Early Childhood Education: A Teacher's Role

In "Early Childhood:  A Plea from the Field" , I wrote about the importance of the early learning years, and how early childhood educators are so often misunderstood and under-appreciated.  It's harder to measure learning in early childhood because there are no products to assess achievement; no tests, quizzes, homework, etc.  The early childhood curriculum is more focused on building developmental skills.  It's about process, not content.  And since children learn through play, an outsider to the field may not understand the teacher's role in the classroom.  What does the teacher do while the children play?

I began to understand how children learn through play when I was an undergraduate doing field work for a developmental psychology course.  I was volunteering at an inner city nursery school in Binghamton, NY.  One day I was playing catch with a three year old boy.  As we played, the teacher said to me, "Use language, Georgia."  So I started labeling what we were doing:  "Catch the ball.  Good catch.  Now throw it to me.  I missed! ", on and on, adding new words such as high, low, far, close, etc. in the context of our play.  Aha! That's how you learn through play.  Not only did the child have words to put to our actions, but he learned about the effects of his muscles on the trajectory of the ball.

Children learn enormous amounts about the world around them through play.  A gifted, qualified teacher can help her students rack up major educational advantages. Early childhood professionals understand the continuum of child development.  They know the steps needed to achieve goals. Through observations and interactions, they determine each child's place on that developmental continuum and create an environment for optimal learning.  

Let's think about learning to read for example. Learning to read is a process that begins at birth and is not completed until the college years.  Since reading is a form of communication, it is intimately connected to the other components of language:  listening, speaking, and writing.  So the first step in learning to read is to build a rich vocabulary of spoken words.  A baby listens to the sounds around her and begins to connect them with things and actions.  As a socially motivated being, she coos and babbles in an attempt to become  a communicative partner.  When paired with a responsive adult, she learns the meaning of words and eventually tries them out on her own.  

This is the very beginning, the foundation of reading.  A skilled early childhood teacher creates a literacy enriched environment that can maximize her students' potential for language acquisition.  She listens to the children's conversations and imaginative play roles, and introduces words and opportunities for extending learning.  If children are playing doctor for example, the teacher can add props such as a stethoscope, band-aids, mini flashlight.  She can give the children a clipboard and notepad for prescriptions, maybe an eye chart or xrays.  She can transcribe the children's role-playing ideas and encourage them to dictate stories.  She can include books about doctor visits in the class library and read them at story time. She can invite a doctor to visit the class, and encourage children to ask questions.  

The doctor scenario is a rough outline of how children's play can be enriched to promote their emerging literacy skills.  Meaningful vocabulary, concepts, and experiences with print are naturally woven into the children's self-directed activities.  Early childhood teachers have an arsenal of such activities to promote every aspect of developmental learning, including math, science, social studies, art, music, and social-emotional skills.  Every corner of the classroom, and every minute of the day, is carefully and intentionally planned to promote learning that is fun, active, and appropriate to the students.

It might be important to point out what the teacher has not done.  She hasn't ignored the children's play.  She hasn't given the children worksheets, coloring sheets, or other two dimensional pencil and paper tasks.  She hasn't lectured, or followed up a book with closed-ended questions.  She hasn't limited the children's experiences to conform with what she knows and thinks.  She isn't "playing school", watering down elementary curriculum to fit younger children.

An early childhood teacher is more of a facilitator of learning than a source and sharer of knowledge.  Her work is thoroughly connected to the children's current interests and developmental levels. Children and teachers are collaborators in uncovering lessons from classroom experiences.  The rewards can be remarkable:  a timid child gaining confidence; a pre-reading child dictating a detailed story, a child who has learned to use scissors, grasp a pencil, write his name.  There are also many intangible rewards, which may be hard to see. But we know that it is in the early childhood classroom that children learn about respect, responsibility, kindness and compassion.

No one enters the field of early childhood education to make a lot of money.  Teaching young children is as much a calling as it is a job, and early childhood educators are among the most committed, caring, hard-working and talented folks around.  Learning looks different in the early years, and it takes a qualified professional to understand that.

The Age of Entitlement

 My last post, Hello Sunshine, touched upon the effects of a cheerful greeting.  One reader shared her observation that today's kids are not being taught to greet people as they enter a room.  It got me thinking about the importance of teaching our children this common courtesy.  Children have as much to gain as adults in greeting others pleasantly.  And it struck me that our failure to teach this basic social skill might be a side effect of what teachers today refer to as "entitlement".  Entitlement is a buzzword in schools everywhere.  It refers to the attitude of many parents and children that they have the right to get whatever they want simply because they want it. To me it brings to mind a titled monarch; someone to whom others owe allegiance.  So many parents seem driven to shield their children from any unpleasantness in life while simultaneously pushing them ahead as far as they can. Teachers are no longer considered authority figures.  If a child doesn't do his homework for example, it's not uncommon for his parent to make excuses and argue that he not be penalized.  Some of us remember being in trouble at home if the teacher called to discuss our behavior.  Today, parents are more likely to place the blame for a child's misbehavior elsewhere:  on the teacher, the school, or the other students. A colleague of mine once dealt with a difficult parent over the phone.  His fifth grade son had been acting aggressively on the school bus, and actually bit another child. The father ranted about the other kids, the bus driver, the school's responsibility, until my friend said to him, "At some point, you're going to have to stop defending him and let him take responsibility for his actions.".  I could have kissed her.

