Weeks 7-8: Recurring Themes in Early Years Education

    Return to module outline.

Last updated 22.03.11.

Because this week and week 8’s sessions are not happening due to the FYPs and the Royal Wedding this outline will focus on three themes which will recur both in the writings of our theorists (Pestalozzi, Froebel, Steiner and Malaguzzi) and in Foundation stage documents. We will aim to consider which theorists have most influenced which aspects of contemporary Early Years practice. The three themes are:

·        Play

·        The Role of the Teacher

·        The Learning Environment

Hopefully this introduction will give you the opportunity to think through which theorist you may want to consider in your essay and therefore giving you a head start on the second part of the module.

Questions relating to the theorists have also been posed so as to allow you to familiarise yourselves with the kind of questions we will be asking in the final four sessions. 

>>>Play

Consensus within early years that play is essential to young children’s learning and development and therefore should form the basis of the curriculum

Problems:

·        Little consensus about the detail of the function of play

·        No unified theoretical basis for practice

Froebel says it is the ‘purest’ human function.

Play is notoriously difficult to plan, support and assess, given its spontaneous, complex and unpredictable nature. Malaguzzi thought he had found a solution in the highly skilled work of ‘reconnaissance’ and pedagogical documentation.

Play is a recognisable phenomenon that has significance to the participants, but there are differing views about the advantages it confers.

Features of Play (Bruce, 1991: pp. 59-60)

1.      It is an active process without a product

2.      It is intrinsically motivated

3.      It exerts no external pressure to conform to rules, pressures, goals, tasks or definite direction

4.      It is about possible, alternative worlds, which involves supposing. This involves being imaginative, creative original and innovative

5.      It is about participants wallowing in ideas, feelings and relationships. It involves becoming aware of what we know (metacognition)

6.      It actively uses previous first-hand experiences, including struggle, manipulation, exploration, discovery and practice

7.      It is sustained, and when in full flow, helps us to function in advance of what we can actually do in our real lives

8.      It can be solitary or it can be in partnerships, or groups of adults and/or children, who will be sensitive to each other

9.      It is an integrative mechanism, which brings together everything we learn, know, feel and understand

Consensus that play should make a significant contribution to the early years classroom because:

·        Play facilitates the development of skills, concepts, knowledge and attitudes

·        Play enhances the integrated nature of social, emotional, physical and cognitive development

·        Children come to school with different experiences, achievements, skills and interests; it is through play that the educator can recognise these and structure future learning

¿  Question: Of our theorists, whose ideas about play most reflect common contemporary Early Years practice?

¿  Question: Of our theorists, whose ideas about play should be taken more seriously in contemporary Early Years practice?

>>>Role of the teacher

Pestalozzi:

‘Yet she never adopted the tone of the instructor toward her children; she did not say to them: "Child, this is your head, your nose, your hand, your finger"; or "Where is your eye, your ear?" but instead she would say: "Come here child, I will wash your little hands", "I will comb your hair", or "I will cut your finger nails". Her verbal instruction seemed to vanish in the spirit of her real activity, in which it always had its source. […] Above all, in every occupation of life she taught them an accurate and intelligent observation of common objects and the forces of nature’ (Pestalozzi cited in Rusk, 1918; pp. 190-1)

This model reflects Pestalozzi’s understanding of the role as being close to that of the infant’s mother, whose everyday activity informs the child’s understanding and shapes their behaviour. It is rooted in a very naturalistic sense of the interaction between teacher and learner: the teacher’s activity is not separate from other natural activities of daily life.

¿  Question: How closely does Pestalozzi’s ‘real activity’ match the contemporary pedagogical technique of ‘modelling’? Contrast the image of instruction with that of ‘modelling’.

¿  Question: How far is ‘real activity’ a viable possibility in the pre-school or classroom environment? To what extent can planned pedagogical activity be made to appear as ‘real activity’?

¿  Question: If ‘real activity’ is a viable model in early childhood (for instance, 2-4 years), at what point does it stop being the most effective mode of teaching?

Froebel:

The teacher’s task was to:

‘See and observe the child; he will teach you what to do.’

(Froebel, 1885; p. 77)

‘Do not tell him in words much more than he could find himself without your words. For it is, of course, easier to hear the answer from another, perhaps to only half hear and understand it, than it is to seek and discover it himself. To have found one fourth of the answer by his own effort is of more value and importance to the child than it is to half hear and half understand it in the words of another; for this causes mental indolence.’

(Froebel, 1885; pp. 86-87)

Again, the model is not of instruction, nor yet even ‘modelling’. The function of teaching is not to impart existing knowledge, but to point out and make intelligible the inner spiritual nature of things. That is to say, there is a truth which children are able to attain independently in their own social play activity, though the teacher may intervene to ‘point out’ for special attention some aspects of their experience which may assist in their self-realization.

¿  Question: So what is the teacher’s role? Can you picture what a teacher would be doing in the Froebelian setting?

¿  Question: What ‘level of intervention’ is required? Is this intervention more ‘conscious’ than Pestalozzi’s ‘natural activity’?

¿  Question: Do we hold to the idea of a ‘spiritual nature’? If not, does Froebel’s hope in the self attainment of such a truth within the things of a child’s experience still have relevance?

