Education Commons^™

Promise In Infant-Toddler Care And Education

Occasional Paper Series

This special themed issue of the Occasional Paper Series seeks to highlight and challenge assumptions about infant-toddler care and education. In the Call for Papers, we specifically asked for critical analyses of the state of the field; for contributions from practitioners, policy researchers and policymakers, teacher educators, and colleagues from international contexts to interrogate the status quo. We were not surprised, however, when the papers submitted, with one exception, came from university researchers or faculty working with students. Caregivers and teachers of the youngest children are overwhelmingly women, often with families of their own, with limited time, support, or incentives …

I Want To Know Why, Virginia Casper, Rebecca J. Newman

Occasional Paper Series

In this article, an early childhood coach and her mentor coach tell one story of their year of joint reflective work together. They follow the topic of outdoor play in birth-to-three and early childhood family-based care programs as it surfaced at the beginning of the year. This inquiry expanded into the coach’s burgeoning understanding of the meaning of experience for very young children, which became a parallel process in the coach’s work with practitioners. Together, the coach and mentor coach describe the ways in which they created a more authentic and meaningful way to think about outdoor time and environments …

Honoring Knowledge And Experience: Highlighting Caregiver Voices In A Professional Development Curriculum, Margie Brickley

Occasional Paper Series

Infant/toddler caregivers are often portrayed as undereducated and unprofessional. The same is true for family child caregivers. In this piece, the author describes an approach that takes a different point of view – assuming competence and knowledge - and building on the existing experiences of the people working with infants, toddlers and their families. The philosophy behind the professional development experience is delineated. The voices of the caregivers, instructors, and coaches who participated in this program are highlighted.

The Best Of Both Worlds: Partnering With The Community To Create The Guttman Center For Early Care And Education, Robin Hancock

Occasional Paper Series

The Guttman Center for Early Care and Education was established in the fall of 2016 at Bank Street College with the intention of providing quality professional development and support to Family Child Care Providers (early childhood educators running small private daycares out of their homes) in Brooklyn, New York. Completely free to all participants, the Center seeks to attract providers, regardless of age, education level or years of experience, who were interested in deepening their understanding of early childhood development. Through a deep touch community engagement strategy and utilization of Bank Street's renowned Infancy Masters Program, early educators are encouraged …

Introduction To The Guttman Articles, Virginia Casper

Occasional Paper Series

The Guttman Center for Early Care and Education came about through a 2016 grant from the Guttman Foundation to provide a quality professional development and support system to child care providers and practitioners in East New York, Brooklyn. The program paired coaching with Saturday workshops delivered in the community to address local community needs. Following participants’ graduation, the program initiated a learning network to promote continued peer learning (see the articles in this issue by Robin Hancock and Marjorie Brickley). Although the project has ended, the learning network—and thousands of interactions from the many relationships that were formed—remain and continue …

Building Bridges To Overcome Widening Gaps: Challenges In Addressing The Need For Professional Preparation Of Infant-Toddler Practitioners In Higher Education, Jennifer A. Mortensen, Maryssa Kucskar Mitsch, Kalli Decker, Maria Fusaro, Sandra I. Plata-Potter, Holly Brophy-Herb, Claire D. Vallotton, Martha J. Buell

Occasional Paper Series

As the professional qualifications for those working with infants, toddlers, and their families continue to expand, institutes of higher education (IHEs) play an increasingly vital role in training the infant/toddler workforce. However, IHEs face numerous programming and pedagogical issues that make meeting the needs of these professionals difficult. These issues are further complicated by persistent challenges within early care and education. In this paper, we examine these issues in detail and discuss the Collaborative for Understanding the Pedagogy of Infant/toddler Development (CUPID), a cross-institution partnership working to enhance the quality of infant/toddler professional preparation in higher education.

Getting It Right From The Start: A Retrospective And Current Examination Of Infant-Toddler Care In Jamaica, Zoyah Kinkead-Clark, Kerry-Ann Escayg

Occasional Paper Series

Despite acknowledging that early childhood spans from birth to eight years, in Jamaica, similar to many other developing countries, predominant interest in early childhood care and education has typically been centred on the education children three to six years receive rather than the care of infants and toddlers. With the current thrust towards improving access to childcare in Jamaica it warrants an examination of the sector and the issues affecting infants/toddlers and the persons who care for them.

