Home is a place where parents nurture their children; School, an institute for teachers to educate them into a useful person. As children enter school, it is a change. To give them a smooth transition from home to school, we have the go-between schools called early education centers or nursery schools. Children in these schools are treated differently from those attending regular schools. They can have the luxury of being cared for as if they are at home; but at the same time, they are given a foretaste of what school life looks like. Children from here are starting a new, exciting journey with great promise. They will be cultivated and inspired for a bright future.
Nowadays, early childhood programs are designed and implemented toward this goal. Although their approaches are all different, it is encouraging to find out that they are all heading for the well being of our young children.
Among them, some large scale federal programs such as Head–Start, or local community-run YMCA child care programs, are geared toward both care and development for young children. Some of them even include health care and social welfare schemes to make sure each child is given the chance to proper.
Some others programs, like NAYEC’s work in developing “consensus” in developmentally appropriate practice for different approaches to follow. Others such as the work of McMullen and Dixon (2006), in “unifying practices” to lay a common ground for care and education of infants and toddlers; Still some are introducing from other cultures philosophy and pedagogy, such as the Reggio Way of Italy and Montessori’s specific program to enrich this field of early education.
Of most programs mentioned, their tenets are discussed in detail in the work of Roopnarine, J.L. & J.E. Johnson, Approaches to Early Childhood Education (2000). All in all, early childhood education is flourishing to a degree that young children will eventually benefited.
Within most of the all the approaches in early childhood education, it can be grouped under two categories: child-centered and didactic (teacher-centered) approach. Recognizing specific characteristics of young children in their aptitude, inclination, and growth, the child-centered approach asks that a teacher is to be in assisting position in helping children to acquire skills and knowledge because children can invent their own and have no need of pushing them to learn; and in this way, the knowledge gained is real to them and useful. Just the opposite, the teacher-centered approach takes a different view: a teacher is to take charge in all the matters concerning their learning because the teacher knows best what is good for them; and in this way, the skills and knowledge acquired is real and useful. There are a lot of pros and cons between these two major approaches in early education.
It seems that these two approaches do not meet. Combining them is the biggest challenge in the field of early childhood education. Can they really be put together in educating young children? Is there a both-and middle ground approach? The answer is positive. Yes, there is one: Infant and Toddler Education. Infant and Toddler Education is the substance of what early childhood education is. And this volume is to going to present it below.
Children definitely need education; however, why do we stress the idea of earliness in educating them? No doubt, it must come from an idea that the earlier a child receives education the better will the child become. But where does this idea come from?
Surprisingly, we seldom take a pause to think about its where-from and its effect on young children as we are busy promoting early childhood education.
Substantiating the proposition that earlier a child receives education the better will the child become is not a difficult job now. The proof can be derived from the principle of complementation of nature and nurture that is being introduced here.
Understanding human brain sheds some light on this principle of complementation. Human brain has long been a mystery to us. However, with effort of century’s long research on human brain, we begin to understand its role in all human activities. Since the decade of the brain, designated by American Congress in 1990, neuroscientists are more prepared to welcome the coming century of the brain; it is in this enthusiasm that much progress will have been made in further understanding the brain. Simply put, human brain is recognized as the main organ of the nervous system that governs all our activities and behaviors; it can be thought as the source of competence of an individual. At the time a baby is born, the brain is ready to function. Once triggered by the stimulus from environment, the brain starts working, producing behaviors in respond. This is learning; and learning leaves traces in the brain’s neuronal circuitry that becomes memory. The result of this interacting, learning experience, can either strengthen the circuitry and make it more efficient or modify itself to adapt to the environment. Either way, the brain needs the interaction to perfect its functioning and that explains where the competence is developed. That modification of neural circuitry is called experience-development of the brain. This kind of development is really the kind of development that benefits the child’s mind and body. That is the way nature and nurture complementing each other for the good of a child. It also tells why early education is good for the child; what is more, it justifies this Infant and Toddler Education.
It might be necessary to explain this complementary principle here with two illustrations: vision and language developments.
