Children's Data Collection

Well, I said at the beginning that I was going to tell you a little about the research that I am doing. So as to keep to my word, I am going to continue with a few stories about data collection in Antique. The main purpose of the going to Antique was to set up, train the data collectors in using the Storytech tool, and pilot tools for garnering the children's perspective on a quality ECCD program. Since developing and piloting the children's tool is extremely interesting to me I have decided that I will tell you a little about our two days in Egana Day Care Center. First, as you have seen from the previous pictures I have posted, the day care centers are not like our day care centers in the United States. That is comprised of a building with many rooms inside. Instead, they are comprised on either a one room building or one room withing another building, usually the community center or health center. I am attaching two pictures of Egana Day Care Center.

Teacher Norma(not real name) has been teaching day care for thirteen years, with 98 students enrolled in three sessions (so you can do the math, over 30 students per session). She arrives at the day care 7 AM and leaves at 5 PM. As you can see from the day care, she has worked extremely hard to make it a warm and inviting atmosphere. With extremely limited resources I am absolutely amazed!! Last year the Barangay Council (the village council) decided to each give 100 pesos/month out of their salary to increase Teacher Norma's salary from 2000 pesos (~$40/month)to 3000 pesos (~$60).

So, after our team had discussed with Teacher Norma how it doing the storytelling activities would work the best in her classroom, we were set to pilot it the activities out with one group of children. So, we too arrive at 6:45 A.M. to prepare for 35 children and four activities. The four activities we decided that the children may enjoy were storytelling with painting, storytelling with drawing, playdough, and water play. Initially we had thought that we would separate the children into four groups by their shape name tags, but in the end the children we quite content to go from one activity to another.

From the pilot we discovered two main things, first the children had never seen or "played" with paint or playdough. So, the first group of children at the painting table, sat there for a minute.. then stared at the paint and then Michelle showed them how to use the brush and paint and without a moments hesitation, they were painting sheet after sheet(we actually had to limit the pages;). Then any subsequent child to come to the paint table, watched the others for a moment and then went to it on their own. Now, the initial point of the painting was to use it as a forum to express their perspectives about what they liked in day care, what they would like to change etc.. Yet, since none of them had painted before, they were so excited about painting that they didn't really want to listen to the story and paint certain things. So, how could we go against the child's wishes as this was the whole point of the exercise-to listen to the child- so we just let them enjoy and as they were painting asked them to tell us about their paintings.

I was going to show you a picture of the children's painting, but them remembered that their names are on them, so I can't disclose names. But I have to tell you the names some of the children had were extremely interesting!! Named after bands, Axel Rose, Nirvana, etc.. Christina Aguilera (Sp?)

A similar thing happened with the playdough, though with the playdough there was no intention of asking the child to mold any particular thing. After the parents had created all the flowers, cell phones, dinosaurs etc... the children finally decided that they could have a turn at creating their own things. After this activity, it became extremely apparent how much our society values individual creation and creativity. Whereas, it was much more valued to copy the adults creations, than create one's own creation.
As I just mentioned above, the parents were creating objects. Well, in such a small place our presence created quite the stir in the village. People were curious, so at all time throughout the activities you could see about twenty people peering through the windows and around the tables outside we were working on. Parents were extremely respectful, they were honestly just curious! I think they had just as much fun with the playdough as the children!!
Well now what the kids thought of me:) When the first saw me, they just stared. I would say something and they would stare. I would smile and they would stare. But after about 1/2 hour of me being in their classroom, they decided that I was just like any other adult:) Just had different colored eyes and hair!! At least that is what I was told!:)
Overall, I believe it was a great time had by all!!

Iloilo- Panay Island

Sorry for the delay in posts, I have been working setting up, piloting and starting the data collection process in the second area West Visayas. Panay Island
More specifically, we are collecting data in the Antique Province, Sibalom Muncipality and Egana and Igpanolong (has taken me at least of constant practice to say the second one:) barangays. So for the last two weeks, the West Visayas research team, which is composed of myself, Joy (Technical ECD Coordinator), Arve (Research Assistant), and Michelle (Notetaker, Transcriber) have been working hard (to be honest they have been working harder the me) at translating, piloting, and setting up the data collection schedules!
For one of our pilots we conducted it with parents in a small village in Valderamana (Boroc-Boroc Barangay) where no vehicle could get to in the Monsoon season (see picture to give you an idea what it is like 5 out of 7 days during Monsoon season:). Hmm... you may wonder how did we get the the village. Well as so many people do in this world, we walked to the village:) One river in particular was about knee deep, with quite a strong current. So when crossing it was a good idea to have a few people linked together to stablize oneself while crossing. See pictures of us crossing the river! It wasn't so so hot that day, but still getting a little wet definitely helped keep up cool.

The village was about 2 km walk, no hills or mountains so it was a very pleasant and a beautiful walk. When we arrived at around 11 in the morning, we were greeted by many women and children! Many quite curious as to who this strange looking person was and what she was doing here. The main purpose of the visit was to celebrate the children's summer learning program. The program is designed for children who have not had any experience in an early childhood program. It is a six week transition/ preparatory for 1st grade program.
Of course since we were very close to the ocean (well on the ocean), I was itching to go for a swim. But unfortunately, the rain did not cooperate this time and I was not able to go:(