"WHO AM I IN THE LIVES OF CHILDREN?"

Stephanie Feeney

In 1970, the University of Hawaii established an interdisciplinary early childhood teacher education program in response both to na­tional concern with early childhood educa­tion and to the need in Hawaii for teachers trained to work with very young children. The program was jointly developed by the De­partment of Curriculum and Instruction in the College of Education and the Department of Human Development in the College of Tropical Agriculture. It provides an alterna­tive, within the Elementary Education pro­gram, for students who wish to specialize in working with children three to eight years of age (with particular emphasis on teaching preschool children). The program's objective is to help students betome competent and nurturing teachers of young children.

Two years of upper-division coursework are required, including courses in Human Development, Educational Psychology, Edu­cational Foundations, Curriculum and In­struction, and student teaching. Graduates receive Kindergarten-Sixth Grade certification from the Hawaii State Department of Educa­tion, and a preschool teaching endorsement from the University of Hawaii.

The Department of Curriculum and In­struction has assigned one faculty member, assisted by graduate students and interested colleagues, to develop and implement a three-semester sequence of undergraduate coursework. These courses present the basic educational awareness, information and skills for the students in the program.

This article focuses on the Curriculum and Instruction component of the University of Hawaii's Early Childhood Education Program and' how it is designed to help students grow.

The Context of Early Childhood Teacher Education

"Who am I?" and "Who am I in the lives of children?" are questions requiring answers that are constantly evolving, vital and alive. These questions reappear throughout our professional lives and become deeper and more meaningful as we gain in awareness, knowledge and experience. We believe that these questions should form the central core of a program of preparation of teachers of young children.

Our approach to teacher education is based on two basic assumptions. First, that teaching is managing oneself as a tool - a primary tool in the teaching-learning process. "It is the awareness of one's changing self and its changing impact on children." (Hill­iard, p. 14) Second, that meaningful profes­sional development cannot occur if knowl­edge is not wedded to its personal implica­tions.

Public and professional interest in the field of early childhood education has expanded greatly in recent years. There has been exten­sive debate regarding the best kinds of pro­grams for young children and deep attention to the nature of teacher education. Current theory and research - including work on de­velopment of all aspects of human potential, aspects of children's cognitive development and modes of learning, and stages of social and emotional development - point to the significance of the early years for develop­ment of the child and the interrelatedness of all areas of development.

The skills and personal qualities of the teacher of young children profoundly influ­ence the development of the child in the school setting. In the field of teacher educa­tion, much attention has been given to what

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personal qualities and skills are essential for teaching young children and how these skills can best be developed.

Prospective teachers are not often given the tools and resources to develop their own philosophy and unique teaching style. The education of such teachers can be likened to making a clay figure by forming each piece separately and then sticking it onto a central core. Teachers-in-training appear to accept the approaches offered by their various in­structors without really integrating each piece into their own identity. Like the clay figures made by the "stick-on" method, such teachers tend to fall apart when subjected to stress. Teachers whose actions grow from their own centers and whose teaching is an integral part of who they are, are less likely to exhibit such inability to cope with stress. To continue the analogy, these teachers are more like clay figures in which each piece is pulled and shaped from the central mass of clay.

The Early Childhood Education Program A major goal of the Early Childhood Program is to help students develop a personal an­swer to the basic question, "Who am I in the lives of children?" The courses focus on the development of teacher behaviors which are growth-producing for children and which allow students to develop their own unique teacher role based on their values, beliefs and personal characteristics.

We combine the humanistic approach of Maslow and Rogers which focuses on the de­velopment of the teacher as a person who is open, authentic, self-aware and able to ex­press feelings, with the emphasis on child growth and development, and curriculum traditionally found in early childhood teacher education programs.

Our goal is to develop professionals who possess self-knowledge, a base of informa­tion in human development and education, interpersonal relationship skills and the abil­ity to design and implement early childhood curriculum in ways which contribute opti­mally to the growth and development

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of children. The program is designed to facilitate inte­

gration of personal awareness with a base of skills and knowledge. This is accomplished through providing information and experi­ence and socialization in ways designed to enable the student to synthesize and apply knowledge gained in actual classroom practice.

