PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS OF YOUNG CHILDREN

Barbara T. Bowman

Erikson Institute

May 16, 2001

Eager to Learn, the report from the National Research Council on early childhood pedagogy made as its first recommendation that "Each group of children in an early childhood education and care program should be assigned a teacher who has a bachelor’s degree with specialized education related to early childhood, such as developmental psychology, early childhood education, and early childhood special education." The research that supports this recommendation is: 1) The professional development of teachers is related to the quality of early childhood programs (Jorde-Bloom).). 2) Program quality predicts developmental outcomes for children (Kontos, et al., 1997, Vandell & Coransaniti, 1990). 3) Formal professional education consistently is linked to positive teacher behaviors (Bollin, 1990; Espinosa, 1980; Fisher, 1989; Howes, 1997; Darling –Hammond, 1998). 4) There is a strong relationship between the number of years of education and training and the appropriateness of a teacher's classroom behavior (Howes, 1997; Ruopp, Travers, Glantz, and Coelen, 1979). 5) Improved teacher performance is obtained from training focused specifically on child development and early childhood education (Ruopp, Travers, Glantz, and Coelen, 1979). 6) The amount of formal education best predicts effective educational practices (Arnett, 1989; Berk, 1985; Clarke-Stewart and Gruber, 1984).

The Committee accepted as a given that education is an essential component of all early childhood programs, and therefore, the term teacher refers to the person primarily responsible for a group of children in a center-based program, whether the program is called childcare or preschool.

I am often asked why teachers of young children need so much education. Most adults know more than preschoolers and can take adequate care of their basic needs. Yet research consistently shows that highly educated and professionally trained teachers provide better quality programs, increasing the likelihood that children have the cognitive, social, and emotional skills necessary for healthy development and school success.

In school, children must learn cognitive skills like reading, writing, and arithmetic. They are expected to have self-control, to know how to interact with peers, and to follow directions. They are expected to have mastered basic grammar, to have a good-sized vocabulary, and to enunciate clearly in the standard accent of the language. Children who begin early preparing to do these things will be more successful.

Learning well in school begins with a healthy child in a responsive family receiving the basic ingredients for development. However, learning well in family and community does not necessarily prepare children for school. Children also need the opportunity to learn school related skills and knowledge. For literacy, for example, this includes learning not just to speak but to acquire a significant vocabulary, attend to the meaning of words, hear the sequence of sounds in words, see the relationship between written and spoken language, understand the stream of written language without contextual clues, and so on.

Young children learn social, emotional, physical and cognitive concepts best when they are integrated into their daily life. Well-educated teachers, who have a deep understanding of the various disciplines, are able to see how children’s questions and interests can lead to substantive learning in science, math, literacy, the arts, and social sciences. They are able to extend natural and home-inspired learning with the formal knowledge systems. And, as is always the case, the more basic the question, the more knowledge is required. For example, children’s understanding of number line is enhanced when the teacher understands why it is a fundamental concept in mathematics and can connect it to other mathematical ideas. Research on teacher efficacy suggests teacher’s knowledge of subject matter is related to how well children learn. Presumably, teachers who have deep subject-matter knowledge are able to use their knowledge flexibly and spontaneously with children. They are able to build on what children already know in a natural and enjoyable way.

There is also "compelling evidence" (Ashton, 1996) of the superiority of teachers with professional course work as well as general education in promoting student achievement. Graduates of teacher education programs 'drop out' of teaching less frequently than teachers without such experience, suggesting that pre-service professional education effects a teacher's decision to continue teaching. Early childhood teachers with more professional education have been found to be more appropriate in their classroom behavior (Roupp, et al., 1979; Clarke-Stewart & Gruber, 1984; Berk, 1985; Howes, 1997). Well-educated teachers who were professionally supported staffed the model programs that have demonstrated the strongest and most enduring effects.

Four domains of professional education are particularly important for teachers in preschool programs. First, teachers must understand how young children learn since they do not learn precisely the way older children and adults do. They actually have to learn what and how their families and communities want them to learn. But they are not helplessly waiting for an older person to teach them. At birth they have the latent capability to learn to walk and to talk, to use their senses, to make categories, to use symbols, to love and to be loved. Not only do they have the capacity to learn these things, they want to; or in the words of the NRC report, they are eager to.

