My Early Childhood Teaching Philosophy

I am going to start right off the bat by making my credentials (or lack thereof) clear: I do not have a degree or any other advanced certificate in easily childhood education. I did take a couple of practicum-type credits as a dual-enrollment option in high school, as well as a few early childhood prerequisite courses. But, my Bachelors degree is mostly unrelated, and not in Education.   I also worked in a state licensed and nationally accredited early childhood facility for 3 or 4 years, and attended and participated in the trainings that were required during that time.

However, in that time, I learned a lot about the importance of having a teaching philosophy, and, as I contemplate the option of homeschooling our girls, I just wanted to organize my thoughts, and perhaps share them for others to see. 

I believe that play and hands-on experiences are the best forms of early childhood (and, in most cases, lifelong) education. 

While experimenting with a few different systems over the past year with Big Sister, I have found that I can't teach "forced" lessons. One curriculum I tried was entirely focused on the letters. There was no overarching theme; and I felt like all were were doing was making a long, drawn-out letter book that tried to also incorporate numbers and shapes. Big Sister didn't enjoy it after the first few lessons, and I refused to make learning a fight. 

Recently, I've tried casually assessing what skills and knowledge Big Sister has developed in the past year, and I am surprised to learn that she already knows a lot more that I thought, just by having conversations, reading, and interfacing with her directed play. 

I believe that learning should be incorporated into every aspect of life, and, just as important, themes and lessons should be child-driven. 

One example just occurred the other day: I was cleaning out some of my supplies, and Big Sister found a coloring page with a picture of a pelican, to which she asked, "what's that?" Instead of just answering her with, "a pelican," we jumped on the Internet, found fun facts and pictures of pelicans, watched a video of how pelicans really eat, found a pelican to color/cut/glue, counted pelicans in the video and pictures, and compared which pictures had more/fewer pelicans. After finishing at the computer, we colored the pelican coloring page, and Big Sister tried cutting out the pelican pieces (for the record, this was her first real experience with cutting, so I roughly cut apart each piece, and she "trimmed" them.) She then glued the pieces together, and proudly put her pelican on the fridge. We then pulled out our foam letters to make the word "pelican." As the girls would pull apart and hand me letters, I'd name them, and we'd build other words. 

It was a very fun, mostly casual, but there were a lot of learning objectives and skills wrapped up in that hour or so. 

Another example of child-driven learning occurred yesterday as Big Sister was playing with a computer keyboard. We talked about how the keyboard talked to the computer and tells the it what to do. I then started tracing letters with my finger on our couch, and Big Sister looked for the matching letter on the keyboard. 

Both relatively simple to implement, but by being involved with her interests and play, they became much more meaningful. 

I believe that intellectual skills supercede academic skills. 

I recently read this article that gave me terms for something I've always thought: skills related to the current standards of reading, writing , and 'rithmetic (academic skills) are less important than the ability to question, explore, and reason (intellectual skills.) One thing the article pointed out, that I didn't already connect, is that unless a child has developed the background, foundational intellectual skills, attempts to force academic skill will deter any real learning, and may decrease/slow the child's ability to learn the rote memorization. 

My biggest role as a parent, teacher and/or mentor is to facilitate a life-long love of learning, as well as a desire to always improve. 

I love learning new things. If I'm not pursuing my curiosity and/or developing myself one way or another, I get bored and frustrated, and I think that's evidence of successful parents, teachers and mentors who have helped me realize that there is so much that I DON'T know, but I can get closer and learn whatever I'm interested in. 

If I can tool my girls with the ability to ask questions, and then know how to find the answers, they will be well on their way to passionate, meaningful learning.