Early Childhood Beliefs

I thrive on core knowledge base from within our field and evaluate our effectiveness. It gives us a framework within which to work and serves as springboard for improvement. I believe that as Early Childhood Educators we must be able to understand child development and demonstrate the implication of this knowledge in practice; provide an environment that is safe, healthy and nurturing and is trustworthy, consistent and secure for all. We must also plan, implement and evaluate developmentally appropriate curriculum to enhance all areas of children’s learning and development including physical, intellectual, creative, and language, emotional and social. As a Teacher Educator, we are guides for student-teachers , who in turn guides our children and should model and facilitate supportive relationships by utilizing developmentally appropriate techniques. As early childhood educators it is indicative that we support the development of individual children, recognizing that children are best understood in the context of family, culture and

My philosophy of Early childhood education is based on research that indicates that a child’s growth is developmental. Every child is unique in terms of life experiences, developmental readiness, and cultural heritage. A high quality early childhood program that provides a safe and nurturing environment, which promotes physical, social, emotional, language and cognitive development will ensure a positive continuation of the child’s education process

Julie- educator 2 is a white Australian female in her late 20’s. She is a qualified group leader currently working in a Kindy room with children aged 2.5- 2.5 years; she is also assistant director (2IC) of her centre that she has worked at for the past ten years. The interview was a one on one scenario, conducted in her staff room after work, the interview was recorded. Both educators signed a letter of consent to participate in this research project, allowing the interviewee to explore the educators’ experiences and personal beliefs in relation to diversity and difference with the families and children in their centres.(As seen in Appendix 1 & 2). Key aspects and issues in relation to families, diversity and difference were considered essential data to be analysed for this research report.

A professional educator will actively view the child’s in association with their family and environment. They need to be viewed in context with their family as this will make the educator aware and respect the values and culture of each family and student. Principle 2 of the EYLF mentions ‘Learning outcomes are most likely to be achieved when Early Childhood Educators work in partnership with families’ (EYLF, 2009, p12). This is mostly effective when a successful educator uses strategies that actively involves the family, by introducing families to the classroom through plan programs that invites parent input.

As a professional child carer, my day-to-day role adheres to the CACHE values, by ensuring that the child is at the centre of my practice, and their needs are paramount [Bruce & Meggitt, 2012]. It is my role therefore to use the right skills and attitudes to create a safe, happy, positive, stimulating, multicultural learning environment in which children are cared for. I intend to achieve this by:

A major part of working with children and young people is to protect their rights and keep them from harm. So it is important that any adult does not let personal prejudices affect their work. They must look at their own values and attitudes and make sure they don’t have an impact on their work. With knowledge and understanding of different cultures and races that are in the school community many prejudices can be overcome. Working with special Educational Needs children and learning about what they can and cannot do – for whatever reason – also breaks

Critical analysis of your own values and beliefs and the assumptions that are made is the first step to becoming culturally competent. It is an ongoing learning process. In practice, it involves talking with families and learning what their culture, beliefs and values are and what aspirations they have for their children, how and what they expect their children to achieve and learn while at the centre. It involves looking at the broader community, what cultural groups are represented, looking at what diversity looks like in the early childhood centre and how the families and their culture is represented, and if it is not, looking for ways that it could be. It is having a commitment to ongoing learning, reflection and continued improvement.

After reading, chapter 3 the theories that have informed my beliefs about young children are the social interaction theory, the attachment theory and the constructivist theory. I really enjoyed reading about these theories and I believe in all theses theories. I agree with what the theorists say about these theories. The social interaction theory has informed me that learning happens through social events and children interact with people. This theory also has informed me about my beliefs about young children, because I believe like the theory says, that infants are active learners who co-construct language with adults and I do believe that infants are active learners. I believe that if children are social and interacting with other children

This literature review was undertaken in an effort to investigate the question: Does the use of our cultural conditioning influences have a positive correlation between parental attachments towards developing positive characteristics in early childhood development? An analysis of rearing children in unhealthy parenting environments reveals several challenges facing children’s emotional, social, psychological and mental and cognitive development. In order for children to be ready to enter school there are core characteristics such as the importance of touch and bonding, intensity levels of modeling efficacy, sensory reinforcers, and operant conditioning(SR-theory).

Bias and discriminatory comments in an early childhood environment towards children can be very damaging to the children’s self-esteem and how their relationships progress in the future. As an early childhood educator it is our job to ensure that we have strategies in place to ensure the children in my care feel safe and happy in my care.

One of the most important developments in the childhood is social cognition and theory of mind is closely related with the development of social cognition. It is also essential for communicative and linguistic competence. Miller (2006) explained how the theory of mind helps

Educators should take extreme caution in critically examining their own values, beliefs and attitudes in their workplace as this can really effect a service as a whole and the benefit and wellbeing of children and others attending the care service. If an educator is not cautious of these things a lot of negative behaviour and outcomes will come of this and this also puts an educator’s position at risk. Things to be mindful of in this instance is making sure no matter your upbringing and beliefs that you don’t not impose racist, bias or discriminative behaviour onto the people and children in your service as this can be detrimental

There are several components that can contribute to shaping one’s worldview. In most cases, these components consist of a strong set of rules, roles and assumptions that cannot help but shape one’s sense of themselves in the world (Harro, 2008). In this case, the specific life experiences that have shaped my worldview begin in early childhood. Starting in kindergarten through fifth grade, I attended six different elementary schools. Based on how children develop, one may identify this as a risk factor to development. However, by constantly moving, I had the opportunity to learn proper social skills, to interact with new people, identifying as different genders, races and ethnicities, wherever I was located and gain a better understanding

​The first step towards making this shift is for staff to take a self assessment in order to determine their strengths and areas needing improvement towards promoting cultural competence. Self assessments are tools that can assist staff in meeting cultural and linguistic competencies. This is an ongoing process that is beneficial towards one’s professional development plan. The National Center for Cultural Competence has developed an assessment tool for staff providing services and supports in early childhood settings. Physical environment, materials and resources, communication styles, and values

Within the teaching of the sciences to students in both KS3 and KS4 there are numerous common misconceptions that arise in a student’s understanding of chemical ideas. (Kind, 2004) Some of the common misconceptions that student hold in regards to the other sciences range in complexity from speed of objects in freefall relating to weight to the structure of atoms and electron shells(C3P, 2013) while in biology the misconceptions held can range from misunderstanding biological facts to common place misbeliefs, held by the public at large such as Vaccinating children makes them sick. (Bioliteracy, 2008)