P is for Pedagody
I wonder what comes to mind when you hear the word pedagogy? Teaching? Your philosophy? Ethos?
Pedagogy comes from the Greek word ‘paidagogeo’ meaning ‘to lead the child’.
In my book Developing a Loving Pedagogy in the Early Years I unpick this term using this image of my youngest daughter and my mum at the beach. My daughter is leading granny where she wants to go, walking slightly ahead and granny follows whilst loosely holding her hand. I get the impression that my daughter has freedom to go in her own direction, but if she stumbles or falls, granny would catch her.
So leading a child doesn’t have to be us leading them in an authoritarian way, it can be allowing them to explore their own interests and us being guided by them, so keeping the child at the centre of our provision. We can also scaffold their learning, provide a stimulating, engaging and enabling learning environment and lead them in new understandings.
We tend to use the term pedagogy to describe everything we do, as educators to lead our children from the way we teach and guide our children, to the strategies we employ and the philosophical beliefs that underpin our approach. Many educators choose to adopt a specific pedagogical approach, often based on early childhood theorists or pioneers in our field, and their everyday practices would then align to this approach. Examples of this would be a Montessori school whose practices fit within the teachings of Maria Montessori, or a setting inspired by the practice in Reggio Emilia who centre their practice around the Reggio image of the child. Other more recent pedagogical approaches could include Slow Pedagogy, The Curiosity Approach or even Forest Schools.
Many early childhood settings and schools will adopt an eclectic approach, where they use parts of these pedagogies to enhance their provision, but do not necessarily adopt the full ethos. I personally think this can be a helpful way forward because we can then tailor what we do according to our own context and the children and families we serve. Regardless of whether we adopt a specific pedagogical approach or cherry pick elements of several, it is vital that we know what we believe and why and that our pedagogy is effective in supporting children to learn and develop.
What constitutes effective pedagogy in early childhood?
Firstly our pedagogy should be underpinned by our ethos and values, so that what we believe is right for young children is woven throughout our policies and practice. It needs to be child-centred, so that we give children agency and an opportunity to have a voice. We should always keep the children at the heart of our practice and everything we do should be based on them, their needs and their interests. We also need to value and respect the diversity of our children, families and communities.
We should be loving and nurturing in our interactions and help our children to feel loved and a sense of belonging in our settings. Our pedagogy should be trauma-informed which means we understand children come with a range of needs and backgrounds, perhaps even having had adverse childhood experiences; our practice takes into account how this might impact on them in our setting. We see children’s behaviour as communication and amend our practice in the light of this.
Our pedagogy should be play-based because this is the key way that children learn and develop positive dispositions and attitudes to future learning, for example, focusing on promoting helpful learning behaviours, such as a ‘can do’ attitude and sense of self-efficacy, or developing resilience.
Lastly, we must remain reflective in our practice and always seek to improve on what we currently do, keep up to date with research and gather new ideas from others through training and continued professional development.
Knowing what you believe and the importance of it!
As educators, how we view children and our image of the child will underpin our pedagogical approach and values. So it is vital that we work out what we believe and why. We should be evangelists for what we believe, striving to spread the word and our viewpoint – and if we don’t know what we think – get thinking! It’s not okay to sit on the fence. As educators we must have a view – because you may have heard the phrase, if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything! To a certain extent this is true. If we haven’t worked out our own view – how will we know if the views of someone else fit within what we think, our ethos and are in the best interests of our children?
With this in mind, I invite you to write your own personal creed. To state clearly what you believe about young children and childhood and why. I’ll go first!
When our values and beliefs about young children lead our practice, it will be the foundation upon which we can base our whole provision. So I challenge you to consider these questions:
- What does our ethos say about our setting and our views of children and childhood?
- What pedagogies and principles are underpinning our practice?
- Does our day-to-day practice typically reflect our ethos?
In my view, a loving pedagogy is the appropriate approach to take when considering the education and care of very young children and can underpin other pedagogical approaches. So I want to leave you with a quote about love from 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8. Could we use this to describe us and our approach towards the child?
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”
Top resource
Tamsin’s book, Developing a Loving Pedagogy in the Early Years can be found on Routledge. Get the book here.
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About the Author
Tamsin Grimmer has a wealth of experience supporting Early Years Teachers and educators. She is passionate about young children’s learning and believes that all children deserve educators who are inspiring, dynamic, reflective and loving. Tamsin has written several books aimed at educators and is a true advocate for adopting a loving pedagogy.
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