My
guiding assumption will be that early childhood education is not about young
children as such, but about how teachers and children form relationships that
mutually influence each other and that especially influence children. I assume
that if I am an early childhood teacher, I will not be satisfied with simply
knowing and observing the behavior and capacities of children in general or of
my classroom of children in particular. I will also want to do something
with my knowledge, even if doing something just means exclaiming how pleased I
am with my children’s accomplishments. As a teacher, I will often do more than
this, of course: I may engage children in further activities that extend their interests,
motives, and abilities. But to call myself a teacher of the young, I must connect with
them somehow, which means interacting, relating, and touching their lives in
valuable ways.
Given this perspective and given a focus on the
needs of early childhood educators, certain theories and topics about human
change and functioning get "promoted" in value to the exclusion of
others. As a rule, theories that highlight social influence or collaborative
processes are more useful to teachers of young children than viewpoints that
leave human interaction out of the picture. A number of classical distinctions
become more useful if integrated rather than separated: the classic differences
between mind and body, for example, or between thought and feeling, the
individual and the social world, or observation and intervention (Seifert,
2001). These binaries will not disappear in this chapter, but they will be more
helpful to us as educators if we remember their mutual dependence, especially
in the worlds of young children. Integrating the classic binaries alters how we
think of "cognition," turning cognitive development into more of a
project shared with others, and less of one marked by distancing from the
social, emotional, or physical.
Adopting a relational perspective about cognitive
development makes obvious sense for aspects of classroom life that are
explicitly social, such as the formation of peer relationships or the effect of
early attachments on preschoolers’ behavior. What may be harder to believe may
be that a similarly social or collaborative perspective is both possible and
helpful for developmental activities that seem less inherently social—including
the topic of children’s thinking in particular. We tend to regard cognition as
a skill expressed independently—something that is acquired and displayed alone
even in the most activity-oriented, developmentally appropriate classroom. But
from an adult’s perspective, the independence is illusory: seen in broader
context, even a child working alone is still a partner with teachers, peers,
and (as I will also argue) unseen others in learning and thinking. Teachers
therefore need ways to understand and work with children that acknowledge these
partnerships fully. That, at least, is what I will argue below.
I begin the chapter by clarifying key ambiguities
in the concepts of development and of cognitive
development in particular. The clarifications will assist in locating
the research topics described in the chapter within the larger landscape of
developmental theorizing. The topics themselves definitely do not cover the
field of child development as an academic field, but they are arguably the two
most central concerns of early childhood educators as professionals: pretend
play and literacy. Pretend play is especially important to educators working
with the youngest children and who seek to provide them with the most
developmentally appropriate practice possible. As it turns out, pretend play
also clearly supports the claim that cognitive development in early childhood
is "really" social. The benefits of this people-oriented activity are
very real, but definitely not confined to the social. Because of the focus of
the chapter, I will not in fact focus on the social importance of pretend play,
but on how pretend play connects to and stimulates particular cognitive skills
in young children. As we will see, the cognitive skills are ones that early
childhood teachers value, and that they can encourage deliberately.
The other area of research discussed, literacy
development, is especially important to educators working with
"older" young children. Because the research shows the importance of
the preschool years for literacy, however, the chapter will focus on emergent
literacy during both the preschool and early school-years periods. Although
some readers may feel that literacy belongs in a chapter on curriculum studies
than one about developmental psychology, I will argue the contrary: that
literacy both influences and is influenced by cognitive development in
early childhood. As these comments suggest, however, the term development can
have several meanings—a problem that can cause confusion when not understood.
Before going further, therefore, the various meanings of development should be
clarified.
The
definition of technology itself according to
Thesaurus Dictionary is the branch of knowledge that deals with the
creation and use of technical means and their interrelation with life, society
and the environment, drawing upon such subjects as industrial arts ,
engineering, applied science and pure science.
