Inquiry: An official investigation

By: Sari

Being in a cohort of about 20 people, there are constant conversations about what is occurring in multiple classrooms in the southeast region of Louisiana. Often reading, writing, and mathematics are the majority of conversations while science and social studies are looked over. This has also been apparent in my three placements over the last 18 months.

My ongoing question is “Why has science become overlooked in early childhood classrooms?”

I have been concerned by the lack of exploration in science and the reliance on worksheets in early childhood classrooms. The literature suggests traditional, text-based instruction, rather than hands-on kinesthetic instruction, is not successful for teaching science because the students are often involved in limited ways as “passive recipients” of knowledge (Trundle, 2008, p.3). For the students to be able to obtain rich information, they must be learning through first hand experiences.

According to Worth, inquiry-based science’s core is based on direct exploration of phenomena and materials (2010, para. 9). Often classrooms allow for minimal exploration and observation from students. There will be some object placed on a table surrounded by observations tools for the students to use, but the observations and questions from the students go unnoticed (Worth, 2010). There are times when students are not able to present their concerns or questions because of the quick rush onto the next subject area that may be considered “more important” depending on the school. Young children should be learning science through first hand exploration. They should be involved in “sciencing” rather than learning the facts presented by instructors and worksheets  (Kilmer & Hofman, 1995; Mayesky, 1998; Zeece, 1999). According to Wilson, this can best be accomplished through the constructivist approach, in which children use and explore, ask questions, and are presented with high order thinking questions by their teacher. Productive questions are in fact, one of the most effective tools for supporting constructivist learning (Martens, 1999).

When teachers are guiding an inquiry-based approach, it allows for “scaffolding of new scientific concepts with the learner’s existing mental models” (Trundle et al., in press, p.3).  This is the type of learning that children were born to engage in. They need to be touching things, moving around the room, and attempting to figure out why something is the way it is. The students become “active agents” in their learning and become motivated because they have a special ownership of their understandings.  This type of approach also leads to collaboration among students, scaffolding through peer discussion, and connections to the students daily lives (Trundle, 2009).

References

Trundle, K. (2008). Teaching Science During the Early Childhood Years. Retrieved October 27, 2015, from

http://ngl.cengage.com/assets/downloads/ngsci_pro0000000028/am_trundle_teach_sci_early_child_scl22-0429a.pdf

Wilson, R. (2008). Earlychildhood NEWS - Article Reading Center. Retrieved October 26, 2015.

Worth, K. (2010). Science in Early Childhood Classrooms: Content and Process. Retrieved November 1, 2015.

Turnover Rates in Child Care Settings

By: Katie 

As a freshman in college, I scanned through many job ads asking for tutors, babysitters, nannies, and afternoon counselors. I was surprised to find an ad from a child care center asking for ‘teachers.’ I thought, “Well, I’m definitely not a teacher. I don’t have my degree yet!” Yet as I began working at this center as an afternoon teacher, I realized that what I was doing really embodied what a ‘teacher’ does. I, along with the other teachers at the child care center, was engaging these young children in a way that laid the foundation for their social, cognitive, physical, and language skills. I was truly inspired by the work that the teachers were doing, but I was troubled by one thing: the teacher turnover rate was quick and often.

This frequent turnover had a negative effect on students’ well-being at the center as the children would continually be creating relationships with adults only to see them leave. This turnover rate seemed to be affecting the quality of care the children were receiving as they were unable to build strong relationships with their teachers. As I researched, I realized that this turnover rate is not uncommon in child care settings. Nationally, the turnover rate for early care staff is 25% to 50% each year (Barnett, 2003). This led me to wonder about the cause of this high turnover rate.

