Taking Back Early Childhood Education

I have been watching with escalating concern the trend of public schools taking over Pre-K in their communities all over the country to bolster their waning enrollments. In my own community, state funding meant to help support local Pre-K programs was diverted into creating and maintaining several public Pre-K classrooms that are not only competing unfairly with long-established local programs, but are being run and taught by people without education or experience in Early Childhood Education. This alarming trend is a threat to the well-being of young children and families. ECE programs should be run and staffed with well-trained Early Childhood professionals, not Elementary educators, not special education staff, not school administrators who have no idea what quality early childhood education looks like. Here are some examples of the kinds of developmentally inappropriate practice going on in these schools:

In one classroom I was observing, a staff person was standing there scowling at the children as they made use of the bakery my student teacher had developed. The student had made mini-muffins for the children to buy from the bakery, and as one girl approached to buy her muffin, this teacher, who made no attempt to do anything but stand and glare at the children, told the girl that she had already had her muffin, so she had to leave. The child quietly told the teacher that she had not had a muffin, and the teacher insisted she had, until the child admitted to having one, when in fact, she had not!

In another instance, one of my students reported that the teacher sat at the table, dabbed the paint brushes into paint one at a time and handed them to each child, one at a time. When my student remarked to a girl that she had created a new color by mixing red and yellow together, the teacher yelled at the child not to mix the colors!

It's bad enough that children in K-2 classes must endure these disrespectful, unethical practices, but we early childhood professional must find a way to take Pre-K back; at the very least, to make sure that it is carried out and administered by competent, trained ECE professionals.

If you are interested in learning more about high-quality, apporopriate practice in Early childhood programs, read We Are All Explorers by D. Scheinfeld, K. Haigh and S. Scheinfeld, Teachers College Press, 2008.

Debra Murphy
http://www.classroomtoclassroom.com/

Imagining Better Images, Part II

In my last entry, I described a strategy for helping students and teachers rethink their mental models, or images about children, families, and themselves. Here are examples of two reinforcing loops: one negative and one positive. Notice how the initial belief influences expectations, behaviors, and outcomes. If we proceed as if we believe the positive image (even if we do not), we can influence the loop to create more positive outcomes.

Sample Negative Reinforcing Loop about Parents/Families

Sample Positive Reinforcing Loop about Parents/Families

Sit down with a group of students or colleagues and write a positive Image of the Child, then create a positive loop. Use the sample as a guide. You can repeat the process with the Image of the Teacher. I think it is worth the time it takes to imagine better images.



Do you want to find out more about working with others to improve policies and practice?

Read The World Cafe: Shaping Our futures Through Conversations That Matter, J. Brown and D. Isaacs. BK Books, 2005.

Imagining Better Images

The early childhood educators in Reggio Emilia have a concept they call the Image of the Child. When I first returned from visiting their schools, I was very surprised by how many teachers and students said, "That's fine for Italy, but we could never do that here. Our children could never do that. Our parents would never do that. We could never do that." When I thought about this, I ended up calling it, the 'Power of No'. I am convinced that as long as we believe that our children, our families, our teachers could never create the experience of exceptional quality preschools, that we will find it very difficult, if not impossible, to do it. I believe that it starts with the image: the image of the child, the image of families, the image of ourselves as teachers. In my Leadership course, we explore the idea of reinforcing loops, as defined by Peter Senge. We start with a negative image (or mental model as Senge calls it), then extrapolate how this impacts our expectations, which in turn impacts our behaviors, resulting in children, families, and teachers living up (or down) to our negative images. Next, we re-write the negative images into positive, and create another reinforcing loop, but this time with positive outcomes. This is a powerful exercise that helps students and teachers reconsider their Images. Students often ask me if they can take the positive loops back to their centers for the rest of the staff to see. In my next entry, I will include some sample loops. Consider creating these loops with your colleagues. Try to imagine better images.

Debra Murphy

If you want to learn more about reinforcing loops and mental models, read Schools That Learn, by Peter Senge, et al. Doubleday. 2000.