Early Childhood Education Management - Essay Example

Early Childhood Education Management This work is the case study of the main aspects of early childhood education in terms of management and leadership. The research is based on the case of Helen McNaulty, who is the nursery manager of one of the nursery establishments. It is known that leadership and management are becoming a subject of research in many spheres of science and life, but leadership and management in early childhood education is accepted as one of the key elements of any organisation of high quality. The main notions of childhood management and leadership and the main guideline of the case study. Leadership and management in any education do not have identity. (Sergiovanni, 1994) The leadership and management models, which are usually applied to the sphere of education, are mostly appropriate to the management models of business world. But this may be very confusing to those who work in education, for these models not always give answers to the real life questions. The notion of context is a very important part of management in early child education. In our case the context is the surrounding in which the child is being raised. These are the children themselves, their parents and the nursery manager. All these three parts are united by the customer status. Children as a part of management cycle, become the means of realizing the educational expertise. Parents become the source of the day-care for children and they are also a source of support in education and bringing their children up. When speaking about management in early child education, it is necessary to say that sometimes there is created a conflict between a director and a teacher, or between teachers, and the director may be dissatisfied by the skills which the teacher demonstrates. Here we speak about Helen McNaulty, the manager for activity nursery. She used to have about 30 children in her group, but her colleagues were not satisfied by her dictative management style, though she has always been known as the lover of children. This case is an example, when the two different educational paradigms come into conflict. The staffs, by which Helen is surrounded, have the same educational base and they are not in position to demand any change or developing Helen’s skills. So, how this question may be solved? There should be implemented open communication, in which teachers together with director will share their value systems, and find anything in common. It will be very useful if they share their goals and views in open communication. (Schein, 1992) The main issues of management and leadership in early childhood education are paradigms, about which I have just spoken, the action which is caused by a certain paradigm, and the environment. The environment is made up by the staff, the parents, the senior management of an early childcare establishment, and it is often that environment causes the main behaviour lines of childhood managers. The main question of the present case study is how Helen should change her leadership and management strategies to achieve success in her work? What notions and factors should she take into account? It is necessary to mention that the information discussed above is really useful for nursery managers if they want to be professionals and to be aware of all aspects of the work, including managing the establishment. Nursery manager has to know everything about early childhood education and development, not only managing issues. It is necessary to say that real professional is broad-minded. Case study methodology The main purpose of the present case study is to find the possible solutions to the problem of Helen. She is known for her dictative manner of behaviour, though she is a great lover of children. In order to find the ways out, we shall try to apply theoretical knowledge from the area of management and leadership. This case study will be a descriptive one, for first of all we will describe the situation, and then look for possible means of changing it, resulting from the theoretical material which we will be able to find. The description of the case The name of the manager is Helen McNaulty. She has taken over a running nursery, previously named as activity nursery. She has 30 children at the time, but since there have occurred changes, she had not a winning position among the staff. Her management style is very dictative and is not open to suggestion. But she is addicted to work and is a lover of teaching children. Still, the staff is not accepting her, and her financial situation is getting worse, because the number of children is not increasing. She cannot also change her workers, as all of them are working according to the old contracts, and she is not in the right to fire them. Parents are not satisfied by changes in food and other policies. So, the main guideline of the work here will be to find out how the situation may be changed for the better. The role of nursery manager and early childhood teacher in early childhood The nursery manager concentrates on two goals of childhood education: 1. the academic, physical, social, emotional preparing of a child for future stages of education 2. protection and care for children without parental care The nursery manager is also known as early childhood teacher, early childhood caregiver, early childhood educator, etc. nursery manager perform a great variety of functions: working with children and their parents. (Peters 1982) Working with children Cooperation with children has many forms. Nursery manager should realize that it demands good knowledge, development of skills and creativity. The daily experience will be typified by life experience and sudden teachable moments. There is no place for strict treatment and constant subject learning. Nursery teacher plays many roles such as observer, evaluator, elaborator, planner, and modeller. The choice of the role depends on the situation. It was mentioned that nursery educator must work with children “based on their knowledge of the individual child and their knowledge of how children generally develop”. (Peters 1982)The tutor should use the proper developmentally practice. Here a little more should be said about the roles and responsibilities of early childhood managers in terms of the child’s development and care. I will concentrate on