Understanding Early Childhood Educational Programs

In today’s society many people recognize that our current educational system is antiquated and heavily flawed. Many do not believe the education our children routinely receive adequately prepares them to be successful in their adult lives and because of this parents are very concerned. This dissatisfaction has led to the implementation of numerous alternatives to the traditional educational system to which we have become accustomed. Each of these alternatives has their own collection of philosophies and methodologies, proponents and opponents, advantages and disadvantages, but the common thread is that they each aim to provide our children with a better, more effective education suited for today’s world. Montessori education is one of these alternative learning options that been around for many years and has been steadily gaining popularity.

Montessori’s teaching approach aims to develop all aspects of the child mentally and socially (Pound, 2012). Montessori cautioned teachers to remember that children need to be allowed to do basic tasks to learn for themselves (Mooney, 2000, p.28). The role of the teacher in a Montessori setting is mainly observation of the child, encouragement, preparation of the environment, leadership, fostering the child’s independence (Mooney, 2000, p.29), and keeping a complex and delicate balance between each role. (Miller, 2010, p.79). Both theorists acknowledged that children learn best by doing and through repetition of tasks (Mooney, 2000, p.29). Large blocks of time for free work and play, should be scheduled as this was part of the Montessori legacy, this can also be seen in Steiner settings. (Pound, 2012). The teacher should also give children responsibility for keeping the setting space clean and tidy and allow the children to structure their own play. (Mooney, 2000, p.29). Steiner’s role of the teacher is comparable. Steiner wanted to create an education which gave children ‘clarity of thought, sensitivity of feeling and strength of will’ (Pound 2012, p28). Like Montessori the role of the teacher is all about observation, the teacher needs to be both interested and observational of the child’s basic needs to fully develop the child both

Maria Montessori once stated, “The greatest sign of success for a teacher is to be able to say, ‘The children are now working as if I did not exist’” (Chattin-McNichols, 1992). The end goal of a Montessori classroom is to create independent and curious learners ready to take on any challenge thrown their way. The Montessori Method differs from traditional school settings because learning is child-centered, meaning children create their own knowledge from experiences within a prepared environment.

The Montessori approach is a holistic approach. It is geared toward producing meaningful interaction between children, their environment, and the teacher as intermediary. At the foundation of the program is the belief that the first six years of life are the most important years of growth. Children are recognized as being different from adults, and that difference is respected. Children are credited with possessing the sensitivity and intellectual ability to absorb meaning from their environment. Therefore, the classroom should give the support necessary to help them ultimately become self-directed learners, able to reach their full potential: socially, emotionally, physically, and cognitively. Learning should be a joyful

Early childhood education has many benefits and there is the potential for many significant outcomes if universal preschools were put into place. Some feel that children who start kindergarten without previously attended preschool sometimes lack certain skills such as social and communication skills and an inability to follow routines. There were also studies done that found attending preschool could help to close the achievement gap in the grade school years. A child’s first few years of life are most important, and they absorb the most during those years. By providing universal preschool, all children would be benefiting, especially those who are in at-risk families or part of the lower class. As a society, we have a responsibility to help the children in our communities and provide them with the education they need in order to help them succeed in life.

First, taking ED580 and spending time with the children has made it clear to me that early childhood (bilingual) education is what I’d love to pursue as a future career. Actually, I have long been interested in early childhood education and was intended to choose that as my major for graduate school; however, my parents urged me to choose a “broader” major such as TESOL so that I can have more career choices after graduation. Although I was not willing to, I finally compromised not to my parents, but to the reality. In China, people have the deeply-rooted misunderstanding that preschool teachers are just babysitters; as a result, the requirement of educational level for preschool teachers is rather low, namely vocational high school. It may sound crazy if someone with a mater degree wants to be a preschool teacher. Thus, preschool teachers together with early childhood education are largely undervalued in China. I always know that it is silly to undermine the importance of early childhood education, but I do not have powerful evidence to back me up to change people’s thought. Now, I think I can confidently explain to others that because human development is accumulative and progressive, early inventions on the children’s dysfunctions may have the power to change their life trajectories and their fates. Keeping in mind how powerful early childhood education is and how influential preschool educators can be, I become clearer about on what I’d love to devote my time and effort

While there are several early childhood program models from which to choose, not all programs are equal in their goals and outcomes. Parents and policy makers have shown increased awareness for the quality of care and education in childhood programs (Epstein, 1999). A high-quality program is one that ascribes to developmentally appropriate practice while allowing children to take charge of their own education (Epstein, 1999). The author will discuss Early Head Start, Chicago Child-Parent Centers, and the Abecedarian Project.

