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The child, the context and early childhood education
Jeni Riley
. . . the belief that children are highly active and efficient learners, competent inquirers, eager to understand ⌠More and more evidence keeps coming to support this view that it is true of human beings from the earliest months of life. Childrenâs minds are not at any stage â not ever â to be thought of as receptacles into which stuff called knowledge can be poured. Nor do children wait in a general way for us to prod them into learning. They wonder, they question, they try to make sense. And, not infrequently, when they direct their questions at us they push to the limit our ability to answer them, as every adult who has spoken much with children knows.
(Donaldson,1993: 39)
This chapter includes:
- The child
- Studies of the brain
- The world which the child will inhabit
- Views of the child
- Research evidence on what makes early education effective.
The child
Our understanding of the child is at the heart of this book. It is the most obvious and appropriate place to start when considering education in the early years of schooling; the child, her capabilities, and how she learns are the focus of this first section. The wider social context within which the child lives will also be considered.
Nearly 30 years ago, the child development lectures that formed an essential part of my initial teacher training course focused heavily on the limitations of babies in their functioning. Born almost blind like kittens, the world appears to them, so we were told, as a âbuzzing, booming incomprehensible placeâ. Likewise, intellectual functioning was described mostly in negative terms that emphasized the young childâs deficits and inabilities. This seemed strange to me as a beginning teacher in training and as a mother â the small children I knew well were not like this.
My 10-month-old daughter, hardly able to stand but clutching the coffee table for support, bent her knees and wiggled her bottom in time to the music played on the radio. The 1-year-old moves towards the controls of his fatherâs music system the instant he is put down on the living-room floor, his accuracy of trajectory akin only to a missile. The 13-month-old, sitting on the floor at her fatherâs feet while he is shaving, gently brushes his legs with a hairbrush. After a suspiciously long silence, the 18-month-old emerges from her motherâs bedroom adorned with three necklaces and a bright smear of lipstick from ear to ear.
Are these the constrained, restricted thinkers referred to in the old child development textbooks? Are these the impoverished learners I was told about as a student, incapable of making connections and solving problems? I knew from my own observations that babies and very young children are able to think, observe and reason. Affirmation of this first came to me through Margaret Donaldsonâs book, Childrenâs Minds (1978), in which she reported study after study revealing that children were capable of far more advanced intellectual operations than psychologists previously had believed. Young children consider evidence, draw conclusions, do experiments, solve problems and search for the truth. As Donaldson so succinctly puts it: âchildren are highly active and efficient learners, competent enquirers, eager to understandâ (1993: 36).
How might this extraordinary competence demonstrated by babies and young children be explained? Why and how are they able to learn so effectively? It would appear that, first, a babyâs brain closely resembles the most powerful computer imaginable, comprising millions and millions of neurons rather than silicon chips. Secondly, babies have innate, impressively effective learning mechanisms. And, thirdly, parents are genetically programmed to support and foster the development of their own children in a very potent and unique way.
Studies of the brain
Before recent advances in computer technology, most neurobiological research was conducted on mammals as the study of human brain tissue could be undertaken only at autopsy. Techniques now exist for brain imaging, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positive emission tomography (PET) which measure activity in the brain as tasks are performed. Research studies that involve these techniques suggest that the human brain is plastic and capable of continued development when used extensively. Babiesâ brains are especially active. The brain of a 2-year-old child has energy consumption at the full adult level; by 3 years old it is twice as active as an adultâs brain, at which level it remains until 9 or 10 years of age when (amazingly) it starts to decline. Recent research in the field of neuroscience has suggested that there are three important findings that have the potential to influence thinking about education in the early years.
