TACTYC Conference, 2014 Our Our nets define what we catch? Learning in early childhood Kathy Hall University College Cork

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TACTYC Conference, 2014Our Our nets
define what we catch? Learning in early
childhoodKathy Hall University College
Cork
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Plan of Presentation

• Hallmarks of ECCE sociocultural nets
• Policy nets early c/h curriculum, pedagogy
  assessment
• A new net neuroscience
• Critical questions for the field

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Hallmarks of ECCE sociocultural nets

• Historical ECCE as pioneering
• Nurturing children a moral and ethical objective
  in its own right ECCE
• Experience Relationships opp to learn
• Engagement and Creativity
• Active participation in own development
• Minimal hierarchy democratic processes
• Still individually-oriented assessment practices

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ECCE sociocultural nets
ECCE
What children bring
Family / Community and Cultural Bridging
Agency
Experience
Identity
Active Participation
Personal Meaning
Intentionality/ Negotiation
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Policy nets mediating ECCE Economic value a
global trend?

• Learning outcomes , audits, testing, comparing,
  readiness the universal, typical child?
• Individualisation independent of setting
• Convergence in ECCE internationally- curriculum,
  assessment
• WSEs/Self evaluation transparency,
  accountability, quality enhancement

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Policy nets mediating ECCE and becoming
conditions for childrens learning and
development

• A hierarchy of knowledge and children as future
  workers maths
• Devaluing of play and informal learning rush to
  early maths and literacy
• Devaluing of arts and PE
• Growing emphasis on children as consumers and
  users with rights being good choosers

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Shift from home as ideal to school/daycare as
site of socialisation

• In Norwegian policy documents on ECCE the
  metaphor of bazaar is used to argue for the need
  for a new architecture related to the
  institutional building. The new kindergarten
  has special rooms designed for specific learning
  activities. This is described as providing the
  children with possibilities to choose activities
  such as buying goods at a market. As part of the
  new pedagogical practices, a Childrens Meeting
  with large groups of children (40) aged 2-5 is
  arranged everyday in order for children to decide
  what they want to do for the next couple of
  hours. This is an example of childrens rights to
  participation, interpreted as individual freedom
  of choice from the age of 2 (Kjorholt, 2013,
  p248-9)

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Policy nets mediating ECCE children as capital,
investment in chn

• OECDs Starting Strong refers to how starting
  early offers the highest rates of return and says
  learning starts at birth
• Schoolification earlier and earlier
• Shift from family to state
• To guarantee returns on investment requires high
  levels of monitoring

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Early is forever

• The instrument assesses childrens learning in 5
  domains of early learning and sorts children into
  3 categories appropriate development,
  experiencing some difficulty, and evidence of
  significant difficulty. Each category is
  represented by a colored square, green for
  appropriate development, yellow for
  experiencing some difficulty and red for
  evidence of significant difficulty. This
  traffic light metaphor appears to be intentional
  as children who receive a red square are
  certainly stopped before they ever start school
  while the green square indicates good to go.
  After taking the screening test families are
  sent a Report ... coding their child as green,
  yellow and red lights, which on the basis of
  this approximately 30-minute screening, indicates
  whether they are in need of intervention prior to
  school Programs are available in June for those
  children needing intensive intervention, i.e.
  those scoring in the evidence of significant
  difficulty category....And the downward pressure
  for an even earlier start is on. (Hunt and Nason,
  2012, p158)

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Early Years Foundation Stage Profile Handbook
(STA, Oct. 2014)

• The judgment must say whether the childs
  learning and development is
• best described by the level of development
  expected at the end of the EYFS (expected)
• not yet at the level of development expected at
  the end of the EYFS (emerging)
• beyond the level of development expected at the
  end of the EYFS (exceeding)

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What ECCE is and is for

• adaptation adjustment?
• The early years child as a consumer in waiting
  (Woodrow et al, 2008)
• What do we mean by self-regulation?
• The pedagogized home (Stephen Ball)

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Enter the Brain a new net

• Neuro-imaging is a tool to see inside and
  provide a sense of the self (Immordino-Yang,
  AERA, 2013)
• Neuroscience is perfectly positioned as a
  discipline not only to help explain why we are as
  we are, but to explore how we might change and be
  changed (Greenfield, 2008, p x Preface)

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The Brain Activity Map(Obamas Presidency)

• 10-year scientific project to examine the brain
  and build a comprehensive map of its activity
  (Obama, 2013)
• Goal is to map the human brain with
  initial funding of 100 m US
• 3 billion US to be triggered over the next 10
  years
• Changes in how science is practised and indeed
  what science is funded
• Humanities globally declining?

