Childcare with Mixed Age Groups
From “Kazenoko Letter” No.430 - November 2013
| The other day, I met a mother whose child graduated from our daycare center.
When I asked, “Is your child attending school happily?”, she replied, “Yes,
my child is having a lot of fun at school with friends of the same age
and also friends who are older, thanks to the fact that he grew up in mixed
age classes at the daycare center.” At our daycare center, students who want to become nursery staff in the future come for about 2 weeks every year at the request of the school. 20-30 students come here throughout the year. Half of them experience childcare with mixed age groups. I read the feedback from these students and the same impressions came up from their first experience with mixed age groups. Older children take care of the younger ones and treat them kindly, and younger children respect older ones and learn various things from them. Most of these students didn’t grow up in childcare with mixed age groups, but now many daycare centers mix ages. Urado daycare center in uptown Takatsuki City reformed their methods a couple years ago, to provide childcare with mixed age groups. The president stated that children had totally changed since they started the new style of childcare. It was as though each child had become more independent. Originally, childcare with mixed age groups was proposed by Montessori, a famous Italian doctor and professor. This idea spread all over Europe, and almost 100% of daycare centers in Western countries use this method. In our society, adults live among a mix of genders, ages, ethnicities and cultures. It was thought that a society in which different age groups mix in the same way as the society of adults was necessary for the society of children also. In compulsory education such as in elementary and junior high school, the distinction in age is related to academic levels, so they are organized by grade. However, the daycare center is a place to live, so sibling-like relationships can be said to be meaningful in this setting. |
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