ECE 203: Cultivating Quality from Early Learning Frameworks

 

One thing that is new to me in ECE coursework is the importance of learning frameworks. Learning frameworks are pathways of learning. In Canada, each province and territory has developed its own learning framework. These ways of knowing or looking at the child’s experience and the role of the educator remove absolutes and instead embrace openness and new ways forward. These frameworks are rooted in science and research. As we study and observe children, we gain clues as to how children learn. The tangible collection of these clues are referred to as traces. Traces provide an opportunity to look into moments of learning and explore what is really going on.

 

Developing the Mind of a researcher: What does it mean?

    ‘What does it mean?’ becomes an important question to ask as we look back on traces and observe children’s learning. As educators, our curiosity must be cultivated, laid bare, and even unraveled. I am someone who likes to know. I am naturally curious and enjoy learning new things. But I also admit that I do like some sense of arrival. I like the badge, the ribbon, the paper that stamps me with ‘now she knows; now she is ‘qualified.’ But learning frameworks at their core are meant to reject this arrival, and that can be an uncomfortable feeling for a knowledge glutton like me. This framework for learning challenges the comfort zone of the educator, smashes traditional views of education centred solely on outcomes but lifts the child to a place of deep importance.

Click to view Transoformations: Linda McDonnelhttps://vimeo.com/250697359 from BCACCS on Vimeo.

Cultivating Quality

Close to several decades ago, the curriculum was still rooted in Developmentally Appropriate Practices (DAP). It relied heavily on instrumentation to ensure that quality teaching was being provided in the classroom (Pacini-Ketchabaw & Pence, 2011).  Pacini-Ketchabaw & Pence (2011) write that Canada has been behind many other Western and European countries in its use of pedagogies. However, within the last 15 years, there has been a surge in provinces instituting learning curricula/frameworks. This emergence of learning frameworks has been mainly due to the growing call for quality Early childhood educations.

Along with emerging research on child development and Scientific data on neuroplasticity and brain development, the framework for education has been forced to adapt and change along with the emerging data (Pacini-Ketchawba & Pence, 2011). Calls for cultural considerations have also been made to view children within the context of their culture and experience. In the Truth and Reconciliation Report’s Calls to Action, we see this desire repeated as the council calls for to develop “culturally appropriate early childhood education programs for Aboriginal families” (TRCC, 2012, pp. 12). Pacini-Ketchabaw & Pence point out that most of the Scientific research that we use to develop early learning frameworks is based on the study of only 5% of the world’s children. They caution that we cannot count on the research-based approach alone as a pathway or believe that, “Through a scientific and experimental approach a transcendent truth will be revealed” (Pacini-Ketchabaw & Pence, 2011 p. 5). I wonder what research would show if we look at a larger demographic of children across a range of cultures and economic statuses.

            If the quality does not come from the curricula framework itself, where does it come from? Pascal asserts that quality counts heavily on the Early Childhood Educators. Educators that embrace research and discussion, placing great importance on the child’s experience and learning within the context of their community and culture, are essential for making frameworks come alive. Pinar (2000) notes that “We must shift the point of the curriculum away from institutional, economic, and political goals of others . . . We realize that curriculum changes as we reflect on it. [Then] Curriculum ceases to be a thing and is more than a process. It becomes a verb” (Pinar, 2000. p. 848).

Charles Pascal (2017) talks about the importance of Early Childhood Education and touches on the idea of achieving quality.

CLICK to view: The role of early childhood in revolutionizing the future of education (Pascal, 2017).

 

Conversations that Sketch

            When I studied art in high school, our teacher gave us the 10 Rules of Seeing Flatly.  Every term, we were tested on the rules to ensure that we remember them. However, knowing the rules and having the tools to complete our assignments did not make us great artists. We had to look at the subjects, frame our perspective, measure them against other objects, and practice putting them down on paper to grow in our ability. Sketching became a way of life and a daily habit. It was a way of capturing beauty, questions, simplicity. Interacting with curricula/framework is similar to sketching while considering the guidelines that we were taught. The framework itself does not produce quality; the classroom environment or atmosphere itself does not produce quality. Instead, it is applying these things through the continuing work of pedagogists and the children, their families, their cultures, and communities that give the framework meaning. Conversation between educators and pedagogical narratives act like the practice of sketching. The experience grows and becomes a living, breathing, collaborative work by looking at the process and discussing it.

 

 

Reflect:

 

Have you ever experienced the discomfort of not ‘knowing’?

 

How have professional conversations changed you or caused you to grow?

 

How do you elevate the child in the way you teach? What do children teach you?

 

 

 

References:

BC Aboriginal Child Care Society [BCACCS]. (2018, January 1). Linda McDonell: 3. Transoformations [Video]. Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/250697359

Pacini-Ketchabaw, V., & Pence, A. (2011). The Postmodern Curriculum: Making Space for Historically and Politically Situated Understandings. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, 36(1), 4–8. https://doi.org/10.1177/183693911103600102

Pascal, C. (2017, September 26). The role of early childhood in revolutionizing the future of education | Dr. Charles Pascal [Video]. Storypark. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIMoQtYM1XY&t=26s

Pinar, W. (2000). Understanding curriculum: an introduction to the study of historical and contemporary curriculum discourses. Peter Lang.

Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. 2012. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action. http://trc.ca/assets/pdf/Calls_to_Action_English2.pdf