On March 7th, Dr. Sanders-Smith from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was invited to a dialogue with the teachers and students at the Yew Chung College of Early Childhood Education to explore the application of the "Yew Chung Approach to Early Childhood Education" in education of teacher preparation. The dialogue focused on how to extend the 12 Values of the Yew Chung Approach when preparing our teachers for early childhood education, and explore the connection of the Approach to existing curriculum. 

Dr. Sanders-Smith engaged with the audience through interactive discussions, providing insights from the perspectives of students, teachers, and the college. Throughout the discussion, they explored the essence of the Yew Chung Approach to Early Childhood Education. There is a consensus that the Yew Chung Approach combines the classic Western early childhood education philosophy with local Confucianism through the lens of play-based learning. The Yew Chung Approach emerges from years of professional teaching practices and accumulated experience with children of the Yew Chung Early Childhood Education programme.

The discussion also touched on how to support students with multi-cultural backgrounds in their learning and daily lives, how to establish a solid relationship of trust and respect between teachers and students, and how to address different student performance in classroom teaching and practical teaching. By revisiting and rethinking the existing teacher training curriculum through the twelve core values of the Yew Chung Approach, the talk aimed to help future early childhood educators prepare for the challenges of teaching.