the responsibilities on the micro and macro level. Responsibility is always connected with management and leadership, and no one argues, that the central task of the management and leadership in early childhood care is to ‘supervise the education and care according to the basic purpose, that is taking care of well-being and human relations among children and childcare personnel’ (Rodd, 1994), because relation among the staff are very important in their influence on the attitudes towards children. Speaking about the micro level of early childhood management, it should be noted, that the main functions here are the following: 1. To develop and manage the early childhood care in accordance with basic aims, which may include following the newest trends in child’s development, defining new pedagogic lines, promoting new childcare projects and taking responsibility for their outcomes, creating new pedagogy for child care together with the rest of the staff, etc. 2. The first function is related more to children, and the second one is connected with the working personnel. This function implies creating harmonic and united atmosphere among the child care staff, giving them a chance to be responsible for what they do and take their own decision in everything that concerns their work with children. It is known that nursery manager “elaborates on the child’s already present foundational bank of experiences and understandings”. Children have their own bank of observations, humour, tastes and dislikes and bring them to nursery school. The role of nursery manager should align with valuable child’s knowledge, and his function is to enrich this knowledge without offending intelligence, cultural background or level of the child’s development. (Boutall 1996) It is necessary to state, that nursery managers are like a model for children “in all aspects of human development”, because at this time children are away from their parents or caregivers. Nursery manager influences such areas of children’s behaviour as: eating habits, self-control, gentleness, temperament and character, happiness or sadness, etc. hostile models will create hostile characteristics which can’t encourage development of children. Helen is known for her love towards children, and it is sure, that she is aware of all the above-mentioned characteristics. But one of the sides of Helens problem lies in her misunderstanding of the main rules of early childhood management, when there is not enough to love children, but there should also be provided cooperation with other participants of the environment – that is with the rest of the staff and with the parents. The purpose of educator is to involve parents or caregivers into the educational process of their children. He has to enrich parents’ knowledge and skills, to collaborate with parents in instructions and guidelines, to advocate the increased involving of parents into the process. Manager can use such methods of communicating with parents as, for example, phone calls, newsletters, conferences for parents, etc. (Boutall 1996) The next aim of nursery manager is to work effectively with other nursery managers, experts, administrators. It is a matter of fact that it is impossible for manager to know everything; therefore nursery managers should share necessary information about managing approaches and styles. Receiving knowledge from more experience nursery manager is positive practice for everybody. (Rodd 1994) There are a lot of professional organizations for nursery managers, where they have the opportunity to meet with colleagues, to offer ideas and to obtain new information. Nursery manager must permanently seek more information about educating from people, who “hold the highest expertise on particular areas”. (Rodd 1994) Constant obtaining of knowledge allows managers to escape from stagnation. Leadership and management in any education do not have identity. (Sergiovanni, 1994) The leadership and management models, which are usually applied to the sphere of education, are mostly appropriate to the management models of business world. But this may be very confusing to those who work in education, for these models not always give answers to the real life questions. The notion of context is a very important part of management in early child education. In our case the context is the surrounding in which the child is being raised. These are the children themselves, their parents and the nursery manager. All these three parts are united by the customer status. Children as a part of management cycle, become the means of realizing the educational expertise. Parents become the source of the day-care for children and they are also a source of support in education and bringing their children up. The main issues of management and leadership in early childhood education are paradigms, about which I have just spoken, the action which is caused by a certain paradigm, and the environment. The environment is made up by the staff, the parents, the senior management of an early childcare establishment, and it is often that environment causes the main behaviour lines of childhood managers. Helen has chosen the wrong paradigm of behaviour towards the staff and the parents. One of the main skills of early childhood manager, as of any manager, in general, is listening. Helen should become open to communication and discussion of the current issues. She should always remember that environment plays an important part in defining management style. In case Helen agrees to open dialogue with parents and the staff, there will appear a possibility to find common problems, solutions, goals and the means of achieving these goals. She must be able to listen to the opinions expressed in relation to her management style and the general policy of the nursery establishment. Defining the management style of Helen McNaulty Styles of management “result from the dynamics between the culture of the organization and each individuals approach to management issues”. It is a matter of fact that different managers used different styles of management. The choice depends on the situation and the ability of nursery manager to organize the work. One more reason in choosing the style is the task. Below the well-known management style will be discussed in the context of nursery management. These styles are the most widely used in practice