Understanding Quality Issues in ECCE: Curriculum, Standards, and Teacher Preparation Eva K. Thorp, Ed.D. George Mason University

Common Issues  Widening gap in equity and access  Disproportionate effects on children in extreme poverty, immigrants and migrants, children with varied mother tongues  Lack of coordination across administrative agencies and child-serving disciplines

Common Needs  Agreement on desired child outcomes  Agreement on standards for appropriate curriculum and faithful implementation of curriculum  Agreement on standards for preparation of teachers and caregivers in ECCE

Underlying themes  How practices are implemented  For whom they are implemented to ensure equity and access for all  How we prepare teachers for equity

Stories as an Organizing Construct  The brain is organized for narratives.  Stories connect children to their families, their history, their culture, their language.  Stories provide cultural continuity.  Stories (narratives) support learning.  Teacher stories influence how they teach, what they teach, and how they view children and families.

Self Introduction: My Story and Lessons Learned  Eldest of seven, mother of two, auntie to many  Teacher of young children  Researcher and policy consultant  Higher education faculty

My Goal for Today  Describe ECCE environments and curriculum practices that support early learning  Describe what teachers need to be able to know and do  Describe teacher training approaches that support these knowledge and skills in the light of ECCE as a social justice and equity issue

Educating All Children  “ If we are to successfully educate all of our children, we must work to remove the blinders built of stereotypes, monocultural instructional methodologies, ignorance, social distance, biased research, and racism ” (Preservice Teacher).

Children need to feel welcome

Families need to feel welcome

The environment needs to provide a vision for the future  Are children equally represented?  Are opportunities equally represented?

Children need challenging and engaging curriculum  Derived from interests  Integrated across developmental areas – project-based and planful thematic curriculum  Incorporating opportunities to learn from each other - Vygotsky  Providing opportunities for extension – support literacy, numeracy, higher order thinking

How do we prepare teachers to apply these practices?

Our Experience At GMU we have been working on many projects to prepare early educators, from certificate to graduate levels, who are  Willing to address social justice issues in ECCE, including:  Poverty  Gender  Disability  Language  Immigration  Culture

We prepare teachers to  design curriculum and provide instruction that recognizes and is responsive to the diverse backgrounds, strengths, and needs of young children and their families

Research Finding #1 Integrate theory and practice through field experience and internships  Observation  Analysis  Planning

Integrate theory and practice “I learned a great deal from the [program] classes, but I believe that nothing can better prepare someone for the classroom than actually being in one.”

Research Finding #2: The importance of self study  Examine own story  Examine biases

Examining biases  I have to admit that I entered [the program] having read many of the articles recounting risk factors and providing names for groups of people touting those risks. In fact, I entered the program with the vision of learning how to save those particular children—“the disadvantaged...Yes, I saw the positive attributes in particular children, but I always viewed them in light of their deficits. However, this program unexpectedly encouraged me to examine and re-examine those biases that coloured my vision of the children I had worked with in the past and those I would work with in the future.

Self study  I taught a child named Emily who had a physical disability. Due to her gross and fine motor coordination, Emily would fall frequently and hurt herself. My first and natural instinct was to run to her rescue; however, Emily’s parents felt quite differently. They wanted her to be independent and strong. If she fell, she fell. They wanted their daughter to learn to get back up all on her own. As I examined my cultural lens, I realized how my culture was represented in our relationship with young children. It is in our nature to want and need to tend to young children, especially if they are distressed. To confess, there were several times when I followed my cultural beliefs and helped Emily up when no one was looking.

Research Finding #3: Engage in collaboration and dialogue  Learn collaboration  Learn from each other  Learn differing perspectives

Collaboration: Interaction with other Professionals  In my [practicum]experiences, I was fortunate to work with a cooperating professional who conducted home visits... My observation of her seasoned, respectful approach with the families and the information gathered on those occasions convinced me that there is inherent value of building family relationships.

Research Finding #4: Learn from families  Gather family stories  Engage families in curriculum  Use family funds of knowledge – Gonzalez and Moll.

Learn from families  I had never even fathomed finding out families’ stories before. Truth be told, I had never fathomed that I could learn something from the families of the children I worked with. However, the first family I attempted to [gather family stories] with taught me their story of strength and resilience that helped me to see [them] in a new light in comparison with all of... I take for granted because of my own story.

Learn from families Learning about [a]child's family story gave me a sense of his life and what his parents went through in order to provide him with a good life. It also provided me with an opportunity to establish rapport with the family. The most important thing I learned when gathering this family's story was how people's views change when they learn to trust you.

Research Finding #5: Critical reflection and examination of dilemmas  Why is this a dilemma?  Are there issues of equity and social justice in this dilemma?  Are there opportunities for advocacy, action, or change?

A student dilemma related to poverty  It was upsetting for me to see that these children had so few materials to play with… I was having a hard time considering how the children could play without toys… Their environment was so sparse in comparison to how I live and that caused me some distress… My assumption was that the family was “needy” and that the children did not have enough.

In sum As we move forward to identify and ratify outcomes for children, standards for program practices, and teacher education standards, there is a need for parallel attention to how we prepare ECCE providers to ensure faithful implementation of curriculum and family and community – centered practices and to ensure consistent practices across diverse populations of children and families.

Last words from a student  Now, I not only hold fast to the belief that every child can learn, but I am also influenced by Skrtic’s (2003) assertion that “educational equity is a precondition for creating and sustaining educational excellence.”

A final challenge Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world. (Freire)