Let us take vision first. At embryo, there are three vesicles from which forebrain, midbrain, and hindbrain are developed. In forebrain, there are visual vesicles that later grow into optic stalk and optic cup. The cup turns into the retina and the stalk turns into visual nervous cells that later proliferate to thalamus, the perception entrance gate to the brain. The visual axons from one retina have to make three selections before arriving at the thalamus: choosing the right path at the crossing with other retina routes, getting to the right cerebral structure, and innervating the correct cell. All is done according to genetic code. After properly done, the cells now find their way to the visual cortex to complete the innervating. Thus the visual neural network from retina to visual cortex is built; totally determined by Nature; with other neural modalities available, the visual function is now ready for use at the time the child is born. Upon the stimulus from outside world, the involvement of nurture, the visual image coming through the eyeball becomes signals and get into the brain for proper reaction that shows up as behavior, and in this case, the baby sees and learns or the first time. This visual experience leaves a trace in the brain that becomes a memory in the brain. The first uses solidify the neural visual network and make it more efficient for later uses. Subsequent use may modify the network but the neural system can make adjustment to cope with new encounters. This network modification is called plasticity of the brain. It happens during the learning period of a child. It is the result of interaction of nature and nurture. It is in this way nature and nurture worked complementary to each other. As soon as the brain faculty starts working, putting it to work causes no hindrance to the child’s normal development; what is more, it will be properly developed. This kind of development is really the kind of development that benefits mind and body of the child；and the competence of a child is ever made better as a result.
With language development of a child, the complementary principle of Nature and Nurture is once again illustrated here. We are going to see much clearly that nature endowment essentially lays the foundation first, and nurture plays a development role later. Unlike vision development that needs a minimum help from environment, language needs a lot of help from nurture.
In language development, the emergence of language abilities is correlated to the phenomenon of “exuberant synapses” growth in early childhood . In this early period, Huttenlocher (1999) finds out anatomically the dramatic increase of synapses, connections of nervous cells in three area of the brain: in auditory cortex of Heschl’s gyrus, in language comprehensive area of Wernicke’s area in temporal lobe, and Broca’s area in frontal lobe. This exuberance emerges at the time as language faculties are emerging which can be identified in child’s behaviors. We see children are busy in using language in their daily life and learning is efficient and favorable. On the contrary, when synapses become less proliferated in later period, learning mother tongue or foreign language becomes more difficult.
In medical professional circle, a recently popular idea of “windows of opportunity” is there that reflects this idea of early education. Because in this period, learning is more efficient and favorable. This saying is in full support of the complementary principle of Nature and Nurture. Some of medical professionals wonder whether educators would use these golden opportunity to teach a child. Here, this volume of infant and toddler education is just doing that.
In classrooms, a common practice of keep talking to children is becoming popular. It has backups from research. Pediatrician Dixon describes all language development, and correlates it to environment during early childhood. There is another support from professor Bloom (1998) of Psychology and Education at Columbia University. She investigates the interaction between engagement (which is mainly environmental, book author) and effort (again environmental) for language development and contributes the development of language especially around the second year to the associations with people in emotional, cognitive, and social affairs. In short, environment plays a vital role on language development. In other words, nature and nurture work together for the well being of a child; and the earlier a child is taught, the better the child will be. Once again, the infant and toddler education is justified!
Having illustrated this complementary principle of nature and nurture, we are going to see a parable about early childhood education. We may expect the comparison of child-centered and teacher-centered approach. From these two approaches, we can see and appreciate what an authentic early education should be. One may find out later that the infant and toddler education presented here is just the right one for early childhood education.
Pulling shoots
"In Sung district, (Sung, a country in ancient China) a peasant has been worrying about his field of rice plants. The rice grows slowly. He becomes impatient for his crops to ripen. In desperation, he lifts the shoots so as to appear they have grown taller. After toiling for whole day helping his entire crops grow, he is home exhausted and perplexed. He tells his household: 'Today I become sick, after helping my rice plants to grow'. His son goes to see the result and finds that, because of his pulling, the rice plants are withering away.
Over the entire country, there are few people who do not help the growth of rice. However, there are those who quit weeding simply because they think no advantage in so doing. On the contrary, those who would expedite the growth do the pulling artificially. Thus, in lieu of doing good, the damage is done already."
This passage is taken from the Book Mencius, The four Book Reader. ,Mencius (370-289 B. C.) was a Chinese philosopher and educator. His teachings define and shape the Chinese education as much as that of Confucius (551-479 B. C.).
The educational implication of this excerpt is clear. There are three types of approaches in dealing with the rice shoots in the field: the one that helps, the one that does not care, and the one that cares too much. Of course, we all want to help; we all want them to prosper. In order to help them properly, we have to be strict with our approach. In gauging whether an approach is appropriate, there are three things we have to consider: we have to know the object, we have to have the right approach, and we have to know how to do. To reach the goal of a balanced development for our young children, we need to do these three things properly.
Copyright 2009 Tak-Ka Chung Lau
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