Changing Conceptions of the Child:
From a Passive Recipient of Knowledge to a Valued Participant in Knowledge Construction
One dominant conception of childhood is that of the child as an “incomplete adult” (Moss & Petrie, 2002). Historically children have been thought of as empty vessels to be filled by knowledge and culture. This view of the child devalues early childhood as a stage that is merely a “preparation” or “readying” for the next, more important, stage of adulthood.
Another common conception of childhood is connected with the psychological or scientific understanding of child as a person embodied in the process of development. At its inception, developmental theory relied heavily on biological determinism and children were depicted as going through universal, predetermined, sequential stages. Developmental theory afforded the discussion about similarities in behaviour and thinking among children of the same age and the use of terms such as “age-appropriate” or “developmentally- appropriate”. One issue with the developmental lens lies in thinking about children in terms of what they are supposed to do at a certain stage (Lenz Taguchi, 2005). This might limit what we perceive as educationally possible for young children (i.e., we may assume that toddlers can not express themselves artistically, because their fine motor skills are not well-developed, and thus, deny them the opportunity to paint or draw).