Steiner

Steiner identifies a unique understanding of the characteristics and potential of the young child

‘Direct education of the intellect or thinking life is virtually impossible; one cannot implant intelligence that is not there, one can only awaken those faculties already in the child, but sleeping.’ (Childs, 1991: p. 40)

Feelings of deep reverence on the part of the teacher should accompany the child’s descent from the physical world into the physical world (Steiner, 1944: p. 15)

Main task of the educator during the first epoch is to ensure the harmonizing of the spirit and soul within the physical body: the educator must provide an environment that is worthy of imitation

¿  Question: To what extent can adults in the Steiner kindergarten be classified as teachers?

¿  Question: How do Steiner’s understandings of early childhood  relate to our contemporary notions of ‘growth’ and ‘development’?

Malaguzzi

Malaguzzi’s approach is a melange of the views of his acknowledged theoretical forebears:

·   “Teach nothing to children Except what children can learn by themselves” (Malaguzzi, 1998, p.73)(echoes of Pestalozzi and Froebel).

·   “Stand aside for a while and leave room for learning, observe carefully what children do, and then, if you have understood well, perhaps teaching will be different from before.” (ibid., p.82) (Montessori figures here.)

·   Malguzzi lists among “undemocratic teaching strategies”, “directives, ritualized procedures, systems of evaluation […] and rigid cognitivistic curriculum packages” (ibid., p.83).

·   Don’t forget Malaguzzi’s critique of outcome driven technologies - the teacher’s role is in supporting process.

For Malaguzzi, all teaching is co-teaching –

·   all classrooms have two teachers, not only because this improves ratios, but because teaching is a fundamentally social activity;

·   teachers are one among several categories of participants in his democratic educational structures – parents, children, pedagogisti and atelieristi are all equally important.

¿  Question: could the improvisatory role of the teacher in the Reggio setting be played in a Foundation Stage setting?

¿  Question: to what extent can a teacher in a Foundation Stage setting be regarded as being equally important as a range of other educational professionals?

The Early Years Foundation Stage:

Which of the following roles do we see in the teacher’s implementation of the foundation stage?

ü Instructor

ü Model

ü Natural actor

ü Facilitator

ü Observer and interpreter

ü Atelierista/pedagogista/co-teacher

>>>Environment

Froebel

Froebel favored an environment which would allow children to match their ‘inner lives’ to the outside world. He wanted children to feel ‘secure’ and yet he also cautioned against restricting children’s adventurous behavior in, for instance, climbing trees or searching caves.  He promoted an education which took place ‘in and with nature’. Such an education would involve a great deal of time spent outside, involving ‘work in the field, garden and orchard’:

“True elementary education… must first of all be based on the cultivation of the land, for here the child sees how material is transformed first in form and shape and then along the lines of its essential character; it also promotes and extends his natural skill.  When the child observes nature and cultivates the earth and its products he begins with and is led back to a consideration of god, whom he feels within him and whom he observes and recognizes in the outer world.”(Froebel, 1833, in Lilley, 1967, pp.162-3)

The EYFS has prompted interest in the learning environment insofar as it encompasses the ‘outside’. More effort has been put into developing outdoor classrooms and outdoor curricula since the inception of the Foundation Stage in 2000

¿  Question: To what extent can Froebel’s aspirations for an education ‘in and with nature’ be achieved under current conditions?

Steiner

‘A Steiner Waldorf Kindergarten is like an extended family. The day and its activities have a regular rhythm and structure from the children’s arrival until their departure. There is a balance between the daily work that needs to be done, caring for the house, baking bread, doing the washing and so on as well as handicrafts, such as simple weaving, carving, embroidery and sewing. There is sweeping to be done, leaves gathered up outside and even a little garden to attend. Then of course there are the festivals to celebrate, stories to be told, songs to be sung and games to be played. Last and by no means least, there is time for creative play both indoors and outdoors.’ (Clouder and Rawson, 2003: pp. 41-2)

¿  Question: Can the aims of the Steiner kindergarten be achieved in the home?

Malaguzzi

Malaguzzi devotes more of his time to thinking about the learning space than most theorists. His key idea is the ‘amiable environment’ – a space which is friendly to open learning. Reggio Emilia schools are designed in such a way as to maximize free movement. Despite his rejection of Foucauldian technologies, his environment might easily be analyzed in terms of the ways in which it maximizes visibility with its glass and mirrors. His schools are designed and build with contiguous spaces to enable freedom, with separate spaces and mini-ateliers for small groups to work in. Crucial to his free-flowing open planning is the central piazza, the atelier:

·   A laboratory or place of research

·   “[A] spaced rich in materials, tools, and people with professional competencies” (Malaguzzi, 1998,  p.74)

·   He also means the ‘visual languages’ of learning to be available to all by allowing the walls to “speak and document”.

Malaguzzi’s ideas have had a significant impact on many ‘progressive’ early years educators in British schools in the last decade or so.

¿  Question: To what extent is it possible to put into practice Malaguzzi’s ideas in a space which has not been built to his design principles? Is trying to apply the Reggio approach in British reception classes a lost cause?

An atelier in a Reggio Emilia school

References

Bruce, T. (1991) Time to Play in Early Childhood Education, London: Hodder & Stoughton

Froebel, F. (1885) The Education of Man. (Translated by Jarvis, J.) New York, A. Lovell and Co.

Lilley, I. (1967) Friedrich Froebel:  Selection from His Writings, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Malaguzzi, L. (1998) ‘History, Ideas and basic Philosophy: An Interview with Lella Gandini’, in Edwards, C.Gandini, L. & Forman, G., (Eds.) The Hundred languages of Children: The Reggio Emilia Approach – Advanced Reflections, London: Ablex Publishing Corporation

Rusk, R. (1965) Doctrines of the Great Educators London: Holt Rinehart Wilson.