially their outdoor play space, as this would mean an intersection, for them, between more spent playing outdoors, as well developing their critical and decision-making skills. These findings show that children have helpful opinions of their environment.

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UNICEF's "Child Friendly Cities" as a Framework

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UNICEF's "Child Friendly Cities" as a Framework

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City planning impacts how children experience their environment, which influences how, and how often, they interact with it. Among other opportunities and freedoms, Child Friendly Cities, as defined by UNICEF, in their website, "What is a Child-Friendly City?", are cities that allow for children and other young people to influence decisions; express their opinions; be protected from exploitation, violence, abuse; walk safely on the streets on their own; have green spaces; have an unpolluted environment; and participate in cultural and social events.

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City Planning Ignores the Need for Children to Be Outdoors

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City Planning Ignores the Need for Children to Be Outdoors

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Urban sprawl is an impediment to the ideal Child Friendly City. Urban sprawl is a city’s population growth and consequent size expansion. This size expansion causes an increase in car dependency, and effectively reduces the ease of biking and walking to and from locations. This dependency means that, instead of walking, or riding any non-motorized vehicle to and from daily institutions such as school or daycare, children miss out on physical activity by instead being driven in cars as transportation, (through which they are not physically active.) International research compared American children as fatter, slower, weaker as a result of decline in physical fitness programs in schools and an increase in sedentary activities. Considering, then, that children are partaking in ever-sheltered and physically sedentary activities at home, such as gaming, using the internet, and watching television, as well as this fact of car dependency eliminating the need for biking and walking or simply being outdoors, it is clear that the only time in which children are likely to be physically active is during school. This restriction to school as a facilitator for physical activity, then, means that schools are more accountable for children’s physical activity levels. Daily outdoor physical activity should be mandatory, considering again, that outdoor play space allows for greater freedom to explore, learn, and be active.

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"Japan's Independent Kids" in a Child Friendly City

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"Japan's Independent Kids" in a Child Friendly City

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This young Japanese student is an example of a child thriving in a Child Friendly City, one in which she may walk the streets safely on her own, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7YrN8Q2PDU

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The Importance of Preschool Teachers, their Role, and Training

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The Importance of Preschool Teachers, their Role, and Training

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In Make Way for Ducklings, Mrs. Mallard can be identified as a teaching figure for the eight young learners. She teaches them how to "swim and dive" (McClosekey), which are skills that later help the ducklings navigate their environment. By teaching the ducklings how to perform these basic skills, Mrs. Mallard helps the ducklings be safe in their environment. A school teacher’s role, on the other hand, with regard to children being able to play outdoors daily is a complex one, as there are not enough teachers, and they are not adequately trained for perceiving school safety or danger.

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Mrs. Mallard acts as a teacher as well as a mother to her eight ducklings as they learn, from her, basic survival skills through which to survive in their environment. Robert McClosekey, Make Way for Ducklings, 1941, print.

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Not Enough Preschool Teachers for Supervision

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Not Enough Preschool Teachers for Supervision

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The study "Early Childhood Teachers’ Views and Teaching Practices in Outdoor Play with Young Children in Singapore", by Ebbeck et al., finds that kindergarten teachers agree that outdoor play is beneficial for young children. It finds that 46% of kindergarten teachers say that students have daily opportunities for outdoor play, which means that less than half of kindergarten children play outdoors daily. It also notes that teachers’ highest difficulties include health and safety, as well as physical and human resources. This knowledge is valuable as a guideline for understanding what needs to be changed in urban kindergartens in order for children to have more chances for outdoor play each day. Kindergartens should have more supervisory staff in order for children to be adequately guarded while outdoors. Adequate supervision would allow for almost all children to play outdoors, daily.

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The study "A Comparison of Urban and Rural Kindergarten Teachers' Perceptions of School Safety for Young Children: Implications for Quality Teacher Education", by Wong, finds that urban preschool teachers are lacking the safety awareness that is recorded as higher for rural teachers, indicating a problem in teacher education. Quality in education depends on the context, as urban teacher education and rural teacher education might need to take different factors into account. This knowledge lets us know that urban teachers are relatively lacking in safety awareness, indicating a precautionary issue for the safety of urban preschool children. Wong advises, that “These findings should inform teacher-training institutions to consider improving teachers’ motivation in promoting child safety with respect to teachers’ contexts.” This shows that teacher education should improve to reflect the importance of school safety on and beyond school grounds. This would allow for students to safely explore beyond school grounds rather than be shielded from unknown levels of danger.

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Chen, Huan, and Xiaoying Wang. "Children’s Evaluation of the Physical Environment Quality in Kindergarten: A Case Study from China." International Journal of Early Childhood, vol. 50, no. 2, 2018, pp. 175-192.

Ebbeck, Marjory, Hoi Y. B. Yim, and Sheela Warrier. "Early Childhood Teachers’ Views and Teaching Practices in Outdoor Play with Young Children in Singapore." Early Childhood Education Journal, 2019, pp. 1-9.

Gleeson, Brendan, and Neil G. Sipe. Creating Child Friendly Cities: Reinstating Kids in the City. Routledge, 2006.

McCloskey, Robert. Make Way for Ducklings. Viking Press, 1969.

The Feed, director. Japan's Independent Kids. YouTube, 7 Sept. 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7YrN8Q2PDU.

UNICEF. “What Is a Child-Friendly City?” Child Friendly Cities Initiative, 2019, www.childfriendlycities.org/what-is-a-child-friendly-city/.

Vazou, Spyridoula, Constantine Mantis, Gayle Luze, Jacqueline S.Krogh. "Self-Perceptions and Social-Emotional Classroom Engagement Following Structured Physical Activity among Preschoolers: A Feasibility Study." Journal of Sport and Health Science, vol. 6, no. 2, 2017, pp. 241-247.

Wong, Yau-ho P. "A Comparison of Urban and Rural Kindergarten Teachers' Perceptions of School Safety for Young Children: Implications for Quality Teacher Education." Early Child Development and Care, vol. 187, no. 1, 2017, pp. 80-88.

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The images in this online exhibit are either in the public domain or being used under fair dealing for the purpose of research, and are provided solely for the purposes of research, private study, or education.