O'Connor Cooperative School teacher Yasmine O'Brien was named early childhood teacher of the year and received the Director-General's award at the ACT Public Education Awards 2023. Yasmine is passionate about teaching children to love and care for the environment and makes sure everyone feels like they belong at school.
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00:00 My name is Yasmin O'Brien and I work at O'Connor Cooperative Early Childhood School and I am
00:06 in charge of the preschool and I work in kindergarten on Fridays.
00:10 First of all, congratulations on your awards.
00:13 Thank you.
00:14 How did you feel when you won?
00:16 Overwhelmed and very humble and deeply appreciate the recognition.
00:27 And tell me about why did you get into teaching and early childhood in particular?
00:32 Because first of all I was focused on the very young, preschool to year two because
00:39 I want to make a difference in the lives of the most vulnerable and impressionable children
00:46 so that they can help build their self-concept and self-esteem so they can be sustainable
00:53 and have purpose honours as well as embed their environment to be cared for and embed
01:00 sustainability in the program so that they can have a healthy and happy future.
01:06 Yasmin's love, passion and care shines through in all that she does.
01:13 She embraces diversity and inclusion.
01:17 She includes everybody that comes into our school environment including obviously the
01:22 children, the families, staff, any community members and as I said she embraces diversity
01:29 and inclusion and she makes everyone feel like they belong.
01:33 And so it's very important that children are exposed to nature and spend a lot of time
01:38 in nature because there's been many studies where it raises their well-being and self-esteem
01:45 and it teaches them to appreciate and love the gift that we have on this earth.
01:52 And so what we do with Country as Teachers, we take the children out on Country and they
01:58 listen, see, observe, hear and just for quietly for 10 to 15 minutes and then they share in
02:10 a yarning circle what they felt and what they saw and what they would like to know in their
02:16 wonderings as well.
02:18 So that's what we do out on Country and the preschool have Bush School and Country every
02:26 Thursday for the majority of their time at school and we're just commencing Mondays as
02:31 well.
02:32 Ready?
02:33 1, 2, 3, yay!
02:36 Because they're so impressionable and vulnerable at that age and they're eager to learn and
02:40 so it's really important that they feel a sense of belonging and that they can thrive
02:45 in their environment and once they have that stability they can just shoot through all
02:51 the other years with confidence and self-esteem and a love for each other and the planet.
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