Rebecca was in the same project as Cassie. To fide a focus for her action research, she reviewed routines in her child care centre to see, ‘who has the majority of power to make decisions?, as she wrote in her journal. Rebecca’s review led her to ask, ‘How do we change the balance of power and make it more fair and equitable for all?’ In the next excerpt from her journal, Rebecca lists her first actions:
• To talk with children about their ideas about how meal times should look. At the moment children seem to enjoy and eat better when the lunch routine is not hurried and when we give children a choice in what they eat. For example, L will often have two to three servings of rice but if we add the casserole to his plate his refuses to eat at all;
• To talk with parents about their ideas about how to run this routine. For example many of the parents have said that allowing children to serve themselves and select their own food is a good idea as like with adults children also have certain food preferences;
• To work with N. (her co-worker) in establishing a routine that is consistent and then follow through with other teachers and kitchen staff in how routine should run even if N. and I are not in the room; and
• To organize a table where we can serve lunch from and get the children to scrape their plates into a scrape bowl.