The program I chose to visit was a child care center at Garrett LLC. For Learning & Growth, located at 1929 S Archer Ave, Chicago, IL 60616. The classroom that I observed was an infant classroom, which children’s age between six weeks to one-year-old. The demographic in this small infant classroom was five children, with a ratio of three white boys to two black girls. There was only one six weeks’ infant baby girl in this classroom with a special need such as a need to drink her mother’s breast milk, which her mother already prepared every day six bottles of breast milk for the classroom.

There is an accumulation of similarities and contrast within each discussion category. The idea of how they relate in terms of theory becomes a highly complex analysis because the threads for all three programs are virtually the same and shaped heavily by the social sciences. Aside from the tangles of likeness and crossovers in theory, modes of operation and arrangement, the historical aspect addresses the pathway leading to each models final take on how relationship are a necessity in educating young children. In regards to the history of early childhood education, there is a high level of connectedness between care and education. (Canella, )

While walking through the front gates of County elementary school, you see children of all ages playing while they wait for the school bell to ring. Walking to the classroom that I will be observing you see students with their parent’s line up waiting to get signed in. The students are to be signed in by a parent or guardian for safety precautions, and shows that the child was signed into school. As a visitor, I am to sign myself in, this shows I was in the classroom, at what time was I there, and reason for visiting the classroom.

In reality, the children move about the classroom independently, choosing the order of their learning activities. There may be 15 or more activities, or ?jobs? as they are called in some Montessori classrooms, occurring at the same time with small groups or individual work, yet the classroom remains quiet, yet busy and productive, sometimes with the soft hush of classical music playing in the background. Many Montessori school classrooms place a card around the child?s neck with the day?s objectives written in the form of a checklist for the students to monitor themselves. This checklist encourages the students to take responsibility for their own learning, as well as discourages prompt-dependence, since the student need not wait for instruction. Some of the activities in a Montessori classroom include reading, pre-reading using phonics, math, discovery science and writing. Children learn skills in a way that he or she is not aware that learning is taking place. For example, a child playing in the sand box with a small rake is not aware that he or she is learning fine motor skills and how to hold and control a pencil. Another observation in a Montessori classroom is that most classrooms tend to span three grade levels. This practice allows to children to become mentors to younger students. Also, the large gap in developmental levels allows children to ?learn at their own pace? (Keller, 2001), which is another important Montessori

There are so many unique things about me, it is hard to narrow it down to a meaningful few! One significantly relevant factor that has led me to apply for admission into William and Mary’s Early Childhood Education program is the mutual high affinity children and I have always had. Being an only child helps, I think, in that I have more of an appreciation for being around children, since I did not grow up surrounded by them. One of my earliest such memories is playing an impromptu game of Peek-a-Boo with a crying child while in a store checkout line. She cheered right up!

Personally, I consider Montessori a superb curriculum for early child’s learning. Its principles and methods sensitize the sensory motor of the children to quicken their minds and movements. The method of teaching the activities of practical life is indeed very helpful to the development and progress of the skills and understanding of children about life and how they should apply their practical experiences at home and in their environment, Because of this simulation approach, children could perform well at a very young age. Not only that, since they act on adult’s activities, manipulating their models, they in turn learn to submit to the disciplines in order by following the rules and regulations like the adults.

Watching a small child discover how to operate his or her favorite plaything is awe inspiring. The look of wonder at the item as it's carefully chosen from amongst their belongings and studied ever so carefully for each and every nuance. How that little face lights up with each new discovery no matter how large or small. The sounds of delight an even dismay at an unwanted result are beautiful. Consider an educational system that would continue to utilize a child’s natural curiosity, unyielding ingenuity and thirst for knowledge. Montessori education creates that environment for children by allowing them the freedom to not only gain knowledge in a natural progression, but also provide a basis on which to continue to grow no matter where

Montessori is a huge part of early childhood today; most all of the materials, teaching techniques, and equipment that we use stemmed from her methods and philosophy. She estimated that children need to have a prepared environment, meaning a learning environment adapted to the specific characteristics of children of all ages. It was her belief that if a child had a prepared environment, then the child would be able to develop independence in all areas according to the child’s psychological state. She concluded that the environment should have order, beauty and harmony, cleanliness, be constructed in proportion to the child’s needs, and be arranged so that children could move and be active. If you walk into an early childhood room today, most, if not all, of these characteristics are exhibited. Montessori’s contributions to early childhood that we continue to use today also include; adapting school work to the individual rather than molding the child to fit the curriculum, insisting on freedom for children in selection of materials and choice of activities, and training