The Reconceptualization of Early Childhood Curriculum: Continuing the Conversation

• In Event: Early Childhood Curriculum for the 21st Century: Rethinking Developmentally Appropriate Practices

Abstract

Objective or Purpose
This paper argues for the need to understand the early childhood curriculum from the perspective of curriculum studies. The reconceptualization of curriculum studies provides us with many “tools” and/or questions to ask when working to understand the early childhood curriculum, that will be applied to the most recent document, “Position Statement on Developmentally Appropriate” (NAEYC, 2020), hereafter referred to as DAP. Curriculum reconceptualization urges readers to contemplate the curriculum as a philosophical and political document, rather than simply a prescription for educational practice (Author 1, XXXX). It also urges educators to question the very nature of curriculum itself: What exactly is the curriculum? Where did it come from? Who developed it and why? Whose interests are served by the curriculum? Curriculum scholars would ask other questions of the early childhood curriculum, including DAP. What view of the future is implied by the curriculum? What do curriculum makers what children to become?
Perspective
This paper draws heavily on the work of curriculum theorists at the onset of reconceptualization, such as Herbart Kliebard, Michael Apple, and William Pinar. These and other curriculum scholars proposed numerous definitions of curriculum, seeing the curriculum as ideological text (Apple, 2006), and urges greater effort be made to understand the curriculum as a complicated conversation with a political, a racial, or a gendered subtext, (Pinar et al., 1995).
Modes of Inquiry
Modes of inquiry include an examination of NAEYC position papers in relation to synoptic curriculum texts. More specifically, the evolution of DAP from its first iteration in 1987 to its most recent iteration in 2020 will be reinterpreted through relevant curricular texts. These texts will include Elliot Eisner’s The Educational Imagination, Michael Apple’s Educating the Right Way, Herbart Kliebard’s The Struggle for the American Curriculum, and Pinar, Reynolds, Slattery, and Taubman’s Understanding Curriculum.
Data Sources
Data derives from the interpretation of texts juxtaposed with personal narratives of the author’s experience teaching in a demonstration preschool/kindergarten at the University of Illinois under the direction of Bernard Spodek and in a public-school kindergarten. These personal experiences interact with relevant theoretical frameworks to construct alternative perspectives on early childhood curriculum.
Conclusion
The analysis concludes that the definition of curriculum in the DAP document, despite its intentions to address the unequal experiences of Black and Brown children and families in schools, reinforces the status quo. The orientation to curriculum proposed in DAP will prevent NAEYC from accomplishing its goals to help children who need the most understanding and support in school.
Scholarly Significance
The National Organization for the Education of Young Children is the largest organization for teachers of young children in the US. It influences curriculum development, methods of evaluation of young children and early childhood programs and determines how teachers should be trained and the accreditation of childcare programs programs in higher education. The findings of this study could have far reaching significance if it brings about greater appreciation and understanding of the early childhood curriculum.

Author

• Shirley A. Kessler, Retired