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| 1 | There is a very rapid increase in the development of the number of synapses (the wiring of nerve connections) between neurons (brain cells) in infancy and childhood. This synaptic proliferation enables the frequently used nerve connections to be strengthened; and this period is followed by a phase of synaptic elimination or reduction when the less utilized connections become weakened and die. The reduction in synapses does not lead, necessarily, to diminished functioning but more towards a strengthening of the more utilized neuron pathways which in turn results in the specialized, mature performance of a skill (for example, serving a tennis ball or tying a shoelace). This is obvious in language development. At birth, brain-imaging studies indicate that babies respond equally enthusiastically to all the sounds it is possible for any human being to produce. After a few months, however, discrimination has occurred in favour of merely those sounds in the phonology (sound system) of the particular mother tongue to which the child is exposed. By adulthood, the specialization is complete to the extent that we cannot hear the distinction between sounds that are not present in the sound system of our own language (for example, Japanese people simply cannot discriminate between the sounds of r and l although they are tested many times). |
| The human brain has slightly fewer neurons at birth than in adulthood but the important factor that accounts for levels of intellectual functioning is not the number of neurons but the synaptic density. Immediately after birth, bombarded by stimulation of all the senses, the synapses begin to form prolifically and this continues up to sexual maturity; thereafter it decreases. The most important phase of experience-dependent synaptogenesis is thought to be from birth to 3 years. Different areas of the brain develop synapses differently and at a variety of rates. In the human brain, in the frontal cortex (which is responsible for planning, integrating information and decision-making), synaptogenesis occurs later than in the visual cortex and the reduction process takes longer. Pre-school children have brains which are more active, more connected and more flexible than an adultâs brain. They undergo substantial, rapid change and development, and this continues throughout adolescence in some of the areas of the brain. The young child is âliterally an alien geniusâ (Gopnik et al., 1999). |
| 2 | It has been suggested that there are âcritical periodsâ when sensory and motor systems in the brain require experience for maximum development. It is as if the brain can only develop optimally in this time span. For the last 30 years it has been known that animals require certain stimulation at very specific times during development if sensory and motor systems are to develop normally. The irreversible consequences for kittens of early visual deprivation (Wiesel and Hubel, 1965) are often cited to support the argument for high-quality education for human children in their early years. However, there is debate about this, and now neuroscientists and psychologists believe that âcritical periodsâ are not as fixed or inflexible as was once thought. It is also debatable as to whether the brain has a biologically determined period of optimal learning for some specific skills or whether the neural pathways form to the advantage of some kinds of learning and are inhibitors for others. Perhaps a more apt term is âsensitive periodsâ, which allow the plastic, flexible and receptive brain to be shaped and moulded throughout childhood and adolescence for full capacity to be developed. |
| 3 | In some mammals it has been shown that the more enriched and complex their environment, the greater the number of synapses will form. Rats reared in stimulating laboratory conditions developed a thicker cortex in their brains and were able to solve maze problems more efficiently. Conversely, the observational studies of Romanian babies being reared in severely deprived conditions lacking sensory and social stimulation show that they are more likely to have delayed motor skills as well as impaired social, emotional and cognitive development (OâConnor et al., 1999). The brain continues to ârewireâ as it is greeted with successive forms of stimulation and each novel experience that requires a response. Experience changes the brain. Everything that a baby sees, smells, hears, tastes and touches alters the way the brain develops in an increasingly situation-appropriate way. |
The findings of this neuroscientific research appear to provide sufficient evidence powerfully to reinforce an argument for an enriched environment and sensitive adult support very early in life: âChildren can take advantage of an innately determined foundation, powerful learning abilities and implicit tuition from other peopleâ (Gopnik et al., 1999: 186). The far-reaching implications of this for early childhood education are explored later in this chapter.
From brains to minds
Human beings are marvellously equipped for, and are well supported in, their task of learning and making sense of their world. Now the technology of the video camera to record ingeniously designed experiments has enabled information to be gathered about exactly what babies know at birth and how very quickly they make use of that knowledge and build upon it. In the last 30 years we have come to realize the extent and competence of the babyâs thinking skills.
Sensory development
In the womb, the foetus has begun to learn actively; sounds and sensations are noted and remembered. The music tracks played to pregnant women soothe their babies more quickly after birth than other music. The voice of a babyâs mother is conducted to her, albeit imperfectly, via the spinal column while she is still in utero. My 1-day-old granddaughter, born nearly three months premature and weighing only 3 pounds, turned her head towards her motherâs voice in delighted recognition when lifted from the incubator for the first time. Newborns prefer a human face to other visual stimuli and will gaze longer at the face of their own mother rather than at a picture of a stranger. They show that they crave novelty by learning to operate an audio or video tape-recorder through the strength of sucks on a teat; babies suck harder in order to alternate and play a variety of tapes.
Making sense of the world: people, emotions and beliefs
Immediately after birth the gradual understanding of what it is to be human appears to dawn, in a piecemeal way. Even the newly born, and certainly a month-old baby, will respond to overtures of communication by imitating any facial expressions made to her. Mouths will open and tongues protrude in perfect synchrony to a human partner. Slightly later than the physical gestures of interaction, the seemingly bizarre sounds adults are pre-programmed to make in order to engage an infantâs attention (namely, âcoosâ, âgoosâ and âoohsâ) are responded to and imitated; next smiles are exchanged. The communication is deeply and mutually satisfying and is the forerunner to fullblown conversation. This work seems to indicate that babies are aware at birth that they are members of the human race and that a grasp of the art of social intercourse is an essential part of that membership.
Studies indicate that infants recognize other peopleâs emotions and respond appropriately. A 1-year-old, when introduced to an intriguing new object, will intently scan her motherâs face for reassurance or discouragement before approaching it. Babies express distress at disharmony such as a noisy household argument. A 2-year-old will attempt to comfort a distraught adult by offering her own favourite toy. Other peopleâs likes and dislikes in food, even when it differs from their own preferences, will be recognized and respected by toddlers of 18 months. Two-year-olds will undertake deliberately timed experiments on the precise limit of an adultâs patience when trampolining on...
