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Whole Child Education: What is the Approach to Teaching?

Whole Child Education: What is the Approach to Teaching?

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Let’s take a look at traditional early childhood education (ECE) and how modern ECE changes everything with the whole child approach. There are many aspects to how a child’s brain develops, how the child learns, and how the child behaves. There are many factors to consider, such as genetics, environment, abilities, and preferences. Then there are different environments for teaching this approach: traditional stay-at-home, traditional childcare, modern holistic approaches, and many more. But here, I will focus on the ECE childcare environment, the child’s abilities and preferences, and parents’ essential role in their child’s education. Genetics is a medical domain that will not be addressed in my blog. Let’s start with what early childhood education is traditionally.

Traditional Early Childhood Education 

Early childhood education (ECE) is a branch of human development for children from birth to eight years old. My blog posts will focus on birth up to age five. When a child reaches five years old, they usually enter a school environment with different standards. Traditionally, childcare centers have a narrow focus on one area of brain development, called cognitive development. Academic achievement with high expectations has been the priority in which young people learn based on cognitive skills: memorization and repetition. Repetition that has one answer and does not offer creative thought and decision-making. Class sizes are significant to educate large numbers of children at a time. 

This kind of environment has a negative, direct impact on a child’s self-esteem and other learning abilities. This environment deters a child’s thought process and restricts brain development and students’ interests. Research has shown children require the ability to make decisions, choose different activities, and have access to multiple toys at specific times in their development. Failing to provide them with these experiences puts the child at a high risk of developmental and cognitive delays. They may also struggle with creativity, imagination, and emotional regulation. Long-term impacts of play deprivation during early childhood development can include isolation, depression, reduced self-control, and poor resilience. None of us want this! There is a national movement to change this hostile learning environment into a positive one, with a holistic approach called whole child development. Next, let’s get into how the whole child framework works.

Modern Early Childhood Education

I just discussed how ECE is divided into multiple learning centers of the brain and how, traditional ECE has focused on just a tiny portion of the cognitive domain. The modern teaching approach in ECE is called the whole-child approach. This means supporting the child’s learning environment, abilities, and preferences in all aspects of brain development. Critical thinking skills are prioritized, along with the child’s understanding, allowing each child to advance at their own pace for a successful education. Project-based learning is preferred over 100% teacher-led activities, and this enables the student to make choices.  It also puts the teacher in a supportive role when the student takes the lead, and there is a balance of teacher-led activity and child-led activities. 

The goal is for children to make decisions and become confident, independent future citizens of the world. That sounds extreme, but we don’t want children who mindlessly do whatever they are told. We need to develop future leaders. Let’s look into modern ECE, where environment, abilities, and preferences are prioritized, and how the whole-child concept has expanded ECE exponentially. 

Environment

The environment can significantly impact their life in the child’s home, at child care, or when traveling. Social processes, physical conditions, and lack of a stable home environment have driven the early childhood industry in the last few decades. Children with a durable, loving, and secure home environment will thrive and reach their full potential much more effortlessly and quickly than those with an unstable home environment. We cannot replace a child’s home in ECE. But, in child care, teachers and staff can do everything possible to create a calm environment with child-led experiences, activities, and toys for learning. 

Abilities or Milestones

Abilities are skills a child has or is developing. These are also called milestones. Many times age is looked at for an indicator of ability, but it’s not always accurate. Take walking as an example; the general rule of thumb is that a child walks at one year old. This can vary widely and still be considered typical behavior. So, age cannot be a strict indicator of abilities and is used as a general guideline. The ability, or behavior, is used as the indicator. 

Abilities advance in predictable stages. As a child’s ability grows, the opportunity for them to interact with more complex items becomes available. For example, a young infant cannot yet hold a rattle; around 4-7 months, they can hold it very well, and around 8-11 months, they can hold a rattle in each hand. We watch this advancement in ability as an indicator of predictable behavior. We can categorize predictable behaviors called abilities.

Categories

To categorize the abilities on my blog, they are grouped by age and typical behaviors in development. Note that these lists indicate typical development or the age range at which the typical child would be expected to achieve the ability.  The ages are only approximate.  Remember that children develop abilities at different rates.  Any child could be above the typical age in one ability and below the typical age in another.  

