Week 8: Creating Inside and Outside Learning Environments Course: Teaching Methods in the Education for Young Children

Learning Environment It influences children’s physical, cognitive, emotional and social development. It is necessary to take into account children’s age, developmental level, and individual characteristics when creating learning environments. Teachers’ characteristics and demands, as well as children’s, should be considered. Education + Care should be considered.

Principles of Creating Learning Environments Space: encouraging children’s active involvement Educational Materials Interaction

Inside Classroom Environment What should we focus on when we create a classroom environment for infants, comp ared to that for young children? “Protection” is the most important aspect t o be considered particularly for classroom s for infants. Safety, sanitariness, and durability for play materials should be mai ntained.

Classroom Environment Physical Development Cognitive Development Language Development Social Development

Outside Environment 1. Gross Motor Skill Activities 2. Constructive Activities 3. Science Activities 4. Role Play Activities 5. Language/Literacy Activities 6. Music/movement Activities

Control “Whenever I am in the classroom with the children, teaching a lesson, or just walking with them to lunch, I feel that I have no control over how the kids behave or conduct themselves. The other teachers in the second grade seem to have very orderly classes, and whenever I pass by one of their rooms the children seem to be working quietly. In our class, they are almost always loud, and I feel that the other teachers look down on this as “obviously she doesn’t have any control over these kids.” Because I think the other teachers tend to measure your ability as a teacher on the way you allow your children to conduct themselves, it reflects badly on me if I can’t have them all line up the way the other classes do or work quietly like the other classes.” –Teacher logbook

Order and Rule Order precedes learning. The pressure on early educators to ensure their pupils’ academic excellence and readiness for the upper elementary grades may be a factor. Or perhaps the concern with a well- managed classroom is part of the desire for a pristine world free of violence and full of self-disciplined individuals.

Establishing a Learning Environment The discourse: We are concerned not only with reducing distraction or minimizing congestion… but also with ways the environment can foster children’s security, increase their comfort, and stimulate their interest in learning tasks. The practice: When the students couldn’t sit still on the floor in the space that the team used for direct instruction, Cora marked off their areas with tape in a sort of grid pattern, to keep the children in their proper place. (Schwartz & Copeland, 2010)

Establishing a Learning Environment What are the children learning about themselves and their bodies when they live under these classroom regimes? Children’s bodies, especially in their proximity to other bodies, pose a menace to order. Proximity is taboo in many early childhood classrooms. We teach self-possession and self-control by deriving a list of prohibited behaviors. We misread individual autonomy as separation and independence from others.

Developing Rules and Routines The discourse: Clearly defined classroom rules and routines help to dispel the “what ifs” and to create an environment that is safe, comprehensible, and predictable. The practice: Two Grade 1 students engage in a ritual of eating lunch in the cafeteria with their pants and underpants around their ankles, until they are caught. (Schwartz & Copeland, 2010)

Developing Rules and Routines Teacher with the most effective management skills are aware of what is happening in all parts of the classroom, and they communicate this awareness to students. The rhetoric of concern for children’s safety conceals the workings of supervision as “a ritual of power and ceremony of visibility, a technology of objectification” through which children can be normalized to some arbitrary set of criteria (Foucault, 1977). It is forbidden to derive any pleasure from the feeling of nakedness against a cold bench or from the warmth of another’s body. The logic of censorship prevails. Order is restored.