1. What do you think Beverly means by funds of knowledge?

Hopefully, you will find that your philosophy and the curriculum you work with are a good match. If, however, you find yourself in the sticky position of having to implement a curriculum you know to be highly inconsistent with what you believe, at least you will be prepared to deal with that and make compromises from an informed stance, knowing that there are always things you can do in the best interests of your students.

These first two chapters provide foundational information about the history and nature of early childhood curriculum. In the next two chapters, we will shift our focus to the child. Chapters 3 and 4 will focus on the critical relationships between knowledge of child development and curriculum decision making.

Chapter Summary

• Curriculum is developed from a vision about what early education should be like. It reflects assumptions and attitudes about children, teachers, families, and other stakeholders. Curriculum content answers the question, “What’s worth knowing?” Moreover, the manner in which it is implemented has a great impact on outcomes for children.
• Curriculum is inspired and informed by a long history of research about how children learn. Time-tested classic comprehensive curricula such as Montessori, Waldorf, Bank Street, and Reggio Emilia are internally consistent; all the parts fit together as a cohesive whole.
• Modern curricula in use today are inspired by the work of those who came before. While there are differences across the spectrum, abiding principles about how children grow and learn coexist alongside evolving notions about how those principles can be implemented to make learning interesting and exciting for children and their teachers.
• Established curricula can be adapted to an ever-expanding knowledge base and new curricula continue to emerge to meet societal changes and demands. Good teachers understand the importance of developing a personal philosophy as a framework from which to analyze and implement the curriculum they work with responsibly.

Discussion Questions

1. Think about the way you experienced curriculum as a child in preschool or elementary school. How does that compare with the way curriculum is described in this chapter?
2. What are the most significant differences between Montessori, Creative Curriculum, and Reggio Emilia? What is consistent across them? If you could choose between them, which would you choose and why?
3. As the teacher in the opening scenario, suppose you realize, after thinking about your personal philosophy and comparing it with the curriculum you’ve been asked to use, your beliefs differ significantly from those represented in the curriculum. What would you do?

Key Terms

Click on each key term to see the definition.

Child psychology

Field of study that assesses and analyzes how the minds of children work

Didactic

A material designed for a specific instructional purpose

Emergent curriculum

Learning through long-term studies that evolve over time

Laboratory preschools

Experimental and demonstration programs, located mainly at universities, that provide clinical sites for research about young children

Longitudinal study

Research that tracks changes over time among a specific group of research participants

Mission statement

Succinctly describes how the vision will be achieved

Vision statement

Statement about what a program wants to achieve

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3

Our Image of the Child

Blend Images / SuperStock

Introduction

Your first day with your preschool children is rapidly approaching. You obtain a roster of the seventeen children you will be teaching and begin to think about how you will welcome them to the class and get to know each one. Your list indicates that there are nine boys and eight girls. Of the four Hispanic children, two speak Spanish as their first language. Two children are African American, nine are Caucasian, and one is Asian. You also know that two of the children have been identified as having special needs. What do you imagine the children will be like? What kind of life experiences will they bring to your class? How will the actual children compare with your ideas about what they might be like?

Research reveals that teachers’ images of the child can be a more powerful influence on the way they teach than what they have learned in the way of theories and strategies (Hill, Stremmel, & Fu, 2005). For example, consider the statement, “The core value I hold is that children are competent, confident, curious theory builders” (Chaille, 2008, p. 3). The author continues to say, “this value is the essence of constructivism,” indicating that her idea about what children are like informs her acceptance of a theory closely aligned with that view. In other words, we need to understand that our perceptions about what we think children are like can affect our expectations and interactions with them and how we choose and implement curriculum.