Some Philosophical Problems in EarlyChildhood Education

Walter Ott, Canada

Clearly, a problem of goals and structure existsfor us in the early childhood classroom. Itexists not only in the obviously bad schools(which are in the minority) but also in thosestaffed by conscientious, well-meaningindividuals. Increasingly, teachers are not surewhat the objectives of the preschool are andthey do not know how these objectives leadinto the later education and life of the child. Infact this problem of goals and structure is notunique to the early childhood arena. Teacherson the whole are ignorant of how theirclassroom activity should affect the overall lifeand direction of their students. One often getsthe feeling that goal-lessness itself isfunctioning as a kind of goal emerging frompolicy makers who are adverse to making valuejudgments.

One response by the authorities to the lackof goals has been to provide open classroomsand experimental projects where children, notteachers, decide what they should learn andhow quickly they should do so. The intentionwas to allow each student to study in his areaof interest. In retrospect, most teachers havelearned their lesson from these years (in voguein the late 1960's and early 1970's) when wildchaos often haunted the schools and aimlessexperiences were equated with education.Now educators at least know not to surrendertheir responsibilities to students who, on thewhole, have no idea of what they themselveswant.

By now I think you will understand why Ibelieve that definitive educational statementsare not a luxury but are necessities. Choiceshave to be made, difficult as they are or

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education will lose its purpose of transformingchildren into thinking and discriminatingadults and education will also lose its power ofinvoking a better future life. By "better futurelife", I do not mean a greater abundance ofmaterial goods (which we now thankfullyalready enjoy) but a finer quality of living.

In no other branch of education are theseaspirations better reflected today than in earlychildhood education. At this level, andrightfully so, the questions of the goals andpurposes of education take on urgency andnew life.

Theorists tend to approach preschooleducation from one of two directions. On theone hand are the developmentalists eager todevelop the child's growth along the directionsof their theoretical model. The work ofKohlberg and Piaget is often given asjustification for stimulating and maximizingeach stage of the child's growth. Such growthtends to be defined mainly along intellectualand moral lines. The intention of the preschoolis seen as speeding up the child's movementthrough the growth stages and preventingfixation on any stage except the highest.Experiences to which children are exposed arethose most relevant to a particular sort ofdevelopment. The child who is musically orartistically gifted, for instance, is usually at adisadvantage because music and art aregenerally displaced by conceptual andintellectual development; that is, by exerciseswhich concentrate on the logic in the mindrather than on the emotions.

On the other hand are those pursuing moreshort-range goals such as preparing preschool

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youngsters for scholastic success or teachingthem basic skills. The former attempts to giveyoungsters a head start in grade one byteaching them reading, writing and countingin the preschool.

The latter, pursuing basic skill instruction(or a basic behaviour repertory) categorizethese skills into such as the following: (a)attention skills (perceptual discrimination,object differentiation),(b) basic language skills(labelling, speech imitation, responding tolanguage cues), (c) sensory-motor skills(balance, hand-eye coordination) and(d) motivation (learning to respond to naturalreinforcers). Early childhood education shouldensure, so they claim, that each child is fullyfunctional in each of these skill areas. Thiswould give every child an equal start in gradeone - when the great race begins. Bereiter(1973) feels especially strongly that earlychildhood education free itself from teachingthe child values of any sort, as these would bea prejudicial and highly biased imposition onthe child. Education to him means passing onvalue-neutral information, universallyacceptable to children of any nationality orpolitical creed. Such value-neutral informationis, he believes, the basic skill repertoryaugmented later by mathematical, linguistic,and logical skills. I am always amazed at thisposition because it totally ignores andfundamentally misunderstands that educationis in essence a value-oriented enterprise.Teaching someone to perceive nature, forinstance, through scientific method andscientific thought is as value-laden anenterprise as teaching him to view natureartistically through the categories of colour,form, balance and beauty. Not that the valuesare the same, of course, but that theindividuals so trained have quite differentapproaches to the world around them. Insofaras learning influences the life of the learner, itis value laden. Educators cannot escape fromthis.

Finally, North American preschools alsocontain some doses of various other theoriesof goals and structure. There are, for instance,Montessori schools, Waldorf schools, openschools patterned after the British InfantSchool, church run schools, and manyschools serving only a custodial function.

Content and structure in early childhoodtheory would appear to be in a confusingstate.

A practical solution

Jean Jacques Rousseau in the 18th centurylamented on "the sad fate of mortals, adriftupon this sea of human opinions, withoutcompass or rudder, abandoned to theirstormy passions without a guide". Howclosely this resembles our situation today.There is no shortage of advice or passion fromalmost every quarter. Yet most of the advice isreally of no consequence because it isfragmented, unorganized, and lackingpurpose. It is short term advice, perhaps avariation from some other but retaining thesame theme. I believe the problem is with ourbasic theme. Early childhood teachers need toquestion this theme to secure for earlychildhood education a solid footing. Thisfooting I shall call by the general name ­philosophy of human nature. Only when thelife of a child is conceived in continuity withhis life as an adult can early childhoodeducation in the true sense proceed. Humanlife involves the pursuit of ideals. Withoutideals there can be no notion of growth,maturity, or direction. Without direction,there can be no education. To me, it is clearthat the prime problem for the educator is theconception of an ideal for human life. It actslike a beacon and justification for his day today activities with a child.

