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.

Early Childhood Education: A Plea From The Field

Eighty percent of a child's brain development takes place by age three.  Early childhood, which is defined as birth through age eight, is the optimal time of life for building cognitive and social skills.  Teachers and parents can deliberately influence their children's intellectual and social development by creating rich learning environments.  When we combine an understanding of general child development with what we know about the particular temperaments and character traits of individual children, we can manipulate the physical, social, emotional and mental environments and capitalize on children’s readiness to learn.  Clearly, the most important element in this formidable task is the human one; the adults who interact with the child on a daily basis. So to a large extent, the present and future success of young children depends on the knowledge and commitment of their parents and teachers.

Why then are early childhood teachers the lowest paid and least respected in the field of education?  Unfortunately, few people  understand what early childhood education is all about.  Some consider it glorified babysitting that practically any warm body can do well.  Upsetting to me personally are the schools that do not hire professional teachers for their young students. These schools feed into and encourage this misconception.  At this most vulnerable time of life, children deserve well-educated and highly qualified teachers.  I know from experience that teaching preschool is just as complex, demanding, and important as teaching high school. 

What makes a quality early childhood teacher?  Someone with both good instincts and a good educational background.  Someone who grew up with a knack for interacting with young children, maybe working as a babysitter or camp counselor.  Someone who majored in education in college and took courses in developmental psychology, educational philosophy, and pedagogy.  A qualified early childhood educator would have completed a practicum or semester of student teaching.  She would be committed to ongoing professional development throughout her career.  She is someone who understands the range of child development.   She adapts the curriculum to each new class, as well as differentiates instruction according to the needs of individual students.  She identifies at-risk children and children with special needs and she advocates for best practice for all of her students.  ( I purposely used the feminine pronoun because the majority of early childhood teachers are female.  There is a real need for men to join this profession.)

A college background in education gives teachers a rich vocabulary and a grounding in academic subject areas.  Well qualified early childhood teachers tap into children's curiosity and current developmental levels to maximize and extend learning.  They know how children learn and see to it that lessons are active, hands-on, and primarily directed by the children themselves. Their classrooms are lively laboratories of  child exploration and experimentation, where learning is visible and expressed in multiple ways. Interestingly, the older grades are beginning to catch on to the value of early childhood practices.  Elementary and secondary school teachers are learning the benefits of active learning, project based learning, differentiated instruction, and teaching the whole child.  These educational approaches work for every age, and have been employed by early childhood teachers for decades.

Long term studies have demonstrated the lasting effects of quality early childhood education on adults, with higher rates of graduation and income.  Psychologically, we know that our adult behaviors have their roots in our early childhood experiences.  Young children are susceptible to the environments that we create.  They deserve the best teachers:  teachers who are well trained, well paid, and respected for the awesome work that they do.

Hug a Tree

This week in Jewish schools, children will celebrate Tu B'Shvat, the "birthday of the trees".  They will eat fruits, examine nuts and seeds, maybe do some planting, and learn about the multiple ways that trees serve people, animals, and the environment.  Trees have real and symbolic meaning in many cultures and  religions.  They are a treasure of the natural world, and they depend on us to take care of them.

Some of my favorite childhood memories involve trees.  My close friend Diane lived at the top of a hill that was a dead end.  Her house was surrounded on two sides by trees which kept it buffeted from the parkway.   We called that section of our neighborhood "the woods".  Diane and I often climbed a tree at the side of her house, sometimes just hanging out, sometimes bringing books to read.  Our elementary school was a block from Diane's and just across the street from my house.  There were several trees in our school yard.  One was a big pine tree that we climbed in competition with other neighborhood kids to see who could climb the highest.  I usually got in trouble at home for getting pine sap stuck in my hair, which was hard for my mom to wash out.  Diane and I also claimed a tree of our own:  a mulberry tree at the side of our school, that only blossomed in June.  We would climb the tree and gorge ourselves on all the mulberries we could eat.  Yum.  And another big, old tree in front of our school was my secret spot for imaginative play.  The roots stuck out, and the tree was surrounded by dirt.  I would take twigs and pebbles and design the floor plan of a house, including furniture and a pool. I could lose myself in that play for hours.

Do you have memories of childhood experiences in nature?  What emotions do they evoke?  

We often talk about teaching the "whole child", facilitating all the components of his developmental growth:  physical, intellectual, social, emotional, and moral.  Allowing children to experience the natural world addresses each of these developmental areas.  Take a look at my memories, for example.  What did I learn?  I learned that trees could be a place for solace and tranquility, whether reading a book in its branches, listening to the wind and birds, or sitting and playing at its trunk.  I learned the capabilities of my body in climbing, balancing, understanding which branches could or couldn't support me.  I learned that trees give off delightful products, like pine-smelling sap, or delicious berries.  I also learned the difference between deciduous and coniferous trees, though I may not have had the vocabulary at the time.

There are endless lessons that teachers can develop around trees, in every area of early childhood curriculum:  math, science, literacy, art, music and movement.  Expounding on any one of these areas would be way more than I could reasonably fit into a blog post.  Each area is rich with possibilities and absolutely fascinating.   Several years ago, I gave a professional workshop on teaching math through nature.  In preparing for this workshop, I learned about fibonacci numbers.  These are numbers that are used repeatedly in patterns in nature.  It is a remarkable topic and to my mind proves the existence of G-d.  Take a look at this youtube video and see if you agree:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkGeOWYOFoA.

