Some radical thinking is emerging from one of Hong Kong's top kindergartens. Teddy bears and bunny rabbits have been banished from the nursery walls in an educative bid to foster creative thought in three-year-olds.
'I want abstract things, not representation,' says Sophia Chan, headmistress of Ling Liang Church Kindergarten, in line with her non-didactic approach to the three Rs.
Ms Chan believes that providing guidelines, rather than telling children what to do, is the crux of education. In support of this belief a fundamental redesign of her school-room premises in Happy Valley has taken place.
Ms Chan is pleased with the success of the refurbishment because it seems to be eliciting the hoped-for responses in her pupils - responses that show their imaginations are being stimulated.
One little girl refers to the red-coated pillars that support the roof in the main playroom as 'the eight red candles'. And the abstract structure resembling the form of a one-columned house that has been built in the same area inspired one four-year-old to spend the afternoon attempting to build his own mini-version, using just one support. Ms Chan hopes this may imbue him with a desire to practise architecture.
These two small examples corroborate her initial objective to make the design part of the instructive process 'include elements that elicit a range of comparative ideas'.