Research suggests that child care workers often leave due to inadequate compensation, few benefits, and availability for alternative employment. The annual wage of a lead teacher in a childcare setting is “5,000 less per year than the average wage for any other role in comparable educational qualifications” (NAEYC, 1995). Those that do come into the early care field with an education background often leave for similar but higher paying jobs in the K-12 sector education. Those that may not come into early care with a degree are even worse off. The median salary for teaching assistants and child care workers is $16,299. This would qualify early child care workers to be paid less than parking lot attendants (Barnett, 2003). With this low compensation often comes low benefits for the early care workforce. The extremely low satisfaction with compensation and benefits encourages early child workers to search for alternative employment with more attractive financial benefits, whether it is in the education field or not.

The high turnover rate in early childcare settings, largely due to inadequate compensation, has a huge effect on the quality of care because, “teachers who leave tend to be more highly qualified than those who stay” (Barnett, 1995). The big question is: how can we increase the quality of centers by attracting and retaining high quality teachers?

One way to do this is by providing opportunities for career advancement and therefore an increase in pay. Organizations like the T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood Project provide scholarships for those seeking career advancement opportunities. Programs and organizations like these can help with retention of quality staff by providing the opportunity for higher compensation while increasing the teacher’s area specific training. This specific training will also increase the quality of care provided as it will offer both the newer and more experienced teachers with applicable knowledge of positive environments for children. Research has shown while higher education usually does correlate with higher quality, more experience does not (Torquati, Raikes, Huddleston-Casas, 2007). This is why it is important to provide teachers with specific training pertinent to the quality of care in early childhood settings.

Educating our youngest citizens is an incredibly important job in our society. Low compensation prevents highly educated individuals from ever stepping into an early childcare center, drives many away to higher education, and plagues the morale of those who choose to stay in childcare settings. This in-turn affects the quality of early child care settings across the country. Investing in quality rather than quantity of child care teachers will provide young children with positive and enriching environments in the crucial years of early development.  

References

Barnett, W. S. (2003). Low wages= low quality: Solving the real preschool teacher crisis. Preschool policy matters, 3(8).

National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). (1995). Quality, Compensation, and Affordability in Early Childhood Programs: A position statement of the National Association of the Education of Young Children. Retrieved from https://www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/positions/PSQCA98.PDF.

Torquati, J., Raikes, H., & Huddleston-Casas, C. (2007). Teacher education, motivation, compensation, workplace support, and links to quality of center-based child care and teachers’ intention to stay in the early childhood profession. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 22(2), 261-275.

The Importance of Nutrition on Healthy Brain Development

            Every day at 11:30, my students excitedly line up and head to the cafeteria to receive their lunches. They become less excited when they find that their lunch includes brown noodles, brown rice, or brown bread- quite different than the foods they like to eat at home in most cases. Therefore, every day at 12:00, I watch my students throw most of those brown foods into the garbage can.

            What the students fail to understand, however, is that those brown noodles, brown rice, and brown bread made with wheat and whole grains are healthier alternatives to the white variations that are loaded with carbohydrates and starches. They also fail to understand how crucial those more nutritious alternatives are to healthy brain development in this optimal growth period of their lives. From pregnancy throughout childhood, nutritional decisions are laying the foundation for the development of cognitive, motor, and socio-emotional skills the child will rely on for the remainder of their life (Dewey & Prado, 2014).

            So, how do we educate these children, as well as the families that are feeding them at home, on the importance of making healthier choices? After all, the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 allowed the USDA to improve the nutritional level of foods that schools are serving for breakfast and lunch (whitehouse.gov, 2010). So the brown foods are to be served whether those eating the lunches like it or not. As educators, it is our job to teach each child holistically. We need to consider incorporating lessons on proper nutrition into the classroom as often as possible. We need to stop using junk food like candy as rewards. Mypyramid.gov provides resources for educators incorporating the value of nutrition into their instruction.

