Zones for democratic professional development?

Early childhood practitioners do not „solve‟ given problems by applying certain technologies. In- stead, they find themselves involved in meaning-making activities that require value-based decisions and experience. In his classic book on reflective practice, Donald Schön writes: “In real- world practice, problems do not present themselves to the practitioner as givens. They must be constructed from the material of problem situations which are puzzling, troubling, and uncertain. In order to convert a problematic situation to a problem, a practitioner must do a certain kind of work.

He must make sense of an uncertain situation that initially makes no sense” (Schön, 1983: empha- sis added)

From this perspective, practice becomes inseparable from making sense, hence is an inseparable part of the sphere where professional knowledge is produced. The problem remains, however, that practitioners in early childhood are scarcely recognised as co-constructors of professional know- ledge and providers of practice-based evidence.

Let us look, for a moment, at the invaluable contribution Lev Vygotsky made to our understanding of how children learn. In the process of establishing itself as an academic discipline in the 19th and early 20th century, developmental psychology had successfully constructed its subject – the devel- oping child. In line with the implicit logic of emerging scientific disciplines, this child had to be constructed as both universal and distinct, as Erica Burman (2008) argues in her book Decon- structing Developmental Psychology. The idea of a largely decontextualised child whose development and learning could be explored and explained by applying scientific methods formed the basis for many theories of child development that are influential until today. One example is the concept of developmental stages that follow a particular order from simple to more complex. Only if these stages are seen as universal (meaning they occur in every child, regardless of the social and material world the child grows up in) can they be employed to inform and legitimate developmental- ly appropriate practices. There are indeed many examples of early childhood programmes and practices that are seen as right for children of a particular age group, regardless of their life situa- tions. Not even within developmental psychology is this view uncontested. It is by no means the only way of understanding children‟s learning, as Helen Penn (2008) clearly demonstrates.

Lev Vygotsky argued that children – humans – are social beings from the beginning. Their learning takes place in social interactions, which, in turn, are embedded in a complex reality determined by the social, cultural and historical context. Both aspects of his theories – learning as interaction and

the importance of the context of these interactions – are most important for early childhood practic- es.

First, children‟s learning builds on their social experiences – which may vary widely, depending on the society a child is born into: “Being poor in Mali, or even in Britain, is a different life experience from being rich in America” (Penn, 2008). Second, if children‟s learning takes place in interactions, then it is crucial who they interact with, and in what way. This points to the important role of teach- ers, or early childhood practitioners, in any learning process. Adult-child interactions, Vygotsky argued, should be based on children‟s meaningful activities – but the teacher should always en-

courage children to take these activities one step further. He referred to this productive tension as opening up “zones of proximal development” (Vygotsky and Cole, 1978), which provide an intellec- tual space where the child is “… engaged in a particular kind of meaningful activity, in which he or she wants to participate, but cannot yet carry out all actions independently” (van Oers 1995, 2003). Vygotsky is explicit about the adult‟s role in this interaction:” Education must be based on the stu- dent‟s own activity and should involve nothing more than guiding and monitoring this activity. In the interaction with children the teacher should open a zone of proximal development” (Vygotsky and Cole, 1978).

There is a widespread consensus on this social co-constructivist view on learning today. Children are not empty vessels, waiting to be filled by adults. On the contrary, they are active learners who

make sense of the experiences and activities they are engaged in. In order to be able to open “zones of proximal development”, practitioners are urged to engage in a “pedagogy of listening” (Rinaldi, 2005a). Recent research emphasises that children‟s exploring and meaning making activi- ties unfold their full potential only when they are engaged in meaningful, child-led interactions between children and adults – in activities Siraj-Blatchford and Sylva (Siraj-Blatchford and Sylva, 2004) refer to as sustained shared thinking.

However, it remains a challenge for the early childhood professional system to encourage similar activities for adults – to systematically open zones of professional development among educators. Crucial questions for professional learning derive from this perspective:

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How can practitioners and students, together with parents, managers, researchers and other adult actors, become engaged in meaningful activities in order to explore, understand and change practice?

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How can they be guided and monitored – in a process of reciprocal meaning making?

The early childhood profession, conceptualised as critical learning community, would allow moving on from questioning individual practices of individual practitioners to questioning the system as a whole – including individual and collective practices in early childhood settings, in training and pro- fessional preparation and learning, in policy, administration, and research. All of these elements of the professional system are embedded in – and contributing to – the wider social, historical, eco- nomic and political context of society with its local, national, and increasingly global dimensions. They are part of a complex socio-ecological system. The challenge is to work towards a critical ecology of the profession (Urban and Dalli 2008) that is informed by the political and social realities that bring about knowledges and practices, “together with the use of this knowledge to strategically transform education in socially progressive directions” (Mac Naughton, p.3, 2003 emphasis add-

ed).

6.6.4 Creating understandings – bringing professionalism, research and joint learning

In document Democracy and Experimentation: two fundamental values for education Bertelsmann Studies (Page 74-76)