Guided by the findings of the ground breaking 1993 UNICEF funded report which evaluated the state of nursery care in Jamaica, this …

Preparing Infant-Toddler Professionals: A Community College’S Perspective, Jennifer M. Longley, Jennifer M. Gilken

Occasional Paper Series

Preparing professionals to work with infants/ toddlers is complex and unique because of the age group. Community colleges have an integral role in the preparation of infant/ toddler professionals, The Borough of Manhattan Community College infant/ toddler preservice program identified the following four elements to prepare professionals to deliver high-quality, relationship-based practices: (1) relationship-based program, (2) fieldwork opportunities, (3) curriculum, and (4) faculty.

Including Autism: Confronting Inequitable Practices In A Toddler Classroom, Emmanuelle N. Fincham, Amanda R. Fellner

Occasional Paper Series

As co-teachers in a toddler room, we share a personal narrative about our experiences working with a child diagnosed with autism while in our care. Framed within the competing discourses of the medicalized perspective on disability and the individual, child-centered philosophies of early childhood education, we investigate the inequities we felt in the classroom and make connections to the field of early childhood inclusive education at large.

Relationship-Based Infant Care As A Framework For Authentic Practice: How Eun Mi Rediscovered Her Teaching Soul, Susan L. Recchia, Seung Eun Mcdevitt

Occasional Paper Series

In this paper, we explore the complex nature of preparing diverse professionals for authentic, relationship-based care for infants and toddlers in child care. Looking through the eyes of one student caregiver, we travel with her through a semester-long course introducing her to infant care as an integral part of early childhood teacher preparation. We draw on her descriptions of her weekly experiences in an infant room focusing on a key child, her formal reflections in written assignments, and her responses to a series of interview questions once the course was completed to construct a theory of authentic practice through relationship-based …

A Bizarro World For Infants And Toddlers And Their Teachers, Marcy Whitebook

Occasional Paper Series

A bizarro world reverses our everyday realities. You may be familiar with the concept if you have ever read DC Comics or watched Seinfeld. In the bizarro world I envision for our nation’s infants and toddlers, family income does not determine whether their parents can afford to take time off work in the first months of their lives nor their right to high quality early care and education. In every infant-toddler program, whether offered in a center or home, staff are steeped in the science of child development and early learning pedagogy, and can depend on good wages and working …

Overlooked Too Long: Focusing On The Potential Of Infant-Toddler Child Care, Joan Lombardi

Occasional Paper Series

Child care appears to be emerging as a national issue. After decades of being relegated to the minor leagues of American policy, child care for working families has become front-page news. It has been almost 50 years since the passage of comprehensive child care reform. The Comprehensive Child Development Act of l971 would have provided for a network of child care programs, ensured federal standards, and provided funds to train caregivers, among other provisions. Unfortunately it was vetoed, setting back child care for decades.

Unlocking Birth To Three: Context Really Matters, Hb Ebrahim

Occasional Paper Series

It is undisputed that birth to three are the foundational years where the youngest in our society experience extraordinary growth that contributes towards their development and learning. High quality programmes direct their efforts at building caring relationships, providing nurturing environments and working in partnerships with families and communities. Acting to develop responsive programmes and equitable practices, however, is not straightforward. Contestations have been brought to the fore by dissenting voices to mainstream narratives that privilege certain ways of knowing young children. In light of this, it is critical to ask: How has the dominant knowledge base for birth to three …

The Nurturing Care Framework: From Policies To Parents, Linda Richter

Occasional Paper Series

When most people think of early childhood development, what comes to mind is preprimary school learning; similarly, when they think about how best to ensure a child turns out well, their thoughts turn to adolescents. The FrameWorks Institute in Washington, DC, calls this “aging up,” a phenomenon that has been demonstrated as a bias in policy and public thinking in several countries, including South Africa (Richter, Tomlinson, Watt, Hunt, & Lindland, 2019). Yet it is the earliest period of life, from conception to two to three years of age, that most strongly regulates our trajectory across the course of our …

Infant Toddler Care And Education: Speaking Up For Young Children And Their Caregivers, Virginia Casper, Sharon Ryan

Occasional Paper Series

Much of the policy-and practice-focused research on infant-toddler care and education has been concerned with the issue of program quality. That is, what elements constitute a quality program for infants and toddlers that ensures their ongoing developmental success? Researchers have sought to identify the structural and process indicators necessary for young children to receive the kinds of responsive interactions that contribute to positive developmental outcomes.