  The natural environment is a teacher. It stimulates our imagination and sense of wonder.  It encourages us to use all of our senses, improving our focus and attention skills.  All children deserve the chance to form a relationship with nature, both for the myriad of benefits they will gain as well as to motivate them to protect it.  Trees grace our world with both beauty and function.  Their survival in large part depends on how we choose to teach our children.

Positive Reinforcement

A couple of weeks ago, my grandchildren and I visited the Wildlife Zoo in Phoenix, Arizona.  We attended a sea lion show , but there was no performance. The sea lions were fairly new to the zoo and were still in training.  One of the zoo keepers explained the training process, while another demonstrated with a sea lion.  It was actually a lesson in positive reinforcement.  If the trainer wanted the sea lion to touch a pole, she would wait until it came close to the pole, then feed it a little fish.  Next time, the animal would get the fish as it reached up for the pole.  This would continue, with the pole being raised and the animal reaching higher until it learned to jump and touch the pole with its nose.  Interestingly, we saw another animal show in which a porcupine, a muskrat, and a parrot also learned to do tricks by repeating behaviors that brought them treats. 

Positive reinforcement is a method of teaching behaviors and skills by rewarding the student for closer and closer approximations to the desired goal.  It is standard practice in early childhood classrooms.  A reward is as simple as a smile, a hand on a shoulder, a hug, a few encouraging words, even saying the child's name in a delighted tone of voice.  So let's say we want a child to clean up his toys.  As he begins to pick up a toy, we immediately acknowledge his effort, "You're starting to clean up the blocks, good work!".  This simple praise generally serves to reinforce the behavior.  The child will continue the behavior and look forward to more praise.

To be most effective, positive reinforcement should be immediate. We must be watchful for any attempts made toward the target behavior, and immediately give feedback. The objective is to catch the child doing the right thing.  A common example in early childhood education is getting the children to settle down for circle time. All the teacher has to say is "I like the way Gabriel is sitting", and the other children will flock to sit nicely and hear their names too.  Amazingly, the effects of positive reinforcement are physically visible, not only in the behavior, but in the child's body language.  She appears to grow before our eyes, standng taller, filling up with a good sense of self.

 Positive reinforcement is used to praise effort.  It specifically addresses the approximation of a desired behavior.  This can be particularly helpful for children who are timid or find something distasteful.  Think of a picky eater.  If he takes a small bite of a new food we can say, "I know it's hard for you to taste new things, but you did it anyway.  I'm proud of you.".  Of course, this would be most powerful if he actually likes the new food, but again, we are praising the effort so that he will be more willing to try again next time.  Positive reinforcement is also important in teaching skills; "You're working hard to practice writing "S".  It's getting better and better."  In this last example, it might help to give a suggestion, such as "Try to reach the hat line next time." 

Positive reinforcement is a great motivator for older children and adults too  Everyone wants a pat on the back for the work that we do, but few of us actually get one.  Feeling noticed and appreciated keeps us motivated to stay the course and to work even harder. Positive feedback also clarifies expectations.  As an early childhood director, I looked for opportunities to compliment my staff, whether on a creative bulletin board, new lesson ideas, or the way they spoke with a student.  I understood that this type of feedback would reveal what I valued as quality work, and would motivate the teachers to keep it up.  (Truly, they made my job easy.  I worked with some amazing teachers.)   As an educator,  my greatest rewards were often the notes of thanks from parents.  These notes are treasured by teachers, who give so much of themselves to their students everyday, and are rarely recognized for their commitment.  An appreciated teacher is happier to do her job, and a happy teacher brings about optimal learning for her students. 

In my post "Hello Sunshine" I talked about the uplifting effects that positive people have on us.  In offering positive reinforcement, we can build on our children's strengths.  We can create a pleasant environment for work and play.  We can celebrate together all the little steps that lead to big learning and growth.

Learning by Heart

I started this blog as an outlet for my musings on early childhood education.  In my everyday life and experiences, I see boundless examples of the tenets of early childhood education. Education after all is about learning and growth, both in and out of the classroom.  And learning and growth, to my mind, is the purpose of life.

When we think about educating very young children (early childhood is defined as birth to age 8), we are forced to consider the nature of education. What do we want children to learn?  And then we must answer the question, how do children learn? Developmentally appropriate practice, which is the foundation of early childhood education, requires educators to get to know, respect, and appreciate each student's unique strengths, interests, and current skill levels.  Then the teacher can guide and support his/her students   in furthering their skills and knowledge, bringing them closer and closer to discovering and actualizing their best selves.  It's about authentic, individualized learning and growth, and applies to every age and developmental level.  

There are many dimensions to my choice of title, Learning by Heart.  Of course, I love learning (what teacher doesn't?).  I love facilitating learning in others.  I love talking and thinking about teaching and learning.  And I like to think that all this learning is making the world a better place.  So I have an emotional connection to learning.

Learning by heart can also mean learning something so well that it becomes part of you. Things you know by heart are internalized;  you "know" with your whole being.  I'm reading a fantastic book right now called Everyday Holiness, by Alan Morinis.  It's about Mussar, and I found this perfect quote:  "Thoughts do not become part of our lives until they are somehow internalized, as if woven into the flesh of our hearts".  Yes, that's it.  Authentic learning, the learning I see in early childhood education, is learning that takes place for and by the heart.