Honouring young children: research, curriculum and practice in early childhood education

Early childhood educators tend to be people who like to agree with their colleagues. Often we avoid conflict situations and keep the peace by being silent, rather than raising our voices in dissent. But rapid changes to the field, coupled with the explosion of knowledge in the 90s, have opened up new dilemmas and new challenges for teachers. If we are to meet these challenges in a way that honours young children, then we need to talk about our differences and diverse views in a spirit of trust and professional collegiality. The Second Edith Cowan Memorial Conference on Early Childhood provides a forum for the debate of research and topical issues, and it has been the impetus for this book. Some of the contributors are academics or research graduates in Early Childhood Studies in the Faculty of Education, Edith Cowan University, and their work reflects issues that are important throughout the world. Several contributors are early childhood teachers undertaking research degrees in our Faculty, and they bring special insights to their writing

Pedagogical knowledge and classroom practice : teachers management of a disruptive classroom behaviour, talking out of turn

This study investigates teachers' management of a\ud disruptive classroom behaviour known as "talking out of\ud turn", and proposes that management practices are\ud integral to teachers' pedagogical knowledge. The study\ud explores the notion that pedagogical knowledge is\ud socially constructed by staff, with influence being\ud exerted by those high in the power hierarchy of the\ud school.\ud Talking out of turn is a pervasive and disruptive\ud pupil behaviour which violates the turn-taking rules\ud operating in the classroom. Previously it had been\ud concluded that it is caused by teachers' or pupils'\ud skill deficit, however this study shows that performance\ud cannot be equated with competence, and that teaching\ud involves more than the performance of observable\ud technical skills.\ud A total of twenty five teachers and six headteachers\ud from eleven schools took part in the study. Data was\ud collected in three phases, and comprises of audio\ud recordings of teachers and their class groups at story\ud time; structured interviews with staff and headteachers;\ud two inservice sessions and individual feedback sessions\ud with all the staff in one school. Micro analysis of the\ud interaction cycles between teachers and their groups\ud produced interesting data concerning teachers'\ud management practices, and led to the delineation of the\ud Non conversational and Conversational teacher talk\ud registers. Discourse analysis showed that the pedagogic\ud discourse of staff could be classified as "proactive" or\ud "reactive". Results showed that talking out of turn\ud occurred in every classroom studied and that there was a\ud relational tendency between the frequency of talking out\ud of turn, and the type of teacher talk register and\ud pedagogic discourse articulated.\ud This study found that heads tended to express the\ud school's official discourse as slogans or fragmented\ud prescriptions, rather than explicating pedagogical\ud knowledge in a professional language. Evidence shows\ud that teachers did not construct cohesive pedagogical\ud theories, and it is possible that the lack of a shared\ud language diminishes abilities to critically debate or\ud reformulate the official discourse.\ud It is suggested that teacher education institutions\ud have a particular responsibility to enable teachers to\ud articulate explict pedagogical theories in a\ud professional language. Then teachers may be empowered\ud to debate the dominant ideology, and this could result\ud in the review of normative practices such as the\ud management of talking out of turn