Information Information is provided in the form of read­ings, films and other media, lectures, and through a system of instructional modules written especially for the program. Students using modules work at their own pace and can refer back to the material as their in­terests and concerns change. The modules are divided into three units, each of which encourages awareness, provides information and promotes development of skills related to each component of the teaching-learning process. (See Table I)

Each module consists of: • A statement of purpose; • Leaming objectives for the module; • Basic content for the module; • A discussion guide to give focus to in­

tensive small-group discussions which form an integral part of the course;

• Activities for students to implement in classrooms with children;

• References recommended for further ex­ploration of the topic, and

• A self-assessment instrument to enable students to take responsibility for their own learning through assessing their progress, strengths and weaknesses.

Part I, Underpinnings, presents basic areas which form the core of the student's ap­proach to working with young children. The first two modules, ''The Teacher" and "Val­ues and Goals," help the students look in­ward to develop basic awareness of the na­ture of the teacher as a person and a profes­sional and to look at their own values for education and for society. The student is guided to explore society's view of the role of the teacher, implications of this role with re-

Table 1

LIST OF THE MODULES

Awareness Module I-A Module I-B

Understanding Module I-C Module I-D

Skills Module 1-E Module I-F

UNITI UNDER.PINNINGS

The Teacher Values and Goals

Human Development History and Models

Observation Communication and Relationship Skills

UNIT II THE ORGANIZATION AND ECOLOGY Of

THE EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENT Module II-A Module 11-B Module II-C Module 11-E

The Interdependent Community Time, Space and Equipment Classroom Management Assessment and Planning

UNITill CURRICULUM EXPERIENCES

Language Module III-A Language Development Module III-B Children's Literature

Creative Arts Module IIl-D Art Module 111-E Music Module llI-F Creative Movement

Physical and Social Inquiry Module III-G Math Module IIl-H Science Module III-I Nutrition and Cooking Module IIl-J Social Studies

gard to power and authority, and a personal definition of "role" based on knowledge of self and one's goals for children. A wide range of value choices are introduced within the context of a developmental approach for children, and students are encouraged to ex­amine their own values and make educa­tional choices based on these values (Feeney and Stanfield, 1976).

Modules dealing with "Human Develop­ment" and "History and Models" look out­ward at the existing body of knowledge in human development, humanistic psychology, and education which provide a base of information from which young teachers can draw to make educational decisions.

The last two modules in Part I, "Observa­tion" and "Communication and Relationship Skills," help students develop basic skills which we believe to be absolutely essential in working successfully with young children.

Part II, Ecology of the Educational Envi­ronment, presents an approach to looking at the interrelationships between people and the physical environment which comprise the program for children.

Ecology is the study of the interaction of the component parts of an environment. Every educational environment has as its component parts, the physical facility (site, building, equipment and time frame) and people with a purpose to facilitate the de­velopment of a group of learners.

The educational environment is composed of many interdependent relationships be­tween people - and between people and the physical setting. It is important that the teacher understand and learn to facilitate the interaction of the components of the educa­tional environment in ways that support the growth and development of all the partici­pants - children, self, co-workers and parents.

An educational environment is more than what happens between the teacher and the children within the physical setting. The en­vironment is influenced by the administrative structure within which it functions, the qual­ity and quantity of the parent-school interac­tions, and the community support systems; and how they interact to provide for the needs of children.

The module on "Time, Space and Equip­ment" explores how the teacher structures the components of the physical setting to sup­port educational outcomes for children.

The module on "Management'' outlines

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some ways the teacher may structure rela­tionships to the children, and their relation­ships to each other, to support specific de­velopmental and learning goals.

The module on "Assessment and Planning" presents an approach to assessing the de­velopmental and learning needs of children. From this assessment emerges the planning process for designing the experiences which meet the educational goals of the setting while providing meaningful experiences for the development of children - physically, socially, emotionally and intellectually.

