Extending Thought in Young Children

A Parent - Teacher Partnership

Chris Athey

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2007
• Print ISBN: 9781412921329, 9781412921312
• eBook ISBN: 9781446227923
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Early Childhood Education

?Chris Athey has made a major contribution to our understanding of how young children think and how educators and parents can best support their learning. This book is, without doubt, a most important text for all who are concerned to maximise the potential of early childhood education to develop effective ways of working with young children. The book explores children?s schematic development and offers ways of teaching which are closely matched to children?s actions, speech and graphic representations. This second edition of Extending Thought builds on the scholarly approach of the first and provides readers with clear explanation of relevant research alongside rich observations of children. It is essential reading for all who seek to provide the very best of learning opportunities for young children by bring parents, professionals and informed pedagogy together in a thoughtful and informed partnership of learning. Extending Thought is a major building block for many of us who study young children?s capacity to think and learn? - Dr Cathy Nutbrown, Reader in Education, University of Sheffield

In this fully revised version of Chris Athey?s classic text, the author builds on her original internationally renowned research with new illustrations of ?continuity? in children?s thinking from early to primary education.

Drawing on her extensive experience and research evidence, she explains how teachers of young children can advance professionally towards a greater knowledge of young children?s thinking and learning. The book covers:

o ?forms of thought? used by young children

o assimilation of curriculum content

o pedagogy

o parental participation

o the politics of early education

This book is an essential read for students and teachers in early years education.

Chris Athey M Ed, was Principal Lecturer in Education at the Roehampton Institute of Higher Education (RIHE). Funded by a Leverhulme Research Fellowship, she directed the Froebel Early Education Project from 1973 to 1978. She has taught all ages of primary-school children in State and private schools. She has considerable experience of initial teacher training and INSET

Part I

---

Events Influencing the Froebel Early Education Project

---

1

---

In the Beginning

The idea of the Froebel Early Education Project (the Project) was conceived during the 1960s when Molly Brearley, CBE and Sheila Macleod were out walking together discussing educational matters. At the time Brearley was Principal of the Froebel Educational Institute (FEI, now part of Roehampton University) and Macleod head teacher of Ibstock Place Preparatory School (the demonstration school of the FEI).

Following a one-year pilot study, their idea evolved into a five-year intensive study that became known as the Froebel Early Education Project. Its aims were to observe and analyse, on a daily basis during a two-year teaching programme, children under the age of 5 in order to:

• identify developments in each child’s thinking;
• describe the development of symbolic representation from early motor and perceptual behaviours; and
• identify curriculum content assimulated to developing forms of thought.

Two groups were studied and tested: one multi-ethnic and underpriviledged, the other middle class and privately educated. Evidence suggested that children selectively assimilated the curriculum content offered to them by developing forms of thought that are fed by experience gained from home and school. The resulting principles, methods and findings have since had a considerable influence on early education practitioners in the UK and elsewhere.

Very few people in education are able to combine successfully pedagogy and politics. The two domains stem from different motivations, use different strategies, employ different research methods and operate within different time spans. However, Molly Brearley could. She had an internally consistent set of values, was an indefatigable searcher for evidence of educational gain and an outstanding communicator, becoming an influential member of the Plowden Committee (Liebschner, 1991, p. x). The Plowden Report (Central Advisory Council for Education, 1967) and her discussion with Sheila Macleod reflected some of Molly Brearley’s persistent pedagogical concerns as well as more specific concerns arising from her work for Plowden.

The educational ethos of the Froebel Educational Institute (FEI), and the wider Froebel Foundation, always reflected its European philosophical and psychological heritage. Froebelian values, conceived within Europe, coincided with constructivist values, also conceived within Europe. The main value of Froebelian pedagogy and constructivism, the main system of educational research endeavour of the last century, is quite simple. It is based on the conviction that each individual learner contributes to, and collaborates in, his or her own learning.

