A Montserrat Kindergarten Experience : Celebration, collaboration and co-control among teacher and students

In classrooms influenced by British colonial history, the teacher is the sole decision maker and knowledge expert while children were regarded as passive receptacles. A kindergarten teacher and her students in the British dependent territory of Montserrat, in the West Indies, challenged that perception. Children became active participants through the use of a variety of direct and indirect teaching approaches including play. The interests and abilities of the children were critical in determining the topics that were studied and the activities in which they were engaged. This meant that children played an important management role in the classroom and were in co-control with the teacher. Celebration of accomplishments was ongoing throughout the process and not merely a culminating activity. Teaching and learning were a collaboration between and among students and teacher. Children learned more than the mandated curriculum. The teacher also learned many valuable lessons about the children, the teaching-learning process, and herself as an educator, a researcher and a citizen of the world.