Read historical research on the transformation of American preschool education 4)

? Pay attention to academic preparation

1. International environment

Before this, American preschool curricula were constantly impacted by various new ideas and theories, but they have always been They all reject preschool education that is purely for school preparation.

All this was seriously questioned in the 1960s. In October 1957, the Soviet Union launched the world's first artificial satellite. The United States had always considered its world hegemony to be seriously threatened. At this time, everyone's dissatisfaction with education broke out. "Almost overnight, a curriculum revolution penetrated into every stage of American education.

1959 In 2016, the National Academy of Sciences invited 36 scientists, educators, and psychologists to discuss the reform of primary and secondary school curricula and published a summary report called "The Educational Process." A very important basic idea is to "emphasize early childhood education." Education, to explore children’s intellectual potential.

2. Internal environment

In the 1950s and 1960s, the gap between rich and poor in the United States was growing wider, and racial discrimination was serious. Education expenditures The distribution was uneven, and the facilities of different schools were also very different. Therefore, blacks launched a civil rights movement, and at the same time, the government also launched the war on poverty.

President Johnson signed the Economic Opportunity Act in 1964. ”, among which is the most popular and controversial “Head Start Program”. The main purpose of this program is to help disadvantaged children aged 3 to 5 prepare for school and put them on the same starting line as middle-class children. .

This is a comprehensive assistance plan, of which educational compensation is the core part. The specific method is to admit poor children into special public preschools to achieve equality in education plans. Emotional development nursery school curricula did not help poor children prepare for school, which also stimulated new curriculum reforms

1. Concept of intellectual development

In the 1960s. Before the 1960s, Americans believed in "genetic determinism" and "the theory of fixed intelligence." Therefore, people believed that it was unnecessary to develop children's intelligence in the preschool period.

In 1960, Professor Hunt of the University of Illinois. In the book "Intelligence and Experience", he overturned the hypothesis of fixed intelligence and pointed out that intelligence is the result of the interaction between genetics and acquired environment. In 1964, Bloom published his long-term tracking data. He believed that the speed of intelligence development is:

A child reaches 20 at the age of 1, 50 at the age of 4, 80 at the age of 8, and 92 at the age of 12. In other words, 3/4 of human intelligence is formed before entering elementary school. New discovery. Opens a new window for preschool education

2. Cognitive development theory

Swiss psychologist Piaget proposed in the 1930s that children recognize The development of knowledge is the process of cognitive structure changing from quantitative to qualitative changes.

Piaget's theory focuses on logical operations and divides children's cognitive development into four stages based on research results:

Sensory-motor stage (from birth to about 2 years old), pre-operational stage (from 2 to 7 years old); concrete operational stage (from 7 to 12 years old); formal operational stage (from 12 to 15 years old)

The sequence of these stages is fixed and insurmountable. The development of the later stage is based on the previous stage. This also illustrates the importance of preschool education to the development of a person's life.

Piaget did not translate his theory into practice, but his theory of cognitive development has been influencing the United States and even the world since the 1960s.

3. Structuralism

In addition, structuralist psychologist Bruner also had a profound impact on American preschool education. Bruner believes that the process of people's pursuit of knowledge is the process of discovering their inner structure.

Faced with the rapid growth of knowledge, it is impossible for schools to enable students to acquire all knowledge in a short period of time. They can only enable students to master the "basic structure of the subject." The "basic structure" is the essence and outline of the subject, which requires that the design of the course must be centered on it.

According to Bruner’s point of view, as long as the subject content is converted into a knowledge form that conforms to the characteristics of students’ cognitive stages and makes it consistent with children’s cognitive structure and learning interests, the success of any subject Basic knowledge can be taught to any child at any stage of development using shortcuts from general to specific understanding.

Influenced by these theories, American preschool curriculum has moved towards the path of intellectual education.

Here are several typical and influential curriculum plans:

1. Development-interaction courses

Advocates of development-interaction courses believe that The processes of knowledge, emotion and socialization influence and depend on each other.

Advocates insist that children should be treated as "complete" people; and that viewing children from a developmental perspective is more about planning for children's lifelong development, not just for academics. preparation.

The goal of development-interaction courses is not the ultimate goal that clearly points to some specific behaviors and abilities, but a very broad developmental goal. It can be summarized into five educational goals:

First, improve abilities.

Second, unique personality.

Third, achieve socialization.

Fourth, cultivate creativity.

Fifth, it has the ability to integrate.

Specifically, the core content of the development interactive course is mainly organized around "Social studies". The learning content mainly includes:

1) Human beings and their surroundings The natural environment;

2) The relationship between people and their families, communities and the wider external world;

3) Intergenerational connections and communication;

4) Understand the meaning of life through mythology, religion, science, and art;

5) Individual and collective behaviors governed by certain values;

6) Treat change as It is the normal state of life;

7) Learn how to solve problems.

All in all, the development-interaction curriculum follows the trend of the times and changes from a curriculum that simply emphasizes children's self- and social-emotional development to one that promotes children's cognitive-emotional development and advocates the cultivation of "complete children", that is, social , emotion, and the overall development of intelligence. However, developmental-interactive courses were not yet popular at that time, and courses that emphasized specific intellectual tasks and academic tasks became the most popular educational program in the field of preschool education at that time.

2. Barrett-Engelmann Curriculum

If the development-interactive curriculum is like quality education, the Berrett-Engelmann curriculum is more like cramming education.