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Deterministic nature of the early years?The
early years of a childs life when the human
brain is forming represent a critically
important window of opportunity to develop a
childs full potential (Obama, 2013)
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Brain is now everyday!
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Hall, K., Curtin, A. and Rutherford, V. (2014)
Networks of Mind learning, culture, neuroscience
London Routledge
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How NS influences Early Childhood

• Conception to Age Two the age of opportunity
  (DfE, 2013)
• Supporting Families in the Foundation Years (DfE,
  2011)
• Families in the Foundation Years evidence pack
  (DfE, 2011)
• Early Intervention next steps (2011)
• The Foundation Years preventing poor children
  becoming poor adults (2010)

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Conception to Age Two the age of opportunity
(DfE, 2013)

• At a universal level and across the early years
  workforce, promote an awareness of the
  importance of the parent/baby relationship and
  how this will influence the babys brain
  development(para21)
• Good quality relationships and secure attachment
  enable a growing brain to become socially
  efficient (para44)

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Early Intervention the next steps

• 2011 HM Government

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Early Intervention the next steps(Graham Allen
MP)

• In Chapter 2, I examine the phenomenal growth of
  childrens brains in the first years of life, and
  show how this creates exceptional opportunities,
  especially for mothers, to provide children with
  the social and emotional foundations that are key
  to personal development and achievement and the
  best single way to tackle inter-generational
  dysfunction. 

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The Foundation Years preventing poor children
becoming poor adults (2010)

• Frank Field MP says by the age of 3 a babys
  brain is 80 formed and his or her experiences
  before then shape the way the brain has grown and
  developed
• Independent review on poverty and life chances
•  

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Understanding the Brain The Birth of a
Learning Science (OECD, 2007)
Can neuroscience truly improve education?
This report suggests a complex, but
nonetheless definite answer yes,
but.... OECD, 2007 21
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Understanding the Brain The Birth of a
Learning Science (OECD, 2007)

• In the early life period, interactions and
  experiences determine whether a childs brain
  architecture provides a strong or a weak
  foundation for their future health, wellbeing and
  development.
• OECD (2007)

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A Prescription for Learning inclusions and
exclusions

• Educational neuroscience is generating
  valuable new knowledge to inform educational
  policy and practice
• Neuroscientific insights can be employed to
  contribute to our understanding of learning
  disorders such as dyslexia, dyscalculia and
  dementia.
• Key areas identified for further research
  include the better understanding of such
  matters as the optimal timing for different
  forms of learning, emotional development and
  regulation, how specific materials and
  environments shape learning, and the
  continued analysis of language and
  mathematics in the brain OECD, 2007 6
  which would, if realised, be well on the
  way to the birth of a trans-disciplinary
  learning science OECD, 2007 6
• Absence of insights and research from other
  lines of inquiry SCT and even developmental
  psychology

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Social and Cultural Neuroscience

• Human brain fundamentally a social brain adapted
  for social learning, interaction and transmission
  of culture
• But the social is not homogenous or static
  scientists, labs, media, agencies, governments,
  pharmaindustry etc.
• Where attention is focussed

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What view of culture and social?

• Stable and shared
• Group and geographically based
• Can be established by questionnaires
• Can be measured and represented as brain images
  of activation fMRI
• Promissory nature of SNS and CNS scans as
  matters of fact and types of brains

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Colonization and the potential demise of a
SCT/ECCE net

• CN in its infancy but
• Explaining the allure an exact, all encompassing
  science
• Authority of NS and how it speaks to us
• What can be ignored and allowed fall out of the
  account?
• Only some of the social world gets represented in
  the brains networks

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Implications for the ECCE community check the
nets!

• Build better alliances, new partnerships across
  research and practice?
• What sets of relations, whose voices?
• What has to be explained what the brain does or
  what the person does?
• What kind of person is it possible to become?
  What is available to be learned?
• How do the nets mediate what people do?
• Avoid excessive enthusiasm and excessive
  skepticism