The History of Early Childhood Education - Essay Example

?        Early Childhood Education Affiliation with more information about affiliation, research grants, conflict of interest and how to contact Early Childhood Education Introduction: --- Thesis Statement, and Why Choose this Area        Education denotes the complex processing of acquired valuable knowledge in basic skills, academics, technology and citizenship with motivation, visionary ambitions, inspiration and creativity, which, in turn, is deeply embedded in a political, cultural and economic context. All children have inborn talent to acquire knowledge. The early years or the pre-kindergarten years, during which a child learns to communicate with its parents, is the most critical period as this is the time when the child can be positively influenced towards learning.        Education must begin in early childhood since the values, attitudes, behaviors and skills acquired in this period have a long lasting impact in the future life of children. “Early childhood education helps to lay a sound intellectual, psychological, emotional, social and physical foundation for development and lifelong learning. It also has enormous potential in fostering values, attitudes, skills and behaviors that support sustainable development e.g. wise use of resources, cultural diversity, gender equality and democracy” (Bell, 2009). Thesis Statement:        Child Education in the United States is compulsory and it is provided mainly by the public sector. The ages for compulsory education vary from state to state in the US and it usually begins from age four/five and ends at age seventeen/eighteen. Pre-school is the first educational setting for a child. Pre-school education in US commences at an age of four or five and this setting intends to bring out both social and academic outcomes in a child. My thesis statement is that it is during the pre-kindergarten years that a child will discover and explore all the areas of learning and that the education provided in the pre-kindergarten years should be developmentally appropriate in its approach to the curriculum. History:          An overview of the history of early childhood education shows that there existed a variation in the ages at which children were sent to school. During the early 1900’s of the US, five or six was the common accepted age for the beginning of formal childhood education at the kindergartens.  Towards the latter half of the twentieth century, an institution named ‘Head Start’ was created to provide education to the poor and the disadvantaged children. This institution provided pre-school training to these children during their ages of three, four or five. It is believed that it was this institution which became a model for the early childhood education.        Project Head Start also was successful in changing the attitude towards young children. Gradually, middle-class Americans began to enroll their children in preschool programs under Project Head Start in order to receive the benefits of early childhood education. This pre-school education was so popular that towards the late 1980’s, there were about 39.1 percent of children aged three and four who received early education.        Though Project Head Start was widely accepted by the Americans, it gradually lost its prominence during the later years. Before Project Head Start, “infant schools providing education for poor children below the ages of five and six did existed in America, in the early half of the nineteenth century” (Vinovskis, 1993) which were created out of the inspiration from European countries. Infant schools were so popular in 1840’s that about 40% of three year olds attended school in Massachusetts. But, since this movement was discouraged by the majority of the society, only a fewer number of children under ages four or five were going to the infant schools in Massachusetts. The infant schools of the nineteenth century and the Project Head Start of the twentieth century though were initiated by the policymakers with the aim to eliminate crime and poverty among disadvantaged Americans, experienced a rise and demise that reflected the changing views of the society regarding early childhood education.        Today, in US, the most important concern that exists in relation with early childhood education is about how to improve its quality. The “classroom practices, curriculum, teaching practices and early childhood teacher education have evolved greatly in the recent years. Many of the current education programs that are widely accepted today are in fact the revisions, modifications or the re-conceptualization of the historic models, which were created by pioneers such as Freidrich Frobel, Maria Montessori, Margaret MacMillan and John Dewey” (Spodek & Saracho, n.d.). The childhood education of children from birth to eight years of age is well organized. Infants and toddlers (below age three) are served by home day care settings. Pre-school children (between age three and six / seven) are served in pre schools, nurseries or kindergartens. The education of these young children are less formal than the older children (above age seven/eight) who are educated in the first three grades of elementary school. The US government has taken appropriate measures to provide services and support to the young children, in early education, from birth through age 5, which is essential to succeed later in school. The US Government also has urged the states to impose high standards across all publicly funded early learning settings. The Government is also keen to develop new programs to improve opportunities and outcomes and also to improve the early education workforce. “The Government also exerts that the involvement of parents is necessary in promoting their child’s early learning process and