How Institutional Are You?

09/30/2008

Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness.
Anne Frank

In his Exchange article, "Places for Childhoods: How Institutional Are YOU?" Jim Greenman challenges us to look closely at the environments we have created in our centers. The introduction and conclusion of this article are excerpted below. You can read the entire article in the Exchange Ideas for You — FREE section on our web site.

"The notion that we are institutionalizing children in child care is not one that we like to hear. After all, we child care professionals are the good guys. We love children, childhood, primary colors, and cookies. And yet, there is not another appropriate term for what we are doing. A child care center or home is an institution — a formal, established organization. It is the connotation we find hard to take: institutionalize conjures up, well, institutions, particularly those that sociologists call total institutions (asylums, hospitals, prisons, some schools) — places where uniformity, order, and rules are the primary values....

"Total institutions arise not because of evil or ignorance, but out of legitimate concerns for order, smooth, standard operations, and the well being of the inhabitants as a group. They become mindless as they lose sight of the individual and the real goals, the end goals, as they concentrate on the means. Order takes precedence over mental health in asylums, education in schools, rehabilitation in prisons, and childhood in those child care centers that fit the description.

"Childhood depends on some precious formula of freedom and mess. Until institutionalized through child care, children in the most structured homes could usually break through the concrete web of good intentions and find the cracks, alive with possibilities for movement, exploration, and discovery — in the room, under the bed, in the back yard, on the stoop, alone or with friends. These were times when adult sanctions were weakened, allowing exploration of forbidden words with delicious hard consonant syllables and intriguing substances. These were times when space opened up rather than contained; and jumps, shouts, and giggles pierced the air. More centers can have the same feel by being alert to the dehumanizing tendencies that are ever-present."

Greenman Books On Sale!

This week these two popular books by Jim Greenman are on sale at a 20% discount:

Caring Spaces, Learning Places: Children’s Environments That Work — A book of ideas, observations, problems, solutions, examples, resources, photographs, and poetry. Here you will find best of current thinking about children's environments — 360 pages to challenge you, stimulate you, inspire you.

Places for Childhoods: Making Quality Happen in the Real World — This exceptional book demonstrates how centers can face real-world challenges and make quality care a reality. Special selections authored by recognized child care experts enhance this collection of updated articles written by Jim Greenman.

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For more information about Exchange's magazine, books, and other products pertaining to ECE, go to www.ccie.com.