At the beginning of chapter one, a variety of questions are posed pertaining to a teachers’ philosophy of education: who is the child? What should be taught? Where should teaching take place? How should it occur? Who should teach? What is the purpose of education? Choose two or three of these questions and reflect on your own school experiences and how these have shaped your current beliefs about or philosophy of teaching. You will have an opportunity to re-visit these ideas at the end of the course. 

Read each of the scenarios that follow and decide which view (or views) of the child it might illustrate and why. 

Scenario A: The kindergarten children have a time where they can play freely in learning centres, choosing from various materials and experiences. During this time the teacher observes the children and writes notes on aspects of their development. These notes are later analyzed so she can understand their unique developmental paths. She sometimes guides them during this time by pointing out an aspect of a problem or a feature of the task in which they are engaged in order to help them focus.

Scenario B: The school division mandates a standardized assessment for kindergarten children at the beginning of the school year. The goal of this assessment is to identify deficits or gaps in the children’s knowledge coming into kindergarten so the teacher can prepare them for grade one.

Scenario C: At the beginning of each day, the teacher and children sit in a floor in a circle and have a morning meeting. They discuss topics that interest and concern them and collaboratively decide what direction their learning will take that day and who will assume responsibility for various tasks that need to be completed (clean-up, attendance, etc.).

Scenario D: The teacher has a fairly spirited and lively group of children in her class. One child has been a particular challenge to her as he interrupts the class and will hit other children when he feels he is not getting attention. She has tried a variety of techniques to modify his behaviour. Most recently, she has begun placing him in timeout (a desk in the corner of the room) as soon as he misbehaves. She then leaves him there for an hour or two. In this way, she hopes to break his habits of acting up and hitting. 

Scenario E: The kindergarten teacher uses a variety of checklists and other tools when observing the children. He notes specific developmental accomplishments and compares these against the stages proposed by various theorists to assess their development against the norms for that age.

Many of the historical views of the child are still quite evident in contemporary media depictions of children. For example, Ebbeck and Warriner (2008) analyzed images of children in Singaporean newspapers and found that they were overwhelmingly depicted as passive; helpless, vulnerable, innocent, and in need of protection. Another example might pertain to coverage of children’s beauty pageants which often portray children in a highly sexualized or adult manner that would fit within the “loss of innocence view”. Do an online image search for magazine covers or newspaper articles featuring stories about children or view a children’s television programme. Which view or views do these images seem to illustrate? You might discuss these with your classmates. 

The theory of operant conditioning holds that individuals can be trained or conditioned to behave in specific ways by using a system of rewards and punishments. That is, children who are rewarded for positive behaviours are seen to be more likely to repeat those same behaviours. When children are punished for negative behaviours, it is believed that this will deter them from repeating the behaviour. More recent research has demonstrated that operant conditioning is not an effective means of ensuring long-term change in behaviours. Children learn to act in specific ways to please adults, but when adults are not present they may still engage in these forbidden behaviours. Unfortunately, as outlined in the dialogue on page ----, operant conditioning is still very prevalent in classrooms where teachers use rewards and punishments to reinforce or discourage particular behaviours. Can you think of specific examples of operant conditioning from your own school or practicum experiences? Were these effective in the longer term?