development” (Education, 2011). Curriculum Practice Theory and Practice – The Best Practices: The results of education and additional teaching relate to the design of the basic curriculum, which is used to teach children. The effective designing of curriculum poses many questions regarding its conceptualization. In Latin curriculum means a race chariot; the mean of the currere is to jog. A functional opening point for us here may be the description accessible in the normal person on the subject, which refers to education. We ought to distinguish that our recent appreciation of curriculum presumption and practice appeared in the school and society to additional education thoughts such as topic and lecture. There are various traditions of future curriculum assumption and practice, and this is treated as a practice, which can be transmitted. It is considered as a product and professional practice that requires specific expertise. Several natives still associate a curriculum with a prospectus or syllabus. Syllabus, logically, derive from the ancient Greek language. Fundamentally, it signifies a brief report or desk of the head of a conversation, the presentation of a dissertation, and the subject of a sequence of lectures. Specific technology and future trends associated with this area of education: Professional deployment of expertise is supposed to be an essential part of education technology. The technology plan, with its significant specialized development constituent, is printed by the team or the technology planning team. The grouping approach ensures that all stakeholders sustain the incorporation of skill into the prospectus as well as continuous professional development in know-how. The skill planning group guarantee that specialized development constituent of the technology diagram is study based and meets high standards for efficient staff development. Foundation of expert development values comprises the five views summarized in various kinds of policies put forward by the Professional Teaching boards. Improvements, challenges and the controversial issues: High-class, precise and reliable evaluation tools and methods are vital for effective curriculum development efforts. If the curriculum developed by faculties does not meet these prerequisites, the curriculum stands hardly any chance of acceptance. It also needs to take the developmental process of children into consideration and incorporate such lessons as to help them respond to the lessons they learn. It also needs to consider the characteristic attributes of young children and should be research-based, to cater to the growing children’s aptitude for enquiry and curiosity as well as educational requirements. The scope for imparting early knowledge is wide and diverse. While basic school assessment classically limits their cognitive skill and knowledge in educational curriculum areas, charging the development of preschool with adequate practical skills is necessary. It is, therefore, necessary that a good curriculum must be able to ignite curiosity in children and encourage them to explore rather than offering them knowledge through readymade answers to questions. The curriculum should also be designed so as to enhance their problem solving skills. Many explanations have been offered to sustain the use of divisive issue discussions in social studies classrooms. The most widespread are organizing the students for their responsibility as general public in a pluralistic democratic state, mounting significant thoughts and skills, and finally civilizing the interpersonal skills. Conclusion: The area of education is very interesting especially the area of childhood education, the child hood education gives a good nostalgic feeling and gives much insight about the various trends and the practices.The main purpose of the organization is to make certain the learning with the similar or alike professional emphasis which are further classified to the similar field of education. The categorization uses the idea of occupational emphasis for system courses and specialisations. Various kind of insights to early childhood is much interesting and they do not meet any boredom and they keep them track on the latest updates.The childhood education will give more important for the various trends for shaping the future of the kids. To determine the diverse facets of education, we need to assess some definitions of schooling and education background. Education is an ongoing journey of discovery, an unending mission to accomplish the fullest knowledge and height that is sacred and purely meant for the children. The expected prospects or the potential goal is to encompass the better development in the vocation and the future plans, Your potential plans and goals be supposed to be attainable through small goals broken over lesser periods of time This will absolutely show that you have done your training and project you as a paying attention human being who has revelation and excellent preparation skills. Reference List Bell, D. V. J. (2009). Education for Sustainable Development: Cure or Placebo? Faculty of Environmental Studies. Print. Education, (2011). Whitehouse.Gov. Retrieved November 07, 2011, from http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/education Spodek, B. & Saracho, O. N. (2005). International Perspectives on Research in Early Childhood Education. Information Age Publishing, Inc. Retrieved November 07, 2011, from http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=bDkY_rl-aC4C&oi=fnd&pg=PA355&dq=early+childhood+education&ots=CL6xxkCZO3&sig=Jz-zMssXYQbKJiOXFqa-nYMSWFI#v=onepage&q&f=false Vinovskis, M. A. (1993). Early Childhood Education: Then and Now. The Questia.com. Retrieved November 07, 2011, from http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst?docId=5000154213 Read More