Getting to know international contacts- Part 2

My international contact from Finland shared her thoughts about the issues of excellence and equity in the early childhood field.  She shared her individual thoughts and personal experiences and reminds to regard them as solely her own and that other Finnish kindergarten teachers and early childhood education experts may think differently about these issues.  I am glad she pointed this out as it is easy to make generalizations and assumptions.  She had some interesting things to say.

About excellence:

• We say (or at least some people here say) that early childhood education (ECE) should be high-quality and given by educated professionals. Education is really important for everyone who works with children in early childhood education field but I don' know about the word quality when it comes to children. Well, of course it HAS to be high-quality teaching and care but I think that the quality is so hard to measure in that sometimes one can start to measure wrong things and in the end the measurements don't show if the early childhood education is actually what it should be. Few things of course tell a lot and they are teachers and other workers education (as high as possible), size of a child group (I think in US you call it a kindergarten/preschool class), enough time to play and do things that children desire and what they are interested in.

• Our government is forming a new act for early childhood education. The present act is from 1973 so anyone can understand that it is time to renew it. And its focus is more on children's social welfare than on education so we need a new act. Children's social welfare is of course an important issue as well but ECE is not social work and kindergarten teachers are not social workers. Good, thorough and modern law for early childhood education is definitely one thing what comes to excellence. Now we just have to wait and hope that it's going to be good. In addition to laws we have National Curriculum Guidelines on Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) in Finland (see here in English http://www.julkari.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/75535/267671cb-0ec0-4039-b97b-7ac6ce6b9c10.pdf?sequence=1) which gives guidelines for our early childhood education but is only a recommendation and not compulsory to follow.

• After the publishing the document ECEC has moved from Ministry of Social Affairs and Health to Ministry of Education and Culture and the emphasis of ECE has changed from "ECE as a social operation to ECE as an educational operation". Laws and curriculum guidelines helps excellence and equity in the early childhood field.

• Early childhood education is excellent when children have enough time to play, wonder about the world and do things they desire and they can do these things with peers and with educated adults. This doesn't mean that children shouldn't be taught new things or they could always do only the things that they want to. That is why teachers and other educators have to know children and give them opportunities to learn new things.

• Learning should be fun but some things children learn when they don't have that much fun (e.g. learning to play with some new things or with new children is not always fun at first but when a child learns the rules and the way that play should be played and his/her new friends it will be fun) and here I think adult has a big role.

• Adults have to see what is good for children and that is why teachers have to be educated. By teacher's positive attitude on learning new things and making learning interesting, children engage more on learning and get feelings of success and want to learn more. Because young children's learning is very complete it's important to teach and raise a child in cooperation with parents.

• Parents of course know their own child best and they are their child's experts. Teacher’s role is to be expert on learning and child's development and of course manage group of children and all of their learning. And I believe that early childhood education gives something to children what she/he doesn't experience with her/his parents and family.

• One important thing is planning. Teacher should have enough time to plan the teaching and activities in kindergarten. Well planned education provides excellence in the ECE field in every places.

About equity:

• In Finland every child has the subjective right to participate in municipal or private (all private ones are non-profit) kindergarten or family day care (usually at the childminder's home). As I mentioned earlier the amount of fees are in relation to parent’s salary). It seems that the subjective right is an issue that arouses opinions and discussion. Some people don't support it and some think it's the best thing for children development and learning. Those who don't support it, argue that children who have parent(s) home with younger siblings or are unemployed should be home with their parents. In my opinion, every child despite her/his background should have access to some kind of early childhood education outside home where they could spend some time per day with educated kindergarten teacher(s). This may not concern the youngest children (maybe over 2 or 3 years-old) because it is proved that babies should be and develop with their parents. Of course children with working parents have the right to take part in early childhood which usually is kindergarten. We have discussed that the government would take the subjective right away from children who don't suffer from social problems but I actually don't know what is the situation at this point with that issue.

• All children with working parents don't go to kindergarten. They may have nanny at home or they go to family day care at the childminder's home. The problem with different nanny’s is that they are not always educated and the quality can vary. On the other hand, I have seen great childminder’s so the issue is not that simple. Childminder’s may be educated and usually they get pedagogic support from their bosses who usually are kindergarten bosses as well. The ideal is that every child gets good and professional teaching and care which is individually designed in collaboration with parents.

• When talking about social work and teachers I don't mean that teachers should close their eyes when it comes to social issues but they are specialized in teaching and they should solve social issues in cooperation with social workers and other experts on that field. Teachers should support families when they are struggling with social issues because a child is a whole and when a child feels well she/he is strong enough to be interested on the world around them and learn new things