Choosing Advocacy

Occasional Paper Series

Two articles comprise this publication. In "Beyond the Story-Book Ending: Literature for Young Children About Parental Estrangement and Loss," Megan Matt analyzes over 30 books for young children on the topics of abandonment, estrangement, divorce, and foster care. She observes that this loss might appear as an event within the story or as a fear articulated by a young child. She states that, as an educator, she hopes that she can make the children realize that their own stories are "real" and legitimate, no matter what messages they might encounter or fail to encounter in the media. In "Walking the …

Alternative Routes To Teacher Certification

Occasional Paper Series

Alternative routes to teacher preparation are clearly here to stay. A growing research literature on non-traditional pathways suggests the complexity of the task ahead. This report offers new teachers the opportunity to tell their own stories in their own words.

Delicate Moments: Kids Talk About Socially Complicated Issues

Occasional Paper Series

The author offers an analysis of the failures and insights she experienced working with adolescents at a progressive school while discussing how the students understood and experienced race and identity -- their own and that of others. While she encountered students who were willing to take her into their worlds, her efforts fell flat when her questions turned out to be about their experiences of race and class. In response to such questions, Bauman received, on the whole, confusion, a few stories that distanced the teller from the events, and queries about whether this was "what she wanted." At that …

Welcoming The Stranger: Essays On Teaching And Learning In A Diverse Society

Occasional Paper Series

This issue of "Occasional Papers" is filled with stories by and about "strangers"--people of all ages who perceive themselves or have been perceived by others as outsiders either because of who they are, where they have come from, or even how recently they have arrived in this country. Successful educators know that the ability to welcome the stranger into the classroom, indeed an entire group of strangers each September, is essential to building a productive, caring community of learners. They know, too, that, from the point of view of students new to the school or society, the culture of the …

High-Needs Schools: Preparing Teachers For Today's World

Occasional Paper Series

In the second decade of the 21st century, some schools are in trouble and some schools are not. The subject of this Occasional Paper is the preparation of teachers for schools that--lacking sufficient resources, effective leadership, or vocal advocates--are failing to educate their students by any reasonable measures. The teachers and teacher educator contributors to this volume offer a more variegated set of responses grounded in a diversity of local experiences. Their approaches to researching and understanding the immediacy of becoming a teacher are based on decades of working in hard-pressed urban schools and the institutions that supply them with …

Teacher Leaders: Transforming Schools From The Inside

Occasional Paper Series

Teacher leadership is "hard." Many of the reasons are obvious: Teaching is a highly labor-intensive profession to begin with, leaving little downtime for work with other adults. School schedules are notoriously stingy with space for adult collaboration. Teachers are rarely paid to exercise leadership; when they are, they are never paid enough. This volume is a modest attempt to restore the issue of teacher leadership to the prominence it deserves and requires. Although there is considerable overlap among the essays, they have been organized loosely into three categories: "mentoring," to address the essential question of teacher helping teacher; "transforming school …

Classroom Life In The Age Of Accountability

Occasional Paper Series

Concerned that various reforms promising greater professional autonomy and status as well as student success are actually disempowering teachers, impoverishing intellectual life in schools, and serving as a portal for the marketization of teaching and education, editors invited teachers to respond to the ways in which the proliferation of standards and testing combined with their own loss of professional control is altering the landscape of American education. The editors' goal was to raise questions about whether and how educators are balancing the demands of high stakes testing, scripted curricula, and a focus on performance outcomes with the emotional complexity of …

Art & Early Childhood: Personal Narratives & Social Practices

Occasional Paper Series

No abstract provided.

The Other 17 Hours: Valuing Out-Of-School Time

Occasional Paper Series

No abstract provided.

Toward A More Loving Framework For Literacy Education

Occasional Paper Series

No abstract provided.

Inclusive Classrooms: From Access To Engagement

Occasional Paper Series

No abstract provided.

Challenging The Politics Of The Teacher Accountability Movement: Toward A More Hopeful Educational Future

Occasional Paper Series

No abstract provided.

Life In Inclusive Classrooms: Storytelling With Disability Studies In Education

Occasional Paper Series

No abstract provided.

Progressive Practices In Public Schools

Occasional Paper Series

No abstract provided.

Constructivists Online: Reimagining Progressive Practice

Occasional Paper Series

No abstract provided.