Table Of ContentThe Yew Chung Approach to Early
Childhood Education
This volume details the Yew Chung Approach and the Twelve Values that
exemplify the approach as a unique contribution to the field of early
childhood education.
The Yew Chung Education Foundation (YCEF) in Hong Kong is a
nonprofit organization and a high-quality early childhood program that
promotes a global lens and multilingualism through an emergent curricu-
lum. This book explores the Twelve Values that exemplify the approach,
including relationships, the emergent curriculum, inquiry-based peda-
gogy, and the multilingual and multicultural approach. Grounding these
values in daily classroom practice and the broader sociocultural context
of Hong Kong, it shows how the Yew Chung Approach effectively sup-
ports additional language learning through a progressive emergent cur-
riculum with a high degree of child agency. It also explores the unique
history of Hong Kong as an incubator and setting for the Yew Chung
Approach and considers the relationships between the colonial history of
the city, Hong Kong’s current status as a global city, and the mission of
Yew Chung to provide children with a global lens.
An important study which exemplifies and investigates a unique program
and perspective within the field, this book will benefit scholarly and practi-
tioner audiences within the global early childhood community, as well as
appealing to academics, researchers and postgraduates working within early
childhood education, comparative education, and bilingual education.
Stephanie C. Sanders-Smith is Associate Professor of Early Childhood
Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, and Yew
Chung – Bernard Spodek Scholar in Early Childhood Education at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA.
Sylvia Ya-Hsuan Yang is a Yew Chung Doctoral Fellow in the Department
of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Illinois Urbana-
Champaign, USA.
Kutasha Bryan-Silva is a Yew Chung Doctoral Fellow in the Department
of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Illinois Urbana-
Champaign, USA.
Routledge Research in Early Childhood Education
This series provides a platform for researchers to present their latest
research and discuss key issues in Early Childhood Education.
Books in the series include:
Early Childhood Education in Germany
Exploring Historical Developments and Theoretical Issues
Edited by Bianca Bloch, Melanie Kuhn, Marc Schulz, Wilfried Smidt
and Ursula Stenger
Early Childhood Teachers’ Professional Competence in Mathematics
Edited by Simone Dunekacke, Aljoscha Jegodtka, Thomas Koinzer,
Katja Eilerts and Lars Jenßen
Decisions and Dilemmas of Research Methods in Early Childhood
Education
Edited by Anne Keary, Janet Scull, Susanne Garvis and Lucas Walsh
Play Therapy and Expressive Arts in a Complex and Dynamic World
Opportunities and Challenges Inside and Outside the Playroom
Edited by Isabella Cassina, Claudio Mochi and Karen Stagnitti
The Yew Chung Approach to Early Childhood Education
Centering Emergent Curriculum, Child-Led Inquiry, and
Multilingualism
Stephanie C. Sanders-Smith with Syliva Ya-Hsuan Yang and Kutasha
Bryan-Silva
The Glocalization of Early Childhood Curriculum
Global Childhoods, Local Curricula
Philip Hui Li and Jennifer J. Chen
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.
routledge.com/Routledge-Research-in-Early-Childhood-Education/
book-series/RRECE
The Yew Chung Approach to
Early Childhood Education
Centering Emergent Curriculum,
Child-Led Inquiry, and
Multilingualism
Stephanie C. Sanders-Smith with
Sylvia Ya-Hsuan Yang and
Kutasha Bryan-Silva
First published 2023
by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
and by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an
informa business
© 2023 Stephanie C. Sanders-Smith with Sylvia Ya-Hsuan Yang
and Kutasha Bryan-Silva
The right of Stephanie C. Sanders-Smith, Sylvia Ya-Hsuan Yang,
and Kutasha Bryan-Silva to be identified as authors of this work
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechani-
cal, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trade-
marks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifica-
tion and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this title has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-032-29958-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-29959-4 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-30292-6 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003302926
Typeset in Sabon
by SPi Technologies India Pvt Ltd (Straive)
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Foreword viii
1 Exploring the Yew Chung Approach 1
PART I
The Evolution of the Yew Chung Approach to Early
Childhood Education 25
2 The History of Yew Chung 27
3 The Twelve Values 39
PART II
Foundational Values 53
4 Views of Children 55
5 Relationships 62
PART III
Centering the Child in the Curriculum 79
6 Emergence and Inquiry 81
7 A Multilingual Approach 102
8 Problem Solving and Academic Learning 119
vi Contents
PART IV
The Yew Chung Approach, Today and Tomorrow 133
9 A Day in Yew Chung 135
10 Creating a Society for the Future 146
References 155
Index 163
Illustrations
Figures
2.1 A Representation of Madam Tsang Welcoming Children
to School 29
3.1 The Progression of the Twelve Values 41
6.1 3 Blue, Viewing Beetle Larvae 85
6.2 4 Green, Drumming for Snails 87
6.3 4 Blue, Starbucks Cup 89
6.4 4 Blue, Spacesuit 91
6.5 3 Indigo, Sensory Play with Flour 93
6.6 4 Green, Painting of a Clay Snail in Progress 101
9.1 Octopus Cards 137
9.2 Building Train Tunnels 140
Tables
1.1 2016 Data Collection in Participant Classroom 14
1.2 2018 Yew Chung Hong Kong Teaching Teams 17
7.1 Children’s Languages at Home and School 103
7.2 Frequency of Language Use at School 103
Foreword
Young people need the best possible education if they are to thrive in
their own culture but also as citizens of the world and guardians of its
future. This book describes the Yew Chung Approach to Early Childhood
Education, developed in Hong Kong but now spreading through Asia
and beyond. It sets out the educational philosophy that underpins the
curriculum, pedagogy, and professional structures found in Yew Chung
and Yew Wah schools in Hong Kong and mainland China. The Yew
Chung Approach is not a set of discrete practices but, rather, is a philoso-
phy that draws together Confucian teachings with Western Progressive
Education, especially as proposed by John Dewey. At the core of the phi-
losophy are Twelve Values that lie beneath everyday practices and staff
structures, lifting the education of young children from an instrumental
activity to one that is a moral practice and also a guide for relationships
between adults and children and between peers.