nowadays. (Boutall 1996) The main of them are the following: Authoritative style Participative style Democratic style Authoritarian style Individualistic style Laissez faire Chaotic style Authoritative style is the style when all decisions are made at “the top” of organization and then these decisions are implemented to managers. The decisions can be made by either board of management or senior manager or senior management team. Authoritative management style is needed in case when senior manager has to implement decisions made by “board of trustees, local councillor’s sub-committee or other outside body with a management role for the establishment”. (Boutall 1996) It is possible to meet authoritative manager such voluntary sectors as “voluntary-body family centres” and other early years’ settings. Participative style is the style when the decisions are made in accordance with experts’ consultation or with the help of advisers who have the right to affect the decision. It can be mentioned that participative style is effective in practice although it is necessary to admit that the final decision anyway is made by board of management or senior management. (Boutall 1996) Democratic style is the style where the decision is made by involving all the staff in the early setting and the decision is made through voting or consensus. It is useful and really effective management style, because everyone in establishment contributes to the decision making process. And it means that everyone has equal responsibility for the benefits of the decision implemented. (Handy 1993) Authoritarian style differs considerably from authoritative style. This management style is too dominating and repressive and it demands personnel to obey all the orders and decisions even without any questions. Authoritarian style can arouse rebellion or low benefits from personnel. This style doesn’t result in happy relations and can produce turnover of staff. It is apparent that such management style is completely inappropriate for nursery manager and early establishments in the whole, because it doesn’t create the necessary warm atmosphere for children and their parents. (Hamdy 1993) Individualistic style is the style of management when the manger can make a decision without any authority and power. It means that the manager has no rights to make such decisions. Such situation can be observed when nobody from senior management manages or makes the decisions. It leaves lots of opportunities for junior managers to take individual actions. (Boutall 1996) Laissez faire is the situation when the board of management ignores all issues and problems which need to be solved. Instead of making necessary decisions they prefer “the position of ostrich”. This management style can lead to situation when the decision maker is a person who shouts the loudest. Chaotic style is characterized by the lack of consistency in decision making process and therefore employees don’t understand who responsible is. Chaotic management style involves lack of authority and power; therefore the decisions are not made by the management team and disputable situation result in crises. (Denny 1997) Making the conclusion on the base of these theoretical issues, it is possible to define Helens management style as authoritative, which is not beneficial to her position. Management and leadership in early child education can be seen as the integral part of the whole social system, and thus leadership is viewed as a holistic system, the parts of which act as one integrity. In this aspect Helen’s authoritative behaviour is making the whole system of early education management unbalanced, which in its turn causes problems in implementation her leadership. Defining the functions of an early education manager in connection with the case study subject. Every nursery manager has to know something about four functions which were distinguished by Jung. (Jung 1989) Nursery managers should determine to which category they belong. They are: Feeler Intuitor Sensor Thinker Feeler likes being in human company, enjoys communication. Feeler evaluates only personal qualities and values, not the technical abilities. Feeler is a really warm and sympathetic person. He is interested in people, their mood, reactions, and feelings. He prefers gut feelings not blatant arguments. Feeler nursery manager is cements warm team relationships; he councils, arbitrates. He is good in public relations and can easily communicate with executives and simple clerks. (Jung 1989) Intuitor likes to deal with new ideas and theories. Intuitor perceives the overview but not the very details, which he often misses. Such manager is creative and has strong and vivid imagination. If he does everything in a proper way he will always benefit. Such nursery manager is really good in strategic and long-term planning. He is also skilful in creative writing and thinking, brainstorming and lateral thinking. (Jung 1989) Sensor is always impatient with strategic and long-term planning. But he is really good at “getting things done”. His main advantages are: hard-working, effective routine work, strong common sense. Such nursery manager is well-organized, energetic, active, and single-minded. He is skilful in organizing deals, initiating new projects and programs, negotiating, solving difficult tasks. Such manager can easily convert new perspective ideas into action. (Jung 1989) Thinker is good at analyzing problems, but it is difficult for him to solve them. Such manager really enjoys “tackling problems with logic”. Thinker is a methodical worker. He is too sceptical of new ideas, because he always needs rational sound arguments. Such nursery manager will be good with researching, analyzing, accounting. Also he is strong in financial side of management, figures and exact facts. (1989) These four kinds of management categories rarely exist separately; they are rather resented by the mix of different features of several categories. Helen McNaulty presents an example of Thinker. But there are also features which should be presented in her character and behaviour to make her a successful leader. These are the ability to evaluate human values, rather than technical capabilities and being a listener. Helen does not hear opinions which surround her. One more aspect is to be described here. Helen is a woman, and it is very important