ExchangeEveryDay Past Issues

I want to thank everyone for having an engaging conversation on the topic of love in early childhood education. I loved reading all of your perspectives. I'm glad we have this space to discuss important topics.

-Tiffany at Exchange

There was a time when candidates for a position in ECE would say they wanted to work in this field because they loved children. I fear we may now convey the impression that loving children is not enough to qualify someone to do this important work.
I think some questions to ask are "What does it mean to love children?" and "How do we demonstrate love of children through our work?" I think these would be good questions to add to the interview process.

I use to receive this daily and then I had to cancel my email. I missed the daily words of wisdom. I'm back!

This is an even trickier issue for my male colleagues in ECE, many of whom I've gotten to know through the World Forum Working Group on Men in ECE. These are some of the most loving and values-driven people I know, and they often face incredible discrimination, usually in the form of doubt or suspicion, for choosing to care for young children. I would love to delve into the issue of love in ECE, and include the issues particular to men in the field. On a more positive note, there's a whole lot of love in the world of caregiving, and I'm super excited to read the book currently on my bedside table: Illuminating Care, by Carol Garboden Murray!

Glad to see Frances and I agree on this. Love is a concept that still has a lot of differing perspectives on it. I think it will be a while before it can show up in state standards, but maybe we look at other ways of saying it. I'm wondering if it might be expressed somehow in the New DAP. Think I'll take a look.

After receiving Exchange Every Day for over fifteen years and using its valuable resources to enrich my own and my staff's work in faith-based programs, this is the first time I've ever felt strongly about responding online. I agree with Andrea (above) about the inability to define the word 'love'. In today's usage, it can mean so much or so little. How would we define the word in a curricular sense -- care, compassion, kindness, empathy? I am grateful to see this discussion, as it seems to me that we are all reaching for a deeper way to convey how we feel about our callings with young children and what we hope to achieve.

Harry Harlow talked about this very issue so many years ago when he was president of the APA and in response to his studies of attachment in rhesus macaques. Psychologists are uncomfortable talking about love because it doesn’t seem ‘scientific.’ But we in early childhood must talk about it and study it and understand it in all its complexities. Thank you to Exchange for providing the platform to do it well.

The biggest problem with the topic of teaching love is that the English language has only one word for 'love'. The Greek language has at least 4 words which translates into English as love. Storge means love of/within family. Phileo is love of friends. Agape is general love of fellow man. Eros is obviously related to romantic love. That said we do need to teach 3 of the above incessantly. We need to teach the meanings therein and how to express it. American's frequently make the fatal assumption that any discussion about love always leads to Eros which is the least successful or useful form of love and it can be the most divisive.

This is a tough topic in that it depends on what setting you are working in. I for instance work in a faith-based preschool program so we can talk about love openly. That is different when you are in a state run program when you can't really even tell the children that you love them. It make me sad. Then it also makes it harder on educators to show love without crossing any lines of conduct in their setting.

Love is crucial to education. Children need to feel loved, safe, and supported before any learning can happen. People need not to be afraid of the word. It does carry a lot of meaning to it which can be expressed in many ways. I see it more like a spectrum. One example would be that I do not have the same type of love that I have for my students in comparison to the love I have for my partner.

We just need to be comfortable talking about it.

Love is a loaded word with so much emotion behind it. And we all differ in what it means. I personally care deeply for the children I care for but I don't use the word love - except with my closest family and friends. Could we use other phrases that indicate the strong caring we exhibit? Could we use compassion, respect, thoughtfulness, empathy, caring? You get the idea. I mean what IS love? That is harder to capture in a collective way!

I like the challenge of connecting love and the “pedagogy of care” that we have recently been hearing about.
Resources supporting reflective practices with our staff would be useful too.
Living daily with the practices of love is the best way I can think of to build it into the curriculum.

Please check this 7/22/21 Daddying blog:
https://www.dadvocacyconsultinggroup.com/post/how-my-students-came-to-know-me-as-daddy-of-the-school

We work in both Care and Education. Love is essential for the positive growth of a child, especially during the infant attachment process, during which the parts of the brain that integrate thoughts, sensations, and emotions are built through close relationships with trusted, loving caregivers. For the rest of our lives, loving care is basic to strong relationships and feelings of self-worth. Love matters! Do it.

love is an action word. You cant incorporate love into your curriculum if you don't feel loved. teachers must show and give children love so they feel it, but first take care of self in order to teach and show love. I think its very necessary to incorporate love in teaching.