This book is at once a research monograph and a practical guide for
teachers about transforming their everyday practice. The researcher will
focus on data capture and analysis, while the teacher will focus on the
rich descriptions of daily practice and the reasons behind each decision
taken “on the fly” in a classroom or while preparing a staffing plan or job
description. Both the researcher and the teacher will learn to think in new
ways; the researcher will learn more about the case study method as a
means to pose and answer formal research questions while the practicing
teacher or teacher educator will “see” in great detail how one Approach
to early childhood education supports the development of multilingual
and multicultural young students at the start of their educational path-
ways toward global citizenship.
What is unique about this book is the fact that it a sophisticated
research monograph featuring case study methods that are described and
critically reflected upon, while at the same time, the book is a guide that
will inspire early childhood educators to transform their own practices
and organizations. Life in early years centers is described in rich detail ,
beginning with the way that learning is intentionally planned and sup-
ported through interactions between adults and children. The “emergent”
Foreword ix
curriculum is described in the context of an inquiry-based pedagogy that
is richly informed by the Project Approach to children’s learning.
Although the Yew Chung Approach has been multilingual and multicul-
tural since its origins in the 1930s, it was not until this century that its
“translanguaging” pedagogy received its name. From the earliest days the
home languages of children were valued. What is more important and
unusual, however, is that the home language was viewed as a support for
the learning of additional languages; it was an “ally” and not the “enemy”
of new and additional languages. Where did this insight come from?
Perhaps the practice of each Yew Chung classroom being led by co-teach-
ers of equal status but different languages led to the development of
translanguaging pedagogy. The presence of bilingual teachers (and bilin-
gual co-principals) may have made it “natural” for staff and children to
reflect on language and how different languages do things differently.
Conversations in the nursery were not just about the here-and-now (pud-
dles made by umbrellas inside the front door) but also the words we use
after eating too much (feeling “filled up” by birthday cake).
Throughout the book the philosophy behind the Approach is explored
and the two philosophical strands: one from the East and one from the
West are shown to overlap and complement each other. The book argues
that Confucius and Dewey tackled the same problem: how to cultivate
the young person as a whole through moral training, self-cultivation, and
socialization (for Dewey) in democratic institutions. What matters most
in the early years classroom are the relationships of trust and respect and
the child’s own agency in learning. These matter more than specific
resources or scripted learning activities with age-referenced objectives or
tests to “prove” development.
Books on Progressive Education abound, as do books on the 21st-
century curriculum with its emphasis on technology, caring for the envi-
ronment, and collaborations between communities or nation states. What
is unique about this book is the blending of Confucian thought and
Western pragmatic philosophy to create a vision of children as trustwor-
thy, agentive, creative, and capable. In addition to addressing both Eastern
and Western philosophy, the book is the first to demonstrate how a mul-
tilingual classroom, with Chinese- and English-speaking teachers, sup-
ports children to think and carry out everyday social life in two or three
languages. Yew Chung classrooms have featured “translanguaging” well
before the scientific concept had been coined. No doubt Yew Chung
teachers saw with their own eyes that using home language simultane-
ously with second or third language allowed children to engage the power
of the home language while acquiring the second or the third language.
In terms of linguistic and cultural identity, the Yew Chung schools have
always believed that children feel more secure and agentive when they
know that very senior leaders of their classroom speak their home lan-
guage and are always present in times of need.