Children are genetically primed to begin the learning process. For example, infants can make a large number of different sounds but gradually they stop using sounds they do not hear every day and focus on those found in their native language. Early abilities, then, are the base for later learning but children quickly become focused on the challenges of their everyday environment, building on what they already know to form more complex skills and knowledge. Good teaching provides a bridge between what children currently know and more mature understanding.

If new opportunities to learn are too narrow or too meager, children may not be able to use there past experience to make sense of the new ones. For example, when children are encouraged to rote count without understanding the meaning of the counting process, they may learn the invariant order of number tags (they can say 1 to 5 in order) but be unable to count five objects.

Second, teachers must learn about individual differences. Young children are not all the same; they differ in temperaments and responsiveness, in maturation, in the pace at which they learn, in the difficulty and ease with which they learn different things. For example, children learn to talk using somewhat different strategies. Some learn whole chunks at once in phrases like; "I want some more", and "give it to me" while others learn one word at a time, developing a large vocabulary of single words before putting them together in phrases (Bates et al., 1988). Teaching preschool age children, therefore, must be more explicitly tailored to these preferences than is necessary later. Gradually, as children learn the cultural expectations of their communities—particularly language--their thinking and behavior will get closer to those of other children in their group, and they will find it easier to learn in lock step with one another. But this takes time. As a consequence, there is no standardized curriculum that works well for all children. Teachers must be able to match what they want children to learn to individual children’s styles and pacing. They must also be able to assess accurately whether individuals are learning and if not, to replan their teaching.

Equally important, teachers of young children must be alert to the difference between normal variations in the pace and style of children’s learning and developmental lags and handicapping conditions. Differences between typical and atypical development are often subtle. For example, if we judge language delay by whether a 2 year old has fewer than 30 words, between 9 and 17 are language delayed (Rescorla, 1989). However, by age 5, only between 1 to 3% of children are still considered delayed (Silva, 1980). What this means is that a significant number of two year olds may seem delayed, in part at least, because of variations in their individual rate of acquiring language. Failure to appreciate the distinction between individual difference and disabilities can delay early intervention for children who may need it and subject typically developing children and their families to unnecessary stress.

Third, teachers must learn to establish effective relationships with children. There is an increasing amount of evidence showing that when children are able to feel emotionally secure with their teacher, they are more active in their exploration of the environment, and therefore, have more opportunities to learn (Birch & Ladd, 1997; Howes & Smith, 1995; Pianta & Steinberg, 1992). One of the consistent findings in early education is that an emotionally warm and positive approach in learning situations leads to more constructive behavior in children (Bowman et al., 2001). Studies also point out that children who establish satisfactory relationships with their preschool and kindergarten teachers are more likely to do well in school the next year (Howes, 1994; Pianta, 1994).

Fourth, teachers need group management skills. Teaching young children in group settings is a complex job so teachers need specific knowledge of teaching methods. They need to know when to teach and what methods are best to teach different things. They need to know how to manage large group activities, when to work with small groups and individual children, how to understand and communicate with families from different cultural backgrounds to name just of few of their tasks. Teachers also need assessment strategies to plan teaching and determine achievement. Cultural and language differences affect what children know and how they know it, so teachers must learn how to engage and build understanding with children who come from different backgrounds. And they need to do this as economically as possible because they have a number of children to teach.

In view of the research, the Committee on early childhood pedagogy made the recommendation that education programs should provide teachers with a stronger and more specific foundational knowledge of the development of children’s social and affective behavior, thinking, and language. This foundation must be linked to teachers’ knowledge of mathematics, science, linguistics, literature, etc. as well as to instructional practices for young children.

The Committee recognized that "there is a great disjunction between what is optimal pedagogically for children’s learning and development and the level of preparation that currently typifies early childhood educators." To move toward the kind of high quality teaching our children need and deserve, there must be a substantially greater commitment of public and private resources to teacher education than are currently available. The Committee suggests that innovative educational programs, scholarship and loan programs, and higher compensation are essential if all children are to be ready for school. The children are eager to learn, they need the opportunity.

References

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