The Froebel movement has often been associated with a ‘child-centred’ pedagogy, but this description has never reflected the wider concerns of the Froebelian view of learning. Worthwhile curriculum content has always been as important to Froebelian teachers as the teaching style by which content is conveyed. However, there are those who believe otherwise. During the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, the main opposition to constructivism in Britain and America was ‘behaviourism’. This view of learning maintains that teachers should teach and children should learn what they are taught, and tests will ascertain what has been learned. The behaviourist approach to teaching and learning disregards the contribution that each child makes towards his or her own learning. Although constructivism was a widely adopted model for experimental research during that period, behaviourism was the main teaching style in most schools.

The English are not famous for their pedagogical knowledge, nor for their interest in increasing it. This is a persistent problem in English education, as can be seen in two articles published 20 years apart. In 1985 Simon wrote ‘Why no pedagogy in England?’, and in 2004 Alexander wrote ‘Still no Pedagogy’ in which he examined principle, pragmatism and compliance in primary education.

Pejorative, anti-theory, anti-intellectual attitudes are often disguised or softened by the use of terms such as ‘pragmatic’ or ‘eclectic’. ‘Common sense’ is often put forward as a preferred alternative to professional systems of explanation; professional concepts are more expensive to organize through training courses than appeals to common sense. Common sense implies that something good and shared is already in place. Some of the pedagogical concerns raised in the Plowden Report caused consternation, and it was perceived by many as an aberration from the usual English government reports.

COMMON SENSE, PROFESSIONAL KNOWLEDGE AND PATTERNS OF THINKING IN YOUNG CHILDREN

Professional pedagogical knowledge is not the same as common sense knowledge, although they are not mutually exclusive. Professional knowledge finds its evidence in the everyday world of home and school. It is ‘sound’ rather than esoteric, and uses ordinary language as far as possible. Professional knowledge in education is on a human scale and so, although professionals may study quantum theory or the big bang theory of the origin of the universe out of interest, such epistemological knowledge of physics at the outskirts of magnitude are not necessary for teaching except in higher education. However, from a very young age children make judgments about objects in the world being ‘big’ and little’, and a little later ‘fast’ and ‘slow’ or ‘expensive’ and ‘cheap’, and so the recognition of concepts of ‘magnitude’ in children must be included in professional knowledge.

Most people can communicate within systems of commonly shared knowledge with anyone about almost anything, for instrance in a supermarket in relation to a particular product. This is communication based on common sense. There is a particular philosophical meaning based on inputs of sensory data attributed to John Locke, based on phenomenological or sensory experience. This has given rise to the idea that humans learn by experience, that is, by sensory data which, taken on its own, is a behaviourist notion. Sensory data do become integrated, and there is a whole complicated literature in integrations of a perceptual nature. Neurological studies are heavily into sensory integrations. So are many teachers who love colour tables (where several different objects share one attribute – colour). A cursery examination of the objects on display usually shows that the least important property of each object, such as a comb, a cup, a ball, a cube, a yo-yo, is its colour. The most important property is usually what a person can do with it.

A more useful meaning of commonly shared sense, however, is based on human understanding that sees what is shared as having a more conceptual basis. It is the human brain that does the combining. Our shared brains provide the link between common sense and professional understandings. Without professional understandings: the adult–child relationship is simply custodial. By custodial is meant that young children should be kept warm, fed, safe and contented (see Athey 1990, p. 24).

FITTING OR FLITTING

The most important findings of the Froebel Project were linked with the uncovering of ‘schemas’ – patterns of behaviour and thinking in children that exist underneath the surface features of various contents, contexts and specific experiences.

Naturalistic observations made on children will show them using different materials in different ways. They typically use the materials of representation such as pens, pencils, paint and paper to represent different objects in the world. If questions are asked about why particular content is represented, answers would normally be given within a common-sense theory such as ‘this content reflects what has been experienced’. This still leaves particular or rather idiosyncratic selections unexplained. Why would a child select ‘aeroplane landing’, ‘man’, ‘tree’, ‘my name’, ‘umbrella’, ‘elephant’ and so on? These representations (see Figures 5.52 to 5.65) are from different children but, with the possible exception of the frock coat, they could have been from any portfolio of drawings from any 4-year-old.

