Early Childhood Education Commons^™

Whose Story Is It? Thinking Through Early Childhood With Young Children’S Photographs, Tran Nguyen Templeton

Occasional Paper Series

Child-centered practices and pedagogies of listening to children are part and parcel of progressive early childhood education. As critical early childhood teachers and researchers, we demonstrate that we value the voices and narratives of children by placing them at the center of our classroom and research agendas. Simultaneously, however, young children’s social position can put them at the mercy of adults’ (teachers’ and researchers’) whims, and their stories may easily be consumed in the name of provocative classroom displays or academic articles. This work explores the potential for visual participatory research, guided by critical childhood studies, to grasp the stories …

Looking For Trouble And Causing Trauma, Marquita D. Foster

Occasional Paper Series

The purpose of this paper is to examine the genuine but misguided efforts to address the behaviors of Pre-K students in a Texas public school. After espousing the concept of building strong children through correction, evaluation, and intervention in my role as assistant principal, I began to question how these methods tended to lead to pathologizing the behaviors of Black pre-kindergarteners in my school. In an attempt to find solutions to the children's perceived misbehavior, Pre-K teachers were charged with utilizing PBIS strategies and the RTI process for behavior. Social and emotional learning (SEL) was also considered. We discovered that …

Power To Change: Math As A Social-Emotional Language In A Classroom Of 4 And 5 Year Olds, Elinor J. Albin, Gretchen Vice

Occasional Paper Series

Tells the story of how mathematics influenced a long term investigation around feeling powerful within an early childhood classroom. Written by Early Childhood Teacher, Elinor J. Albin, and Dean of Faculty, Gretchen Vice, this essay outlines the guiding questions by which teachers at The Advent School in Boston, MA connect mathematics to overarching themes and social-emotional learning. “Power to Change” concludes with observations about how and why mathematics provided a language for building social-emotional intelligence in four and five year olds.

No Room For Silence: The Impact Of The 2016 Presidential Race On A Second-Grade Dual-Language (Spanish-English) Classroom, Sandra L. Osorio

Occasional Paper Series

“¡Quiere sacar a todos los suramericanos! Quiere quedarse con solo los blancos,¹ shouted second grader Salvador² to his classmate Victor. They were supposed to be reading Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin, but somehow the conversation had turned to the then presidential candidate for the Republican Party, Donald Trump. That was how Trump and his rhetoric entered our dual language classroom.

Far too often, the voices of students of color, their experiences, and their lives are not validated in the classroom. When Salvador and Victor’s conversation about Trump erupted, the teacher and I—the teacher …

Teaching My Child To Resist In Kindergarten, Christine Ferris

Occasional Paper Series

Ferris describes how she taught her son to resist in his kindergarten classroom while drawing on her own experiences as an educator. Their experience draws attention to common teaching methods that do not promote socialization or free thinking. This also highlights the issues that can arise when the value system of a school does not align with a family's own beliefs - especially when alternative schools are not a viable option.

The Power Of More Than One, Jane King

Occasional Paper Series

Jane King reflects on her experiences as a preschool teacher eager to use methods outside of the norm. She resists activities that encourage homogeneity and strives to promote autonomy and free thinking in her students. After transitioning from teacher to parent, she still uses this philosophy to make small changes in her daughter's classroom and encourage her children to engage in acts of resistance and critical thinking both in and out of school.

Everyday Tactics And The Carnavalesque: New Lenses For Viewing Resistance In Preschool, Joseph Tobin

Occasional Paper Series

Tobin builds upon Steve Schultz's argument that young children’s resisting authority in preschool is a rehearsal or training ground for resisting authority later in life. Using this perspective, this article turns to theories of power and resistance to help us understand everyday events in preschools, and to suggest implications for the choices we make as adults who work with young children.

Building Higher Than We Are Tall: The Power Of Narrative Inquiry In The Life Of A Teacher, Stephanie Bevacqua

Occasional Paper Series

Bevacqua offers two anecdotes from her teaching career that illustrate young children testing the limits of classroom rules and exploring their autonomy and agency. She reflects on her career as a progressive teacher who works to redefine traditional power relations in the classroom by supporting the children’s investigation of community rules and codes of appropriate behavior.