 Entitlement is selfishness.  It dismisses the needs, feelings, and rights of other people.  I'm not sure that we can pinpoint a specific origin for this phenomenon, and I don't believe that it began solely with parents.  It may have begun years ago, when psychologists and others became concerned with the development of children's self-esteem.  This led to over-praising children, accepting mediocre work as a "good job" or effortless scribbles as "beautiful".  Many parents, for various reasons, are reluctant to say "no" to their children, so kids are accustomed to getting what they want.  (Take a look at my post "All You Need Is Love" for more on this).   Or it may be that a sense of entitlement stems from our stressed out, achievement oriented society, where getting ahead is a top priority. The  very term "getting ahead" implies competition; ahead of someone else.  We push our children to get into the best schools, to get top grades, to pad their college resumes with extracurricular activities.  And schools contribute to this feeling of competition as teachers and students struggle to meet the demands of more standardized tests and rigorous academics pushed down to younger and younger grades.  In addition, parents today may be more protective of their children because the world is a scarier place than it used to be.  Leaving children to play outdoors unsupervised is not an option for most families, so we keep them under our constant guard.  Children believe that they are special and that mom and dad will take care of all their needs.  But the job of parenting is to raise our children to be independent.  We need to guide them to make smart decisions and then to be accountable for their decisions.  It's important to learn to follow rules and protocols in order to be a responsible citizen.  We can't fix all of our children's problems, and we actually cause more harm than good by trying to do so.

No one wants a spoiled, coddled child.  How can we reasonably protect our children  without sheltering them in a gilded bubble?   How can we advocate for their best interests while teaching them to take care of themselves?   There is a terrific parenting book that addresses this problem.   It's called The Blessing of a Skinned Knee, by Wendy Mogel, PhD, and was a cult favorite several years ago. It is a wonderful resource for raising resilient, self-reliant children.  The author basically promotes the idea that falling down, scraping a knee, making mistakes, even getting hurt, are all healthy steps on the road to growing up.  We want our children to learn to grow from their mistakes, not to avoid them.

A focused greeting can offset a sense of entitlement by forcing a child to acknowledge the presence of other people.  It can take her out of her own head for a minute and  demonstrate respect.  When I was a little girl, my parents would coach my siblings and me before every visit to friends and family.  We had to kiss every adult in the room hello, and then again when it was time to say good-bye.  We were not allowed to call any adult by their first name.  We were taught to look behind us as we went through a door, so that we could hold it open for anyone who might be following.  We learned to wait on lines and to only talk to people when they were in the same room as us.  We were expected to clean up our own mess, wherever we were.

These lessons work equally well today.  When we held kindergarten orientation programs in my former school, I included a bus orientation.  I taught the children to line up to enter the bus and to say "hello" to the bus driver.  I reviewed all the procedures that would keep them safe, then taught them to say  "thank you" to the bus driver as they exited. People who serve us, such as bus drivers, waiters, gas station attendants, etc., should not be made to feel invisible.  They are doing us a favor (yes, even though they're getting paid to do so).   Acknowledging them and the nice things they do for us shows respect and gratitude. 

 There are a couple of things on the educational horizon that I believe will cause the downfall of the Age of Entitlement.  One is the new approach to teaching called 'growth mindset'.  In a fixed mindset, a person's abilities, intelligence, and talents are considered fixed traits that cannot be changed.  Growth mindset proposes that everyone can develop their intellect, talents and abilities through effort and persistence.  In terms of entitlement, a child with a fixed mindset is more concerned with grades than learning.  If she does poorly on an assignment, she might fight the teacher for a better grade.  On the other hand, a child with a growth mindset will be curious about her mistakes, embrace the chance to try again, and continue learning.  Teaching a growth mindset holds exciting prospects for the field of education and the potential for authentic, life-long learning.

Another trend in education today is the emphasis on projects and collaborative group work.  In the high school where I taught Spanish, many teachers assigned projects to their classes in lieu of unit tests.  For example, in one of my Spanish classes, we learned vocabulary related to homes.  I assigned a project on Antoni Gaudi, a famous Spanish architect.  The students worked in small groups to research his biography and one of his buildings.  They used this information to compose a multi-media presentation, in which one student played the role of a real estate agent, and two others were a couple looking for a residence with specific amenities.  In order to complete this project, students needed to employ a range of skills, including research, organization, writing, video and computer skills, oral language, and role play.  Projects like this require sophisticated social skills, as each student works with her team to include, modify, and build upon everyone's ideas.  Students were graded according to a rubric that addressed  individual contributions and evidence of learning as well as the quality of the end result.  This sort of assignment is a more accurate assessment of a student's learning, and better reflects the skill sets needed in today's work environments . 

