The first week of July marked a very important and very educational experience for the YCIS Early Childhood Education (ECE) teachers who attended the 14th Annual Conference of the Pacific Early Childhood Education Research Association’s (PECERA) held in Seoul, South Korea. The theme for this year’s conference was “Empowering Children’s Empathy via Early Childhood Education.” The opening speech, given by Dr Betty Chan Po-king, Director of the Yew Chung Education Foundation and the President of PECERA, was met with an extended round of applause.

During this three-day conference held in the picturesque Ewha Womans University, participants from America, Australia, China, Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, India, Thailand, and several other countries listened to experts in the field and reviewed reports and posters provided by ECE practitioners. They also visited various model kindergartens and early education institutions in Seoul.

Six teachers from YCIS Shanghai took part in the conference. Mr Douglas Arnold and Ms Sharon Wan gave a presentation on “Enhancing Children’s empathy through Creative and Critical Thinking.” During their report, they shared the example of a diverse classroom of four-year-old students, explaining how Western and Chinese teachers can work together to create different kinds of topics in the learning environment based on games. They also focused on how to inspire the children to have meaningful, bilingual discussions in order to enhance their empathy. 

Ever since 2000, when the first PECERA conference was held in Japan, the delegates from YCIS who have attended these annual conferences have returned to actively share the information with their teaching colleagues, thereby providing shared learning with the aim of improving educational skills and goals.  

On the final day of the conference, Dr Chan delivered inspiring closing remarks -- a very fitting way to end another successful conference.

Contributed by: Ms Song Lin, ECE Chinese Co-ordinator, YCIS Shanghai Hongqiao Campus