Part III, Curriculum Experiences, deals with fundamental early childhood curriculum areas. In each module we explore the rele­vant child development information, the val­ue context, the nature of the discipline, and techniques for organizing the classroom and materials, and instructional strategies for presenting the information to children. The curriculum is organized into three broad clusters - Language Development, Creative Arts, and Physical and Social Inquiry.

The three units, as shown in Figure 1, are interrelated. Unit I provides the basics needed for understanding, communicating, and working with young children in class­room settings. Unit II builds on the under­standing gained in Unit I to develop the management skills necessary to orchestrate the early childhood setting. Unit III takes the

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II

Ecology of the Educational Setting

I

Underpinnings

Figure 1

basic understanding and the management and organization skills and applies them to the transmission of the content of specific curriculum areas.

Experience Students gain firsthand experience through work with children, work with creative mater­ials in workshop settings, and through in­teracting in small groups to develop cur­riculum materials and discuss issues.

Opportunities for extensive interaction with children are provided. First-semester stu­dents visit a different program each week to get firsthand experience of the range of early childhood programs operating in Hawaii and to develop skills in systematic observation of children and classrooms.

In each of the following two semesters, students observe and participate (O/P) one full-day or two mornings each week in order to design and implement learning activities for children in each of the curriculum areas presented in the program. Each student has one placement in a preschool and one in an elementary school.

Socialization We concur with Lilian Katz that,

Teacher education should be thought of as a process of socialization rather than as a program of training. The term training implies exercise of specific skills and prac­tice of specific tasks. The term socialization generally subsumes training, but includes also all of those processes and experiences by which trainees acquire the beliefs, habits, role prescriptions, at­t itudes, dispositions, techniques, skills, idealogies, etc., of a given norm group (Katz, 1974, p. 57).

As a consequence, the method of presenta­tion of the material and the climate of the program are as important to us as the pro­gram design and information content.

Katz proposes that, "The social climate of a teacher education program should resemble the social climate we want trainees to create in classrooms when they are teachers.

(Italics hers; Katz, 1974, p. 62.) We feel that teachers cannot be expected to create condi­tions for learning that they have not experi­enced themselves.

An essential component of the social cli­mate is an environment which is psychologi­cally safe for the learner. We believe that adults as well as children, learn best in set­tings in which they are respected as unique and valuable individuals and where lack of knowledge and skill is regarded as an area for potential growth and not a basis for criti­cism or ridicule. Our program aims to model for students the creation of a climate of trust and respect in which they may feel safe to experiment and grow.

We believe every person has his own learn­ing style and preferred models of learning and that learning occurs best when there is no separation of mind and feelings and when it derives as much as possible from direct experience. We have designed the program to provide students with a variety of settings for learning and to engage them emotionally and physically, as well as intellectually, in the process of learning.

Finally, we believe that learning has more lasting value when students can make their own choices. We have designed the early childhood program to maximize student self-direction and decisionmaking. Students may choose the materials and activities that

are meaningful to them, and, within guidelines, choose the level and kind of in­volvement they wish to have in the program.

Often our students experience frustration during the course of the program because they are not told how to teach but rather en­gaged in an ongoing process of personal growth. However, by the end of the program most students communicate that they feel the struggle has been worthwhile - the role and identity of the teacher which is beginning to emerge is truly their own.

References

Feeney, Stephanie; Carol Phelps and Doris Stanfield, "Val· ues Examination, A Crucial Issue In Early Childhood Educa­tion," in Early Childhood Education: It's an Art? It's a Sci­ence?. Washington, D.C.: NAEYC, 1976. J. D. Andrews, ed.

Hilliard, Asn, "Moving from Abstract to Functional Teacher Education: Pruning and Planting," in Teacher Education. Washington, D.C.: NAEYC, 1974. Bernard Spodek, ed.

Katz, Llllian, "Issue and Problems in Teacher Education," in Spodek, op. cit.

Stephanie Feeney is Assistant Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, College of Education, University of Hawaii. Receiving her M .A. from Harvard, and Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate School, Dr. Feeney is also Coordinator of the College's Early Childhood Program.

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