Entitlement is not a pretty word.  No one is perfect.  Life is not perfect.  Let's not set our children up for unrealistic expectations.  We can teach them to try again, work harder,  take pride in their efforts and welcome challenges. We can help them to acknowledge the people they meet throughout the day and to appreciate the role that each one plays in our lives.  They can view their peers as collaborators instead of competitors, and come to know the  profound  joy of true learning.

BOY POWER!

Equal rights for women has been an important cause for my generation. I remember my frustration after graduating college, when the first question at every job interview was about my typing skills. We've made progress in opening doors for girls, although there is still work to do.  As a young mother, I was convinced that sexism, restrictive attitudes toward genders, was a direct result of one's upbringing and environment. I was determined to raise my children fairly.  I wasn't aware of the innate, biological differences between boys and girls until I had my son.  After four daughters.  Then I began to wonder if, in a different way, we weren't also short-changing our boys.

A child's environment plays a huge role in how he or she is raised, but his/her own biological nature plays an equally powerful part.  The toy cars that had never been touched by my girls were played with incessantly by my son.  Before he could walk he would try to zoom them across the floor.  In fact, he was fascinated by anything that moved.  We couldn't take a car ride without him looking out the window with glee, "Car!  Truck! Plane!!".  My girls were very active, but my son took action to another level.  I was unprepared for his constant movement and physicality. It took me a while to understand that the value of movement and action is part of being male.   

As an early childhood educator I became increasingly concerned with our boys' school experiences.  Most early childhood and elementary schools are based on a feminine culture.  The teachers are predominantly women, and the curricular emphasis is on reading, writing, and verbal skills, all of which typically develop later in boys.  The structure of most classrooms requires children to spend chunks of time each day sitting still and being quiet.  This is incredibly difficult for boys, whose high activity levels and poor impulse control are problematic in a classroom. Boys are more frequently determined to have behavioral issues and are reprimanded for their actions.  Frequent reprimands and/or punishment take an awful emotional toll on a child.

Young boys are less emotionally mature than girls.  They feel deeply but have a harder time identifying emotions in themselves and others. They are often at a loss to express their feelings. Without a healthy outlet, bottled-up emotions can turn to anger, frustration, even  violence.  Boys need loving, supportive adults in their lives who can model the language of emotions. 

Boys are typically stronger in spatial abilities and are more task-oriented.  Given time and space, they can turn the block center into an impressive construction site. They are driven to action and have a greater need to feel in control. They strut and boast in an attempt to feel competent and empowered.  They love superheroes, such as Batman, Spiderman, Superman, etc. because they too want to be seen as big and powerful.  Boys are most successful on the playground, where they can work their large muscles and take risks. They are drawn to sports where physical skills are esteemed.

In the last school where I worked as Early Childhood Director, the teachers and I spent a year learning more about boys and incorporating more boy-friendly practices into our classrooms.  We felt validated to learn that everything that we already knew about boys was being discovered through important brain research . (Adults who work with young children every day for years and years get to know kids really well.)   We became more accepting of high levels of energy, and looked to provide safe spaces for them.  One brave teacher had a wrestling mat, and let the kids tumble around like little puppies.  Another teacher provided materials for the boys to make capes, and facilitated their superhero play.  We purposely planned more opportunities to learn through movement.  If any activity veered toward fighting or danger, the boys were engaged in reasonable dialogue, not punished or belittled. Including them in problem-solving appealed to their pride and masculinity, and strengthened their feelings of competence.

All children learn by observing the loving adults in their lives.  Emotionally healthy male role models are so important for our boys.  A young child can learn that there are many ways to be a man, many ways to be strong and brave.   We can inspire our boys with real-life stories about heroes such as Dr. Martin Luther King; we can praise male artists, authors, athletes, soldiers, clergymen.  We can encourage the men in our lives to be emotionally expressive around our boys.  Telling a boy you love him helps him develop an emotional vocabulary, enabling him to connect more deeply to others and avoid the pain and loneliness of unexpressed feelings.    

Naturally, there are examples of cross-overs between boy and girl behaviors.  There are quiet boys who prefer to sit and read, just as there are tough, active girls.  The differences between the sexes are general, but very real.  Let's be aware of those differences and honor our boys' natures, not expecting them to perform beyond their developmental level. Let's make our homes and schools boy friendly, celebrating their strengths and helping them grow to be happy, confident, emotionally healthy men.