  • Social & Emotional Abilities
    • Self-regulation, Social Relationships, Group Relationships
  • Physical Abilities
    • Gross Motor, Fine Motor, Health, Fitness, Sensory 
  • Cognitive Abilities
    • Learning Approach, Memory, Mental Representation, Classification
  • Language Abilities
    • Listening, Speaking, Social Communication
  • Literacy & Book Abilities
    • Phonological awareness, Alphabet, Books, Writing
  • Creative Art Abilities
    • Visual ArtsMusic, DanceDrama
  • Mathematics Abilities
    • Numbers, Spacial Relationships, Measurements, Patterning
  • Science Abilities
    • Scientific Inquiry, Life science, Physical science, Earth Science
  • Social Studies Abilities
    • Self-knowledge, Social Structure, Geography, History
  • Technology Abilities

Preferences

A child’s preference means their likes or dislikes. In other words, the students’ interests mean wanting one choice instead of another. This can be difficult for parents, and teachers, to predict or understand, so options are essential. The best we can do is offer a few choices as often as possible, and let the child decide. We start seeing and understanding a child’s preference when we offer choices. This preference is critical to developing engagement with the toy or activity. Because true learning and retention happen best with engagement. How often have we purchased THE BEST TOY EVER, and the child prefers the box to play with? That’s the child’s preference.  

Parents in Education

Modern ECE strives to create a safe environment with a strong sense of community by welcoming parents into the classroom. As a parent, you are the most important teacher in your child’s life. There is no replacement for a parent. Even if a child is placed with another caregiver, that trauma makes a significant impact on that child’s ability to achieve their best potential. Children will have many teachers as they grow, but the parent will be the most important, offering stability throughout their developmental years. Parents’ involvement with their children has been proven to increase attendance and behavior, get better grades, demonstrate better social skills, and adapt at all levels, including ECE, elementary, middle, and high school, and for lifelong learning.

Community

Modern ECE is changing to create a whole community where students and teachers can build strong relationships that engage and thrive in a positive school climate. To maximize positive approaches, using best practices, and setting the foundation for stability in our future citizens. ECE understands that a child’s education, mental health, and life outcome depend on the importance of relationships in a safe, welcoming, supportive community. The community members offer a supportive environment in and out of the classroom. When the needs of the whole child are nurtured, they blossom into a creative, caring, whole person with a healthy lifestyle. 

Conclusion

Remember that whole child education means more than just academic achievement. You can see that cognitive learning, used primarily in traditional childcare, is only a tiny fraction of the child’s development. Did you notice that I highlighted Cognitive abilities and others in the above categories? Do you see how much has been left out in traditional ECE teaching?! 

Academic skills are still necessary! All the areas of development are essential parts of a comprehensive framework that reinforces and integrates whole child education. Ability and preference are required to attract and motivate children to interact with an activity or toy, leading to engaged learning. Learning truly takes place when the child is engaged! As ECE continues to pave this modern pathway, new supports are being added where none existed.   There are now support systems such as behavioral specialists and social services that provide additional support for parents of children. A new time isn’t coming. It’s here, and I am excited to join you on this journey as your child grows.  

Next, let’s look into developmentally appropriate practice (DAP) as a framework for curriculum. To learn more about DAP and developmentally appropriate toys, read my blog post, Developmentally Appropriate Toys: What & Why are they important? 

References: 

I value your input and comments tremendously. Please let me know if there is anything else I should include in this blog post! Until my next post, Keep Everything Simple!

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Ntensibe Edgar

Tuesday 27th of August 2024

Hhhhmmm...I believe an all-round approach is best; get the child exposed to a lot of variety that life brings, as possible but sparingly with age. It does them so much.

Carol Colborn

Saturday 24th of August 2024

Modern whole child education is awesome, making adults who are strong and independent.

Clarice

Thursday 22nd of August 2024

I agree with you that yes, we shouldn't not just focus on the academics instead we have to have a more wholistic approach in terms of our children's education.