week 2monday
teaching
the core sequence (320/321 [238/220])
• 320: becoming and being a teacher in all its complexity and richness
• 321 (238/220): how children (and novice teachers) learn and develop
• the underlying themes the same throughout the sequence
320
• becoming a teacher: To Teach, Anti-Bias Curriculum, UpClose Readings
• being a teacher:The Good Preschool Teacher, UpClose Readings
• the history of teaching young children: Learning from the Past, UpClose Readings
teaching1. seeing the kids2. the environment3. the curriculum4. your instruction5. assessment
• these five areas comprise the whole of teaching
• becoming a good teacher requires mastering all 5 areas
• what is “classroom management”?
cultureculture
culture (the way it’s s’pozed to be) • shared unspoken and deeply embedded values
and beliefs about – how the world should be – how people should act and interact – what they should do and not do, – when, where, how, and with whom they
should do it• shared ways of acting, interacting,
communicating• shared things, eg, tools, dress,
culture (particularly yours)• first step to understanding other cultures is to
begin to understand your own – everyone has a culture—everyone is immersed
in culture—everyone lives a cultural life• your own culture becomes most visible when your
sense of how it’s s’pozed to be disturbed, challenged, or threatened by others and how they see the world
midwestern• subcultures (few)
– sub-subcultures (many)• much overlap• porous boundaries• changing
for wednesday: (3x5 index card)• list of groups you belong to
– formal– formal– don’t know
Name groups• group• group• group
history of ECE
history: the story a group tells about itself, to others & to itself:
• who are we• where are we now • how did we get here• who got us to where we are• what did they believe, value, care about• what were their struggles, with others, and
among themselves• what do we believe, value, care about• why are we different from others and why are
those differences important
major themes in ece
• early childhood a separate and distinct stage of life– young children developmentally different
from older children and adults– young children learn differently from older
children and adults• therefore schooling for young children
must be different from schooling for older children
• schooling for young children a good and necessary thing (the importance of early intervention)
• stage theory• a Western focus on the individual• a feminine view of children
housekeeping
syllabus details• reading 2x• self-reports: 1,2,3,10,11,15,16,17,19,20,22,etc• placement• electronic mail• professional behavior
week 2wednesday
teaching
becoming a teacher• practice: take many risks, make many mistakes• surround yourself with people you can talk with• read teachers, e.g., Paley• stay alive in your mind as an adult: develop
passions and continue to pursue them• begin to understand the invisibility of good teaching• build a strong relationship with your supervisor;
direct her/him to be a better supervisor; look at the classroom together
• take moral responsibility for your education• don’t ask kids to do what you don’t do, e.g., make a
summer reading list• not only realistic to hope, necessary to hope
(ideas from Bill Ayers)
cultureculture
myths about culture1. culture is something other people have—
people with an ethnic identity or darker skin or from another country
2. culture is basically visible—you can see it in the clothes people wear, their skin color, the language they speak, their celebrations
3. it’s important to understand cultural differences, but ultimately it’s all about individuals—underneath the differences people are all the same
1. if people can learn to accept each other as people, they will be able to learn to understand each other, to get along, to respect each other—it’s just not that difficult.
accents and dialects• who has an accent or speaks with a dialect?
– everyone has an accent– everyone speaks a dialect– the prestige of a dialect has less to do with
qualities of the dialect than with dominance of those who speak it. • some accents carry more “cultural capital”
than others.
some examples:• I ain’t got no money• I don’t have any money
• I know what it is.• I know what it’s.
• going to• want to• psychology• herbs• often
history of ECE
• the history of schooling is like a stream which has many currents. – at any given time some currents are
stronger, closer to the surface etc. than others.
– some currents become weak and seem to disappear, only to reappear later.
– often different currents join to form a seemingly new one.
– but the currents of today can be traced to the currents of yesterday.
• you are entering a stream that has been flowing for centuries
major influences on ece
• romanticism• biological maturationism• psychodynamic theory• protestantism• behaviorism• economics• fear of and concern about poverty• mental measurement• cultural deprivation/differences (at-risk)• Piaget/structuralism/stage theory• developmental psych in general• belief in environment• legalism• special education
housekeeping
most common 320/321 writing problems• non-working, extra, useless words• beginning sentences with there is or it is etc• using that or which to refer to people• pronouns with no noun referent• no comma in compound sentence connected
with conjunction• separating compound verb with comma• separating verb from subject with comma• not differentiating restrictive and non-
restrictive relative clauses• commas and periods outside quotation marks