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Over the past twenty years of my teaching college and university early childhood education majors it has been a very important component of the college student’s educational experience to formulate their own emerging philosophy of education. A number of colleges and university programs require that the student works toward their own philosophy of education. In their first course in Early Childhood Foundations they begin the process of thinking more deeply about the purposes of education, what they know and understand about how young children learn best, what a curriculum is and how it supports children’s overall development (physical, social, emotional, cognitive, language, and values), and their beliefs. During their senior year they again refine, define, and formulate their final written philosophy of education for their Senior Portfolios.

Throughout their two or four years of undergraduate education, the college students are involved in a wide variety of "field experiences" pre-practica and practicum (or student teaching experiences). It is in these direct experiential learning experiences they come to know more about your early childhood programs. They are asked to find out what your "The Philosophy of Running the Program" is. What is the philosophy of the program? Is it written down? What does the program believe? What is the program’s perspective on how young children learn? What is the learning environment like? The college students learn about your philosophy of education, whether the program is designed as a part day preschool, a child care program, Head Start, Kindergarten, family child care program, school-age program, or elementary school setting (first to third grade).

The college students coming out of two-year and four-year schools see that many of the Early Childhood Teacher Education Programs have a “Conceptual Framework,” an overarching view of how the teacher education program operates, and thinks about young children and how they learn. Take a look at the two-year and four-year colleges and universities and ask about their Conceptual Framework! What is their philosophy of education, what do they believe, and what is important for their Candidates to know, to be able to do? What is Early Childhood Teacher Education Programs' view on the knowledge, skills, and dispositions related to teaching young children? “Who’s on First?”

To learn more about the “Conceptual Framework” for Early Childhood Teacher Education Programs, go to www.ncate.org the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education and/or the National Association for the Education of Young Childrenwww.naeyc.org.

Submitted by William H. Strader, Johnson & Wales University, School of Education

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