            To those parents, educators, or anyone interested, here are several resources (provided by The National Association for the Education of Young Children) to explore the topic and initiate change:

·      Alliance for a Healthier Generation-www.clintonfoundation.org/cf-pgm-hs-hk-home.htm

·      American Heart Association-www.americanheart.org

·      Fit Source- www2.nccic.org/fitsource/

·      KidsHealth for Parents- www.kidshealth.org/parent/nutrition_fit/nutrition/pyramid.html

·      MyPyramid.gov- www.mypyramid.gov

References

Prado, E., & Dewey, K. (2014). Nutrition and brain development in early life.  Nutrition Reviews, 72(4), 267-284. Retrieved November 5, 2015, from     http://nutritionreviews.oxfordjournals.org/content/72/4/267.full

Resources for encouraging good nutrition and physical fitness. (2006). Young          Children. Retrieved November 5, 2015, from

 https://www.naeyc.org/files/yc/file/200605/ResourcesBTJ.pdf

Child nutrition reauthorization healthy, hunger-free kids act

of 2010. (2010). Retrieved November 5, 2015, from

https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/Child_Nutrition_Fact_Sheet_12_10         _10.pdf

Are Lockdown Drills Enough?

By: Brooke

In the US in 2015 alone, there has been a total of 52 school shootings leaving thirty dead and over 50 injured. “Of the 52 shootings, 21 have been at colleges and universities, 15 at high schools, three at middle schools, 10 at elementary schools, two at preschools, and one on a school bus” (52, 2015). In order to establish routines for what is to be done in situations like school shootings, schools have implanted lock down drills for teachers and students. As helpful as lockdown drills are, they do not prevent attacks. Hiding behind a flipped table with paper covering the windows of the classroom does not keep a gunman on a mission away. Lockdown drills seem like an easy drill to practice, but in reality lockdown drills can be a nightmare to teachers of early childhood classrooms.

Preschool teacher Launa Hill states in her blog post, after an especially difficult lockdown drill, “When you’re guiding 4- and 5-year-olds through a drill, your choice of words can mean everything. ‘Activity,’ not ‘game,’ because in a game it is okay to laugh. The word ‘police’ can be scary and some children cry when they are scared. Saying ‘quiet,’ is tricky because young children tend to shush one another and that would catch a gunman’s attention. And in a harsh reality, being quiet is simply not enough”(Hall, 2014). The only way students and teachers can survive is if they are completely silent, almost non-existent. That is difficult for any classroom on any given day, even if the children have their own space. But when they are piled on top of each other, basically sitting in each other’s laps, it is almost impossible, especially in early childhood classrooms.

 Lockdown drills are extremely important at every school so that in case of an emergency teachers and students are prepared on how to handle the situation. But, if that is all that is being done…is it enough? What is being done to keep these harmful predators off our school campuses?

Phillip Holloway said it best in his CNN article, stating that, “Meaningful security exists in courts, public buildings, and even at major media organizations. To me, it's a moral obligation to provide security. To put it another way, even sheep have sheepdogs. Shepherds for millennia have realized the wisdom of protecting their flock from deadly predators, yet schools and colleges across the nation can't seem to absorb this ancient wisdom” (Holloway, 2015).

In the horrific situation of a school shooting, the only person to blame is the gunman. But, it is important that every school has security in order to keep our schools safe. Never should it be okay for a person to be able to come onto a campus without being checked in.  Gates should never be left unlocked. The public should never be allowed to enter through unlocked doors surrounding schools. The only place visitors should be able to enter is through a door that is visibly seen by the office in order to be sure everyone at the school has a purpose on being there. In order to keep our teachers and students safe, it is important that our schools are doing everything in their power to keep unwanted guests out.

References

52 school shootings so far this year leave 30 dead, 53 injured. (2015, October 10). Retrieved November 10, 2015, from https://www.rt.com/usa/318169-school-shootings-statistics-year/

Holloway, P. (2015, October 3). Now is Not the Time to Debate Guns but rather School Security. Retrieved November 12, 2015, from http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/02/opinions/holloway-gun-and-schools/

Hall, L. (2014, October 28). Rehearsing for death: A pre-K teacher on the trouble with lockdown drills. Retrieved November 17, 2015, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/rehearsing-for-death-a-pre-k-teacher-on-the-trouble-with-lockdown-drills/2014/10/28/4ab456ea-5eb2-11e4-9f3a-7e28799e0549_story.html