Early Childhood Education Program

Part 1 – Knowing a Child

Student learning is a process that requires collaboration between parents and teachers who should work together as partners. Partnerships between parents and teachers lay a good foundation for a cooperative relationship toward improving student learning and outcomes. Through such partnerships, teachers get to know the child better and formulate teaching strategies that meet the needs of each individual student. Without proper knowledge of the student, teachers will develop and utilize teaching strategies that are ineffective in promoting student learning. In light of the need for collaboration and partnership between teachers and parents, the teacher has a right to know a child.

Teachers have the right to know a child as such knowledge is essential in shaping teaching strategies. The right to know a child is linked to the fact that each child brings unique skills to the classroom. By knowing a child, teachers understand these unique skills in order to effectively target teaching towards the learning needs and styles of each student (York, 2014). Existing evidence demonstrates that different teaching strategies in elementary reading have varying effects because of the child’s unique needs and skills (York, 2014). This implies that teachers can only effectively target instruction towards the unique learning needs of students based on their knowledge of the individual student.

According to Penn State Extension (2015), knowledge of children is vital for teachers in terms of designing and creating the learning environment. Knowledge of children provides a general framework to teachers to design learning experiences, prepare the learning environment, teach and interact with children, and consider curriculum. There are several benefits associated with the right to know a child including providing the foundation for planning for children, serving as the best starting point for planning for a new child, and supporting children’s progress. In relation to Chapter 5, teachers have a right to know a child as it empowers them to design appropriate learning experiences.

However, teachers’ right to know a child should only be limited to the extent that such knowledge helps to enhance instruction, learning, and outcomes. The right to know a child should be limited to understanding the unique skills that the child brings to the classroom. Similar to other rights, the right to know a child for teachers is not an absolute right that would in turn infringe the child’s other rights and liberties. When this right is restricted towards promoting the child’s learning and growth, teachers end up helping the child and families in greater ways that exceed expectations. On the contrary, if the right to know a child is not limited, teachers could find themselves in situations where they are trying to picket children’s brains in attempts to know everything about them. This would be dangerous because it infringes on the child’s other rights and individual freedoms. As Charlene notes, uncertainty is good in most cases as it opens up exploration and possibility instead of conforming to the idea of the teacher society depicts. This implies that limiting the right to know a child enables teachers to explore and give children the opportunity to be themselves.

Part 2 – Application of Disciplinary Techniques

A child’s development and growth entails learning and obeying social rules in order to demonstrate desired behavior. Early childhood education involves teaching children social rules and desired behaviors. As part of promoting a child’s development, early childhood educators have disciplinary powers. Disciplinary power is used in early childhood classrooms to help children model the desired behaviors by following social rules. Using this power, teachers formulate disciplinary techniques and consequences that are designed to promote positive behaviors in children. Disciplinary techniques and consequences are designed and adjusted depending on the children’s age group and their understanding of what is expected of them. However, teachers need to exercise such power in moderation to avoid having unprecedented negative consequences on children. The failure to exercise such power in moderation could be tantamount to abuse of power.

My work in early childhood education involved the application of disciplinary techniques to help raise well-behaved children. In this educational setting, disciplinary techniques are designed and implemented to help children grow in ways that they become successful humans as noted by Charlene. This idea is based on the belief that the application of disciplinary power and techniques in a negative way ends up making teachers control children in a bad way. Therefore, the school administration established policies and guidelines that govern the application of disciplinary power and techniques.