One of the deficit accusations thrown at young children is that they are idiosyncratic and they ‘flit’ from pillar to post. The few examples above could be used to support this hypothesis. However, ‘flitting’ is demonstrated only if the surface content of experiencing is being analysed.

If the question is asked: ‘What have all of these drawings got in common?’, different conclusions can be drawn. Each drawing shows that the child is ‘exercising’ his or her latest graphic ‘form’ or schema which, in the case of these few examples, is the semi-circle. Viewed schematically, most of the apparent disparate behaviours of young children can be seen to have more similarities than differences.

SCHEMAS ON THE WEB

A word of caution seems necessary at this point. Feeding key word ‘schema’ into the search engine Google produces almost 60 million results. This is because of the adoption of the term for one of the great systems behind information technology. Feeding into Google the words ‘schemas Piaget’ produces almost 50 million results. This is because almost every university teaches ‘constructivism’, and ‘schema’ is subsumed within the Piagetian framework. Feeding in ‘schema Piaget UK’ produces almost 30,000 results, most of which do not accurately reflect the meaning of ‘schema’ (singular) or ‘schemas’ (plural) from a Piagetian or ‘constructivist’ viewpoint.

It might help to give some criteria for the meaning of ‘constructivism’ (and schema) as discussed in this book. The following are the essentials of Piagetian or constructivist theory according to Cambell (2002):

1. Knowledge has a biological function, and arises out of action. Making sure that ‘schemas’ (as discussed in the literature) are always biological and psychological is sufficient to ‘see off’ most contenders.
2. Knowledge is basically operative. It is about change and transformation.
3. Knowledge consists of cognitive structures (schemas and concepts).
4. Development proceeds by the assimilation of the environment to these structures, and the accommodation of these structures to the environment.
5. Movement to higher levels of development depends on ‘reflecting abstraction’, that is, coming to know the properties of one’s own actions, or coming to know the ways in which they are co-ordinated.

It was changing cognitive structures rather than ‘stage’ characteristics which mattered most to Piaget. His book on Structuralism (1971) is difficult, but definitive on the issue of Piagetian constructivist meanings.

SCHEMAS AND COMMON SENSE

Can the recognition of schemas arise from common-sense perception? Apparently not, otherwise schemas would have found their way into research findings, books and classrooms a long time ago. However, ‘discoveries’ of schemas in early and primary education do not run contrary to common sense as do some scientific concepts: ‘If someone says: “It’s just common sense” I can guarantee he’s got it wrong’ (Wolpert, 2000). Many teachers being confronted by evidence of ‘schemas’, experience a ‘shock of recognition’ accompanied by some sort of comment such as ‘Of course!’

Common sense is sometimes regarded as an impediment to abstract and even logical thinking. This is especially the case in mathematics and physics, where human intuition often conflicts with provably correct or experimentally verified results. A definition attributed to Albert Einstein states: ‘Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen’ (from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia on the Web).

INTUITIVE OR INFORMED

To say that he or she is ‘intuitive’ rather than ‘logical’ is not strongly pejoritive; it can imply a sensitivity towards a child’s concerns. However, it does imply that something is missing, in that between a premis and a conclusion are steps of a professional nature that cannot be articulated. ‘Intuitive’ knowledge can probably be best seen as partial professional knowledge that reading, course work and the search for empirical evidence can ‘flesh out’. Research theses in higher education typically start as hunches or intuitions. These are then tested against more controlled observations that either support or refute those hunches. Since the early days of the Froebel Project, terms such as ‘pedagogy’ are increasingly being used by educators in England, but still not by politicians...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• PART I Events Influencing the Froebel Early Education Project
• PART II The Findings of the Froebel Early Education Project
• PART III Continuities from Earlier to Later Patterns of Thought
• Appendix: the Froebel Early Education Project
• Bibliography
• Author index
• Subject index