To see education only as it applies to thepreschool years, or to elementary or highschool means misunderstanding education.Everything which one does with and tochildren is justified by the process as a whole.Here, the focus for the early childhood teacheris initially not the young child but adulthuman life - man as such. From hisunderstanding of man follow his educationalmethods. The educator must realize he isinfluencing and shaping a human life by histeaching, not merely teaching the child tricks.

Historically, the relationship between aconception of human life and theories ofeducation is well borne out. Education meantthe method for ensuring the realization of anideal kind of individual. The Hellenes, at thedawn of western intellectual awakening,

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transposed their account of man as anessentially rational creature into an educationprogram which best encouraged the child'srational nature to assert itself as the centre ofhis life. The conception of man came first.Education was thought as the means to get thechild there. Its contents and its structures werejustified only in the success with which theideal was met. In the 18th century,Rousseau makes the same connectionbetween the ideal man (the ideal human life)and the structure of education. Perceiving thechild as fundamentally good and society asfundamentally wicked he structures educationin such a way that the child's innocence andgoodness are not corrupted. Consequently,early childhood education (which he clearlysaw must begin at birth) was for him not somuch doing something to the child but ratherpreventing social vices from reaching the childand spoiling his nature. Although his accountof human nature is detailed and complex ­extending into almost every aspect of humanlife - its fundamental premise is thesovereign and free individual. To achieve sucha person his educational method wascomposed. One can also look to Rousseau asthe person who fundamentally changed ourassumption of original sin. This premise whichhas influenced educators most notably sincethe birth of Christian teachings (although it ismuch older) begins with the premise thatchildren are born bad, and concludes theymust be elevated or humanized. It follows thatone must interfere in their lives to stamp outpleasurable and evil tendencies for the sake oftheir future salvation. However, if oneassumes children are inherently good and thatit is society which teaches them to be evil,one's educational intervention will be of analtogether different sort.

The conception of human life that inheresin educational processes is at timesconsciously articulated, at other times implicitand unthought, and often widely ignored. Ourneed is to reawaken our consciousness to therelation between our schools and our futureby bringing both into public view. Otherwiseeducators will become more and moreirrelevant the farther the relation betweeneducation and life is severed. John Deweyrecognized this when he wrote:

"There is always the danger that thestudent of philosophy will become simply astudent of philosophic traditions, ofsomething that is conventionally calledphilosophy but from which philosophic lifehas departed because the genuine problemin life which called out the formulation hasdeparted from consciousness. Whenphilosophic distinctions are approachedfrom the standpoint of their bearing uponlife through the medium of the educationalprocess in which they take effect, theperplexity, the predicament of life whichgenerates the issue can never be far fromrecognition" (1962, p. 26)My belief is that the problem of content and

structure besetting the early childhoodclassroom should not be given more quicksolutions. In a modern democratic society weshould question whether one single schoolsystem can indeed satisfy so many differentindividual ideals. Would it not be better toallow alternative forms of schools to flourishwith state financial support so there is achoice among the philosophically soundapproaches to adult life? I see here Montessorischools, Froebelian kindergartens, art-centredschools, music centered schools, Waldorfschools and others all pursuing separatepaths, all breathing life into the world of thechild through their unique conception of manand child. Especially at this time of socialmobility where home life is often unstable andemotional attachments severed, the schoolshould provide the continuity and integrationof childhood experiences which parents moreand more cannot provide. Home life is now apartial experience, thinned out by constantshifting of people, objects, and ideologies. Thephilosophy of the School may be the onlystable experience a child can receive. Andeven this he is presently denied.

The solution to content and structure in thepreschools is not a simple one. The problem,as I have argued, goes much deeper than itappears because it raises the whole question ofour personal goals and self-estimation. In thatestimation one must surely distinguishbetween where we are and where we ought tobe. Thus we should treat education not merelyas a process of socializing the child into thenorms and conventions of society, but as a

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process which regards the child as theharbinger of a future which will be fuller,brighter and more meaningful, in a societymore conducive to the preservation ofindividuality and the enhancement of humanlife.

This is the task for all of us who have asour theme the "Best Interests of the Child".

ReferencesBereiter, C. Must We Educate? Prentice-Hall, New

Jersey, 1973.Dewey, J. "Philosophy is the General Theory of

Education", Burns, H.W. and Brauner, C.l.Philosophy of Education. Ronald Press Co., NewYork, 1962, p. 26.

Classroom for Australian outback children