1. Examine your reflection on your own school experiences and how these have shaped your philosophy of teaching. Now that you have learned various perspectives on images of childhood, which do you see in your own philosophy?

2. Images of children and childhood are influenced by a variety of contextual factors, including culture. Changes in these factors can lead to minor or even major shifts in the landscape of childhood. For example, Hughes (2007) describes the work of teachers in Chevak, a Cup’ik Indigenous village in Alaska. Traditionally, the community lived harmoniously with the environment and spoke only one language, but the introduction of a Western educational system led to a loss of traditional ways, knowledges, and relationships to the land and to other people.

Reflect on societal changes that have occurred in your culture and “world” over your own lifetime. How have these changes influenced the experiences that children have and the ways that society views children?

3.The Reggio approach is linked to the notion that children are competent and capable. However, competence may be defined very differently across cultures. For example, in a study with immigrant student teachers, one of the women described how preschool-aged children would be asked to go to the community store by themselves to purchase food for the family. Yet, this same student was uncomfortable with children of the same age feeding and dressing themselves. (Prochner, Kirova, Cleghorn, and Massing 2016). Think of the context where you will be working. Which skills and knowledges are valued and which are not?