VALUES AND BELIEFS
What do you believe is worthy or of great importance in the early learning professional’s practice?
An epiphany I have had as a result of my ECCE journey is the importance of a theory-based philosophy. I entered this course in January 2019 with a vast array of tools that I had acquired in my 15 years of volunteering and working within the early years community. I knew to observe children to identify materials they enjoyed playing with; this data guided how I set-up the environment the following week. I somehow knew that behaviour often was connected to communication and began incorporating sign language in all my facilitation to assist in improving communication opportunities. A guiding principle of Alcoholics Anonymous is “attraction rather than promotion” and I have used this as a guiding principle with children. I never promoted that a child had to be able to count – rather I attracted them to counting through rhymes, songs and stories. But there was never any identified learning or goal-oriented outcomes. It was about chaotic spontaneity and fun.
Now that I have found a theorist, theory and philosophy that makes sense to me, I am able to clearly understand the benefits of theory-based practice. Class lectures and discussions regarding Jean Piaget began to pique my interest as it differed from the behaviourist perspective of reinforcements and extrinsic rewards. The idea that children were little scientists and are self-motivated learners (today’s version of free-range parenting!) is a concept that I find disagreeable. Then I was introduced to Mr. Vygotsky and I understood the importance of having a guiding theory/philosophy/principle in becoming an effective early learning educator. The idea that we are born with certain innate abilities but that these abilities need to be developed and expanded upon fits my belief system. Observation, the Zone of Proximal Development, and Scaffolding are applications of this philosophy that I understand and can easily implement in my practice. At some point in my studies I wrote on one of my binders a Vygotsky quote – “The true direction of the development of thinking is not from the individual to the social but from the social to the individual.” I was negligent in noting where or when I discovered this but it continues to speak loudly to me, even today. My thinking has truly developed not from self-enlightenment that I have shared with others but rather from my ECCE social environment contributing to the development of my opinions and philosophies.