to view, how women usually cope with managerial functions and leadership tasks. Women have usually been supposed as being more motivated, with higher morale and the ability to develop better school climate and more detailed curriculum and programmes. Helen’s work is characterized by the following traits: she has clear vision which is focused on children; she is able to establish appropriate school cultures and to develop useful institutional strategies. Her leadership style can be conductive to promote good schooling. Being a woman, Helen in fact is able to point out clear educational goals and build a supportive atmosphere. She simply needs closer look at her actions, because she is capable of monitoring and evaluating the real situation. Let’s further see what the theoretical issues of management roles are, and what of the roles is chosen and is to be chosen by Helen. Management roles in theory Many scientists try to definite the major managerial roles. There are a lot of classifications, but it is necessary to distinguish two of the role: Mintzbergs’ theory and Belbin’s theory. Mintzberg famous study of managers found that their work methods were characterized by an unrelenting pace, brevity, variety, fragmentation and heavy use of verbal contacts and networks. (Belbin 1981) In order to make sense of the voluminous data that he collected while observing the managers, he isolated three major categories of roles: Interpersonal Informational Decisional Within these categories Mintzberg identified the specific roles: figure head, leader, liaison, monitor, disseminator, spokesperson, entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator and negotiator. To a larger extent, these work methods and roles are also characteristic of nursery mangers at all level of early year’s establishments. Belbin also researched this agenda and made his conclusions. He defined the best blend of characteristics of managers and team. He stated that “a team made up of the brightest people did not turn out as the best working team”. (Belbin 1981) Belbin distinguished eight roles of management team which will lead to effective work. They are the following: chairman, shaper, plant, monitor-evaluator, resource-investigator, company worker, team worker and finisher. Chairman is the coordinator of the management team. He is balanced, concentrated and disciplined. He is able to talk and to listen well. He is “a good judge of people and things and works through others”. (Belbin 1981) Shaper is “task leader”. In case of Chairman’s absence shaper will perform his duties and his role, but it doesn’t mean that he will do that well. He feels drive for the tasks, but simultaneously such person is too impatient and sensitive. The function of the shaper is to set the team in motion. Plant is the source of new projects and ideas. Such person is the most clever, imaginative and intelligent in the management team. It was mentioned that Plant “may be caress in details and may resent criticism”. (Belbin 1981) Monitor-Evaluator is analytical person, who is able to analyze the ideas carefully and thoroughly. He predicts the flaws and believes in strength of arguments. He was told to be good checker of quality. Resource-Investigator is sociable, extrovert, relaxed team member. He is also the most popular in management team. He is good at bringing new ideas, contacts, and developments. He is known to be skilful diplomat. (Belbin 1981) Company Worker is a practical organizer, who has such qualities as being efficient, methodical and trustworthy. His work is always connected with different charts and schedules. Team worker “holds the team together by being supportive to others, listening and encouraging”. Such manager is uncompetitive and pleasant. (Belbin 1981) Finisher is the most useful person in management team, because it would be impossible to meet the deadlines without him. He checks all the very details and tortures other managers about the urgency of work. (Belbin 1981) Conflict as a part of early childhood management in connection with the present case study Conflict is considered to be the normal part of every nursery collective and its development. Handy, for example, distinguished several stages of conflict cycles: farming, storming, norming, performing. (Handy 1993) Farming is connected with conflicts on early stages of collective development. It involves choosing the leader and defining the purpose. Storming refers to the period when practically all personal agendas are known and they produce personal hostility. Norming is the establishing of the norms and practices, behavioural types and norms of openness. Performing is “the final stage, at which the group reaches maturity and is able to be productive”. (Handy 1993) If the conflict is imminent the nursery manager has to resolve it. At first the manager has to find the real reasons of the conflict. The reasons may be connected with managerial roles, perceptions and values of employees. There are also additional factors such as style of communication, personality, culture or negative personal attitude. If the reasons of the conflict are prejudice, annoyance or mobbing then the manager have to implement disciplinary punishment or reprimand. If it is really necessary, the senior nursery manager “can arrange for the services of a neutral mediator from within the company or an outside facilitator”. (Taylor 1999) The manager can also resolve the problem alternatively or may negotiate with involved people. If no solution may satisfy the employees involved in conflict then it is necessary to take more exact and strict measure. Alberti defines assertion as “a straightforward statement that conveys opinions, beliefs and feelings in a way that does not impact on the self-esteem of the other person”. (Alberti 1970) But it is a not demanding and threatening aggression. It is the possibility to express exactly what you want. The constituents of the assertion are: to make brief statements; possibility to say “no”; to make independent decisions; to acknowledge other points of view. It was reported that it is rather difficult for many nursery managers to communicate assertively in disputable situations. Therefore assertion can be defined as skill to communicate properly in the work place. Communication system is based on several parameters such as: To know the strategy and the