In the mid-1960s, two scholars from the University of Illinois founded the Barrett-Engelman Preschool named after them, which provided two kindergartens a day for children from poor families aged 4 to 6 years old. hours of intense direct instruction.

Barrett and Engelman believed that giving children more academic skills would improve their academic performance. The goal of this curriculum is to equip preschool children with the basic academic abilities they need to enter elementary school, so they designed the Barrett-Engelman curriculum to teach reading, arithmetic, and language skills directly to preschool children. This is also one of the curriculum plans specifically designed to provide educational compensation for poor children after the birth of the "Head Start Plan".

The theoretical basis of the Barrett-Engelman course is behaviorist psychology, which believes that learning is reinforcement practice that leads to changes in behavior.

Although this kind of mechanized learning has been met with many doubts and criticisms, advocates have their own ideas. They believe that only academic success can bring emotional joy to children.

The Berrett-Engelmann curriculum had a clear academic tendency, which was fully in line with the society's expectations for education at that time. Therefore, it was pushed to the center of the historical stage in that era and became one of the most respected and influential courses.

3. High-Science Curriculum and Kemi-De Vries Curriculum

High-Science Curriculum was designed by Weikart and others, and is also based on Piaget’s constructivist cognitive development. theory as the basis, but some changes have also taken place.

The content of the curriculum is determined by "key experiences" that can promote children's cognitive development. This concept was also proposed by Weikart. Key experiences are divided into active learning, language use, experience and representation, classification, Eight major areas including sorting, number concepts, spatial relationships, and time. Teachers will use this checklist to determine whether the activities they design will promote children's cognitive development.

The Gaozhan course does not have a fixed syllabus, but there is a programmed process to lead children to learn actively. The Gaozhan course divides the day's activities into several fixed periods, namely: small groups Activity time; planning-work-review time; collective activity time; link transition time; lunch and rest time, etc.

Gaozhan courses place high demands on teachers. During the implementation of the course, the interaction between teachers and students is crucial. Teachers need to create a balance in the dynamic process: that It is to make the activities not only in line with children's interests, but also enable children to gain key experiences.

Kamii is a professor at the Birmingham campus of Alabama State University in the United States. In the early 1960s, he served as a research assistant to Weakart, the founder of the High Vision Course, and participated in children's cognitive research. Oriented curriculum design. Later, Kemi also did research with Piaget.

Kemi began collaborating with Rheta DeVries at the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1970. They emphasized Piaget's constructivism and gradually added Kohlberg's moral development. theory, forming the Kemi-De Vries curriculum.

Kemmy and De Vries believe that there is no cognition without emotional components, and there is no emotion without cognitive components. The relationship between cognition and emotion is that emotion can accelerate, delay or hinder cognition. development.

The Kemi-De Vries curriculum puts forward the following goals:

(1) Social-emotional goals

① Let children and adults maintain a non-mandatory relationship relationships and gradually increase autonomy

② Require children to respect the emotions and rights of others and begin to cooperate with others (by deself-centered and coordinating different perspectives)

③ Cultivate children's Alertness and curiosity, and the ability to take the initiative to satisfy curiosity, the ability to believe that one can solve problems, and the ability to express one's ideas confidently

(2) Cognitive goals

① Let children raise various ideas and questions

② Let children consider things in relationship and pay attention to their similarities and differences

Among them, we noticed that autonomy Sex itself is both social and intellectual. If children have become accustomed to being heteronomous in terms of social behavior, they will also lose the ability and confidence to actively construct in terms of intelligence.

The Kemi-De Vries curriculum does not specifically list the goals and content for cultivating children's reading, writing, arithmetic and other skills, but integrates them into the above-mentioned goals and content.

This course is an interpretation of Piaget's theory in a concrete practical form. For a long time, this course was considered the most orthodox Piaget course.

In addition to the above three classic courses, there are also revived Montessori courses, but they are not detailed in the book.

After the 1970s, there were no major changes in the American preschool curriculum, but it always oscillated between "academic orientation" and "development orientation."

Since then, various authoritative organizations and associations in the United States have also issued a series of reports and statements, and the government has advocated preparing children for school readiness. For example, President Bush's "Goals 2000" issued in 1989: "U.S. Education Law"; educators from the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) rejected this view. After publishing "Educational Practices Suitable for Children Aged 0-8", they were challenged by the federal government. Under external pressure, NAEYC made After making certain adjustments, "Development Suitable Education Practice" was republished in 1997, reflecting a dual value orientation.

The United States has also made great improvements in the evaluation of curriculum quality. State governments have gradually established and implemented the Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS) for preschool education.

The core components of QRIS include five parts: quality standards, quality measurement and rating, professional support to promote quality improvement, financial incentives, and helping parents identify and choose high-quality preschool education institutions.

At present, there are two sets of relatively popular quality assessment tools:

One is the "Early Child Learning Environment Evaluation Scale" compiled by the FPG Child Development Research Center at the University of North Carolina, USA. Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS) and its revised version (ECERS-R) are often used to evaluate the overall quality of the classroom environment in early childhood education institutions, including structural quality and process quality;

The other set is the classroom interaction rating Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) is a scoring system specially used to observe and evaluate the quality of interaction between teachers and children in the classroom. It mainly involves three aspects: emotional support, classroom organization, and educational support.