Early Childhood Education And Care: History And Approaches

The transition from care to education in the history of ECE in Aotearoa NZ

Discuss about the Early Childhood Education and Care.

The establishment of the Dunedin kindergarten school helped in rescuing many children of the slums form developing worse life quality like some of their elders and helped them to follow a trained procedure for approaches towards life. In 1903, education society learnt the importance of mothers working to develop their financial condition and therefore in 1903 sister of Compassion in wellington developed the first successful crèche. In 1906, the liberal government started to provide small amount of per child subsidy for the kindergartens which helped many families to avail the benefit for admitting their children to education centers. In 1907, Sir Frederic Truby King along with his wife established the Plunket society originally called the Society for the Health of Women and Children with the aim of growing healthy infants as they believed that only healthy infants can build up a healthy society. During the World war one, the educational kindergartens kept on rolling but there was a societal negativity of women leaving their children for work in roles which were left by the men attending the war. In 1941, first play center was established in wellington. Beeby had become the minister f education in 1940 and under the advice of the then prime minister Peter Fraser , young children were paid importance and inculcated in the educational programs. Under the fundamentals proposed by Susan Issac of British, the educational system of New Zealand explored the connections between emerging psychological knowledge and the education and development of young children (Peters, 2014). In 1941. first government supported nursery opened in Dunedin and in 1947, report of the Consultative Committee on Preschool Education was published which focused on the responsibility of the state to take over the operations of the kindergartens and also that the government should fund teacher training. In 1948, funding for teacher training initiated and also national Play center Federation was established. In 1960, 200 Maori play centers established in northern North Island with New Zealand Childcare association established in 1963. From 1960 to 1970, government provided tax allowance benefit for families paying for childcare services. In 1980, Early childhood workers union was registered with opening of the First Kohanga Reo in 1982 (Cherrington & Thompton, 2015). In 1987 to 1989 period, three year integrated training centers were introduced in colleges of kindergarten and child care centers over a period of three years. In 1900, Early childhood council ECE established form the amalgamation of the two head bodies like Licensed Childcare Centres Federation and the Associated Childcare Council. In 1996 Te Whariki which is the early childhood curriculum policy statement was published. In 2000, TeachNZ scholarship program was initiated that helped in the increase of numbers of qualified M?ori and Pasifika ECEC teacher along with the publishing of statements that diploma of teaching is required by every ECEC teachers.

Emmi’s Pikler’s guiding principles

Dr Emmi Pikler was a pediatrician who took over the running of a home for children called Loczy in Budapest in the year 1946. She proposed a number of guiding principles for the helping a baby in his growing years so that they can perfectly develop in the way which the nature had intended for them. She developed the principle that mothers should provide full attention to the babies instead of multitasking. A full attention to the babies makes them receive and interpret this as the embodiment of love. This helps in bringing stillness in lives which is now driven with speed and productivity (Bussey & Hill, 2017). The second is that mothers should conduct activities of the bay in a slow and calm manner instead of jumping form activities to another. Calm and relaxing environment around babies help them to unfold them respectfully. The caregivers should also develop a bond of trust and relationships with the baby during the time of caring. When a baby is approached with respect, it gives them chance to respond. It gives them chance to understand what the caregiver intend to do and let them also understand physical freedom without making them pushing for development. Moreover, taking babies as active participants rather than passive ones and developing cooperative relationships with them (Salamon & Harrison, 2015). This could be done by talking to babies more often and being patient with tem and giving cope for them to respond. Moreover, babies should never be put into position where they cannot get by themselves. Moreover babies should be given uninterrupted time to play which help them to experience independence and mastery of the world.

Reggio Emilia Approach was originated in the town of Reggio Emilia in Italy mainly from the movement towards a progressive as well as cooperative early childhood education. One of the interesting facts of this approach is that no two Reggio-inspired communities are similar s the needs and interests of the children can never be the same across all the communities (Hong, Shaffer & Han, 2017). They are applied to preschools and early childhood settings with an understanding of the general principles that often includes child-led approach which may also be applied to home. The main fundamentals which are followed by any follower of the approach are that the children are capable of constructing their own learning and safe driven by their own interests to understand and know more. Children develop an understanding about themselves and also about their place in the world with the help of their interactions with others. Children are communicators and therefore they take the process of communication as ways of discovering things, utilizing language as play, asking questions, playing with sounds and rhythms as well as rhymes making themselves feel delighted (Wein 2015). Environment should be considered as the third teacher where they it is recognized to be having the potential to inspire children. Adults should be the mentor and guide giving them enough opportunities to observe children, listen to their question an stories, finding things of interests and helping them to explore their interests further. Proper documentation of the children’s thought with photographs, visual representations, transcripts of children’s thoughts and explanations all help in children learning. Lastly the children have different hundreds of ways for their expression and hence, they should be given independence to express them and encourage them to carry forwards their own language of  expressions through  drawing and sculpting, through dance and movement, through painting and pretend play, through modeling and music and others.

Reggio Emilia Approach

Kohango reo is an early childhood program for education and care where all the children from the time of birth to the age of six. This system mainly incorporates the ‘whanau’ dependent programs and is closely associated with the students’ development and learning (Greenwood, 2016). The whanau of the family will be wholly responsible of management, operation and also everyday decision making for the kohanga reo. This system mainly aims at the fundamentals where the children will learn the language of Maori and their culture which would include spiritual dimension, through immersions. In this language and cultural learning is also fostered which are supported by all members. They would learn within the whanaus setting and the skills that they would learn would help in supporting their philosophy (Hohepa & McIntosh, 2017). This system mainly help to ensure that the children are supported, sharing workload and responsibility, ensuring that all are learning about Kohanga reo and to avoid any sort of domination of a few over the majority of the whanaus. Children here are taught about Whakamana (empowerment), Ngä Hononga (relationships), Kotahitanga (holistic development) and Whänau Tangata (family and community)

In this way, developing knowledge about the principle philosophies of teaching techniques for childcare education will help teachers to modify their skills and provide the best education to children.

References:

Bussey, K., & Hill, D. (2017). Care as curriculum: investigating teachers’ views on the learning in care. Early Child Development and Care, 187(1), 128-137.

Cherrington, S., & Thornton, K. (2015). The nature of professional learning communities in New Zealand early childhood education: an exploratory study. Professional Development in Education, 41(2), 310-328.

Greenwood, M. (2016). Language, Culture, and Early Childhood: Indigenous Children’s Rights in a Time of Transformation. Canadian Journal of Children’s Rights/Revue canadienne des droits des enfants, 3(1), 16-31.

Hohepa, M., & McIntosh, L. (2017). Transition to School for Indigenous Children. In Pedagogies of Educational Transitions (pp. 77-93). Springer International Publishing.

Hong, S. B., Shaffer, L., & Han, J. (2017). Reggio Emilia inspired learning groups: Relationships, communication, cognition, and play. Early Childhood Education Journal, 45(5), 629-639.

Peters, S. (2014). Chasms, bridges and borderlands: A transitions research ‘across the border’from early childhood education to school in New Zealand. In Transitions to school-International research, policy and practice (pp. 105-116). Springer Netherlands.

Salamon, A., & Harrison, L. (2015). Early childhood educators’ conceptions of infants’ capabilities: The nexus between beliefs and practice. Early Years, 35(3), 273-288.

Wien, C. A. (2015). Emergent curriculum in the primary classroom: Interpreting the Reggio Emilia approach in schools. Teachers College Press.