The Effective Early Childhood Educator - Example

Education The Effective Early Childhood Educator 1. Introduction “The early years of childhood are probably the most important developmental period in human life“(Muijs & Reynolds 2005, p.175) Childhood education is very important for children thus the quality of early childhood education must be consistent. This is because, the way teachers and students interact in the classroom may either encourage or suppress student’s learning. Children in their early years have various needs and one of the most important is the development of their cognitive abilities. Children must learn to express their thoughts and feelings, communicate, and process information they received effectively. Generally, the early childhood educator’s primary role is to ensure the growth and development of these young children. However, not all early childhood educators perform well and negatively impact children’s cognitive development in the process. Early childhood education like any other education demands a well-prepared teacher who value and understands that nature of students they teach. In addition, they are expected to provide supports to help children extend their conceptual understandings beyond their current levels of functioning. There are actually various ideas about the qualities of an effective early childhood educator and in the following section we will discusses some issues in early childhood education and the qualities that an early childhood educator must have in order to be an effective educator for young children. 2. Children’s Cognitive Needs Children have needs in order to develop fully and these needs are physical, social, emotional, and cognitive (Isenberg & Jalongo, 2003). Cognitive ability refers to a child’s ability to focus on an activity, accomplish task, and identify shapes, colors, classification, and finally letters of the alphabet (Koza & Smith 2007).The nominal cognitive needs of children includes development of their ability to impart their thoughts and feelings (Isenberg & Jalongo 2003) thus it is essential to “know who they are and what they are feeling” (Tassoni 2003). Children must be able learn to process information in a meaningful way, to participate in productive problem solving, and to succeed in school and in the community. In addition, some children also need special education services to cope with sickness and disabilities. Young children have more capacity to learn (Dwyer et al. 2000 ) and the success they will be as learners and as future citizens depend on how effective childhood educators meet their cognitive needs (Isenberg & Jalongo 2003; Porter 2002; Howe & Prochner). 3. The Need for an Effective Childhood Educator Childhood educators deeply influence the growth and development of young children (Elliott 2001). For instance, teacher typically utilizes instructional approach that they comfortable with and tend select those approaches that are compatible with their cognitive styles. Consequently, they inadvertently coerce students to learn through their approach and restrain elements that can actually stimulate students to learn (Saracho 1997). Learning is not solely cognitive process intended for children since it includes emotional involvement, interest, motivation, and preference (Persky & Golubchick 1991; Riding & Rayner 2000). In other words, childhood educator should be committed to social, emotional, and physical growth of children concurrently (Persky & Golubchick 1991) and should be mindful of the strength and requirements of each students (Saracho 1997). The ability of a childhood educator to recognize student’s circumstances and the true nature of a situation could help him or her to determine the best practices to apply instead of engaging in fruitless search for simple solutions (Isenberg & Jalongo 2003). Teaching young children to read and write, to appreciate the world around them, and to use their budding intellect and thoughts, all require an effective teacher to have knowledge and understanding of the content of the subjects and topics being taught, as well as the ability to manage a class, explicate clearly, raise sharp and appropriate questions, check and evaluate learning (Kyriacou 1997). Moreover, the quality of personal relationships between teacher and learner also matters because it is considered a precondition to effective teaching (Kyriacou 1997) thus any concept of effective teaching that hold only the transmission of knowledge is false (Dunne & Wragg 1994). In fact, more learning occurs through social interaction (Killen 2006). Research has shown that young children learn best when they are aggressively interacting with others and their environment rather than being passive recipients of information (Muijs & Reynolds 2005). Thus, early year’s teacher should generate a learning environment that is exceedingly interactive where students can explore their environment. 4. The Effective Childhood Educator “An effective teacher is one who maximizes the achievements of students’ by acting in accordance with an explicit set of principles that have order, coherence, and relevance in the particular instructional context” (Killen 2006, p.3). First and foremost, a childhood education practitioner is a professional that can educate and care for children age zero to eight (Eisenmann 1998; Morgan 1999) thus childhood educators must have a formal preparations before attempting to teach. This is because a prepared and well-oriented teacher is more confident and likely to be successful with students than those who had little training or none (Saracho & Spodek 2003). In addition, various researches on teaching according to Bowman et al. (2000) reveals that teacher’s academic abilities are strong predictors of how much a child learns (p.149). In Spodek & Soracho (2006), study in the effectiveness of teachers in early childhood education reveals that “coherent teacher education programs” (p.429) can make teachers to be more effective in their teaching and in providing children with effective educational experiences. Moreover, Spodek & Soracho (2006) added that teachers with most advanced education and training seemed to be the most effective. An effective childhood educator is one that is interested in the learner’s stage of development (Morgan 1999) and capable of creating an effective learning environment (Muijs & Reynolds 2005) where the physical, social, emotional, and cognitive needs of children are being met simultaneously (Persky & Golubchick 1991). In other words, aside from the mastery of the subject being taught, an effective teacher must able to manage the well-being of children in his or her class. The ability of the teacher to take advantage of the materials that is present and to create others, to react to children’s needs, and to sustain eagerness even in critical conditions can produce quality (Evans et al. 2000). This is because learning is not purely cognitive (Persky & Golubchick 1991) or transmission of knowledge (Dunne & Wragg 1994) but quality relationship between teachers and learners (Kyriacou 1997). The childhood educator must be able to build relationships that would enable children to do what they enjoy doing in ways that promote respect for diversity, fairness, and equality (Perry 2004). According to Howes & Ritchie (2002), the “child-teacher” and “child-child” relationships are indispensable parts of pro-social and cooperative classroom atmosphere (p.1) thus early childhood educators may be best to make some special efforts to increase social activities in their classroom to enable children’s social and emotional learning (Saracho & Spodek 2007). For this reason, an effective teacher at a minimum must be ready to face diversity and competent enough to use different strategies as “there is no single method of helping children to learn” (Tassoni 2003). Moreover, this quality relationship may include partnership with student’s parents since they are sources of support as they also value education and seeking the best for their children (Porter 2008). Another important attribute of an effective childhood educator is his or her personal characteristics since it can also affect good teacher performance. Some of the most essential personal characteristics that can have extraordinary positive effects on children’s learning according to Saracho & Spodek (2002) are being warm, caring, flexible, sensitive to individual needs and motivations, enthusiastic about teaching, and concern for students as persons (p.1). 5. Conclusion/Summary Children must be given their needs to develop optimally thus an effective teacher must ensure that they received them. At the minimum, children must learn to communicate their thoughts and feelings thus early childhood educators must be committed to the social, emotional, and physical aspects of educating these children. An effective early childhood educator is conscious of the strength and needs of each student, their conditions and circumstances, and the true nature of the situation. He or she applies the best practices and help children understand the world around them. An effective early childhood educator recognizes the reality that there is no single method to learn, thus he or she is flexible and ready to apply different strategies in different situations. An effective early childhood educator possesses the knowledge and understanding of the subject as well as the ability to manage diversity. He or she builds quality relationship with the students and parents and value the importance of interacting with others. He or she is should have a formal training, well-oriented in early childhood education, and interested in creating an effective learning environment and managing the well-being of children. An effective early childhood educator is warm, caring, flexible, sensitive, motivated, enthusiastic, and most of all concern with students as a person. 6. Reference List Bowman et al. (2000). Eager to learn: educating our preschoolers. 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