Early childhood educators meet in Calgary to improve teaching practices for next generation

Early childhood educators from around the world are convening in Calgary to exchange best practices and improve learning opportunities for the next generation.

The Busy Bees Talent Exchange welcomed a dedicated team of educators from the U.K., Europe, Asia, Australia, New Zealand and the U.S. to participate in the annual program from Sept. 25 to Oct. 13.

The initiative is put on in collaboration with Canadian-based childcare provider Brightpath in an effort to foster the cross-pollination of pedagogies and methodologies to improve the quality of care and education provided to young children.

"Being such a large global organization, the company is trying to standardize its practices and its programming around the globe so that children get the same high-quality program for their facilities," said BrightPath's chief education officer Samaya Khattak.

"Bringing everyone together unifies that mission, vision and value for the organization. We also created a proprietary curriculum in North America that the global Busy Bees organization will see how applicable it could be."

The talent exchange includes educational events, training, professional development opportunities, sightseeing and experiential excursions.

Zonia Fouria is a childhood centre director from New Zealand that is taking part in this year's exchange. She says her perspective on teaching with different technologies has changed by meeting fellow educators from around the world.

"The biggest challenge I've found is that we always have competed against technology especially with children spending more time behind tablets instead of being outside or exploring," Fouria said.

"But I think as educators that's been also the most exciting thing, because it's up to us to create those magical moments for children, that they want to learn more, they want to engage.

"No matter where you go across the world, it's up to us to create that magic."

Others early childhood educators like Rob Clowse from Wales says that the development of social skills for children has been a major focus of his teaching habits.

"I think in these times it's more to do with preparing children for later on in life and just building those skills for them, really enhancing that at a young age," he said.

"Being with people from around the world has been crazy, there's a lot of shared practice already, but just recognizing staff and the onboarding of staff also. There's been so many things about how we can also recognize staff and work with children and get to know what they're learning about to take it back with us."

Mary Ann Curran, CEO of Busy Bees North America, adds that this talent exchange program is evidence that sharing knowledge and experiences across borders unifies the organization and strengthens efforts to provide children with the best possible care to start their life.

"We firmly believe that the collaborative efforts of bringing together talented educators from diverse backgrounds will lead to a truly transformative learning experience," Curran said.

"The Talent Exchange Program embodies our commitment to raising the standard of early years education and care across the world and fostering a culture of continuous improvement and excellence in service."