It is often said that young children in the Western Tradition have an innate desire to investigate and make sense of the world. Philosophy is about asking these important questions and trying to justify our answers. In the process of looking for an answer for their teachers, young children’s creative thoughts are enhanced, which in turn has kept in line with the prevailing global trend of educational practise. By engaging themselves in applying the questioning and scaffolding techniques, teachers would be able to gain a deeper understanding of how philosophical thinking would enhance their understanding of the meaning of learning and teaching and the nature of knowledge. Correspondingly, by engaging young children with Philosophy, young children’s creative mind could be enhanced. This paper reports a research study conducted in a child-care centre in Hong Kong which aimed at exploring how far have the preschool teachers gained in understanding that young children’s expression of creative thoughts could be enhanced through their use of questioning techniques. The findings suggest that teachers in the Eastern Tradition differ ideologically with those in the West on how creativity is viewed and expressed through philosophy generated by the young children.

The Chinese number system is believed to aid Chinese children in learning mathematics, which may help to explain the differences in mathematics performance between English-speaking and Chinese-speaking children. This chapter discusses Hong Kong Chinese preschool children’s mathematics learning and pre-primary and primary transition from the perspective of language and culture. Hong Kong preschool children have been found to perform better in mathematics compared with their English-speaking peers. Although the Chinese number naming system helps to explain the children’s better performance in learning individual mathematics concepts, this is insufficient in itself to account for the children’s performance. Other factors, such as classroom instruction and cultural beliefs about mathematics learning, may also have an important influence on children’s mathematics performance. Further studies involving teachers have shown that there is top-down pressure for Hong Kong preschools to adopt an academically focused curriculum. The Chinese cultural aspiration for academic success and the quest for a smooth pre-primary and primary transition have led to the use of the traditional drill-and-practice approach for teaching particular advanced mathematics concepts in Hong Kong preschools. The implications of this for early childhood mathematics teaching are discussed.
[Copyright © 2015 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore].

Several leadership approaches have been advocated as effective ways of bringing about substantial changes in practices. “Instructional” or “transactional leadership” describes the qualities of a leader who provides the vision and impetus for change. In contrast, “transformational leadership” refers to those whose approach is more consistent with evolving trends in educational reform such as empowerment, distributed leadership, and co-construction of learning. Hong Kong has launched a variety of education reforms that focus on quality of learning and teaching. While there has been a general recognition of the importance of teacher leadership few efforts have been made to identify and promote specific approaches to teacher leadership designed to bring about desired improvements at the early childhood stage. The present study examines how teacher leaders conceive their role within current school leadership models. In this study kindergarten/preschool teachers of the senior management team were asked to complete a questionnaire concerning various aspects of leadership. Factor analysis, however, was unable to replicate the clear patterns found in Western countries which broadly differentiated between transactional and transformational styles of leadership. Instead a mix of styles was more often reported. A number of possible explanations for this finding are considered and some implications for policy makers wishing to transform kindergarten education in Hong Kong are put forward.
[Copyright © 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York.]

The formation of attitude towards gender roles begins at an early age and it is important for the education system to address the factors involved. Textbooks play an important role in local early childhood education settings. It is uncertain that the extent to which this issue has been addressed sufficiently. This paper discusses the depiction of gender roles in the thematic subject – Integrated Curriculum from Kindergartens 1 to 3. a questionnaire was distributed to 224 serving Kindergarten teachers attending the Certificate in Kindergarten Education Programme at the Hong Kong Institute of Education to determine the most commonly used publisher. A case study was employed to review the thematic textbooks published by the chosen publishers. Data collection methods included textbook content analysis and focused group teacher interviews. Implications and recommendations were made for kindergarten teachers, curriculum developers and teacher educators.

This pilot study was about the effectiveness of the integration policy for disabled children in Hong Kong's mainstream kindergartens from the viewpoints of teachers.
[Copyright © 2005 Common Ground, Yuk Ching Eva Lai.]