purpose (to find the best way to transmit the message) To define the audience (it is necessary to consider the audience in order to avoid unnecessary mistakes) (Alberti 1970) To overcome difficulties with psychological barriers (psychological barriers involve gender, age, cultural and social differences) To select the proper and suitable communication style (early year’s establishments are too small for implementation, for example, internal email system) To present the speech (it is the most important part) To obtain feedback of the targeted audience (Alberti 1970) There are different features which should be peculiar to the successful early childhood manager and leader, among which are being kind, warm, assertive, goal oriented, having strong moral principles and power together with persuasiveness and courage. But considering leadership in early childhood in terms of character only is not full, because leadership should be viewed as a social phenomenon. There exist two perspectives of early childhood management. The first of them is connected with interactive character of the manager’s work. It is clearly seen, that Helen McNaulty is working with children, parents, staff, and other people, thus her work possesses interactive character. But while some managers often come out of their offices and move along their establishments, monitoring the whole situation, Helen spends more time in her office, thus her work does not involve much of interaction. The second perspective is the one that implies manager’s activities having multiple meanings. There may be outlined five different frames of Helen’s activity, and let’s see in which of them she is failing to reach success. She is very successful in her educational frame, as learning and development of children is her primary obligation, with which she successfully copes. Her managing frame also looks good, for it presupposes power and responsibility, though it may seem that power in this frame is prevailing, which is not very good. Helen’s practical frame, including concrete actions and arranging things in daily routine is rather weak, for parents are not satisfied with her actions towards the general policies of the establishment. Caring frame is also strong with Helen, for she is capable of caring for children. But the weakest part of Helen’s managerial side is her personal frame, which is usually connected with understanding and perceiving other people’s characters, personalities and emotions. As we have already discussed, Helen lacks openness towards the rest of the staff and is more concentrated on children, though all these are the integral parts of the leadership context. Leadership is a complex of different relations, and not just a static quality. Leading can be supposed successful when it enables directing and ruling the staff with making suggestions and listening. Thus, it can be concluded that Helen is not a successful leader, though taking into account all noted disadvantages and possible solutions, she may change the situation for the better. Conclusion Taking the above mentioned theoretical issues, there should be said some words about the actual situation with childcare management in the UK. I have taken as an example, the manager Helen McNaulty, who has taken a running nursery and had 30 children at the time. She appears to be not in a winning position for her authoritative style of managing, and she is not accepted by the staff, and parents are not satisfied by the changes taking place in the entity. So, what are the ways out of problems here, as Helen is known for her love to children? To my mind, authoritative style in childcare management is not always appropriate, though it should be present to the reasonable extent. I guess that in this situation Helen should use her communication skills to solve the problems with parents. Listening is an integral skill for any manager, not only for those who are connected with childhood care. It is very important to understand the main ideas the speaker tries to convey. As for her relations with the rest of the staff, they should become more open in their communication and to find common goals in their work. Authoritative style was never beneficial in any type of management. There should be applied partnership between parents, the staff and the children. It should be said, that the term ‘partnership’ between school and home appeared in the UK in the 1960s and since that time all parents have been involved into participation in many school activities. It is already in 1985, that the paper Better Schools stated, that parents and tutors had to become partners for the common benefit of their children. In 1986 there was adopted Education Act which also increased the role of parents in managing early education for children, and by the 1988 the Education Reform Act already identified parents as the vital part in reforming the whole system of schools. Helen should be more open with parents, as it is important, how childhood care managers position parents in their work. But the problem of English childhood managers, that they mostly see parents as potential supporters of schools, and rarely parents are involved into creating the curriculum, for example. This attitude should be changed towards open discussion of the parent’s ideas and values towards their children and their bringing up. The early childhood care professionals take a unique position, when they may criticize and contribute into public debates as for young children, parents and families. These notions should be important parts of their professionalism, if they want to maintain their professional integrity. Early years professionals in UK are in rather powerful position to ‘challenge dominant discourses among parents, families and social exclusion’. (Rodd, 1994) They are charged to act according to the social policy, and at the same time they are given the advantage of power towards these social policies. And as soon as being a successful leader in early childhood care puts strong demands on the individual, early years managers should be very critical towards their professionalism, and being able to face the real life challenges. Works cited (1) Alberti, R.E. and Emmons, M.L. 1970. Your Perfect Right: A guide to assertive behaviour, Impact San Luis: Obispo. (2) Belbin, R.M. 1981. 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