Abstract
In this chapter, we present a teacher training program for the realization of the perspectives and the limitations of a CHAT approach. We analyze the curriculum scene as a matter of activity and trace the potentialities and limitations of the concept of activity|activism to become the central organized cell in|for early childhood teacher training programs. In the program exemplifying our approach, the development of communicative skills, collaborative and creative work, problem solving, and critical thinking is among the priorities of the curriculum planning and development. In|for early grades, learning and knowing different subjects – for example, language, mathematics, studies of the environment, drama, music, and physical education – are not considered as independent fields but as resources that are mobilized in integrated activity. In this program, preservice early childhood teachers are familiarized with different types of learning environments – for example, labs, schools, museums, and environmental parks. They also adapt and adopt analytical methods of the interactions when science education occurs. They are trained to analyze children’s arguments as well as the use of childhood daily cultural tools, as cartoon animations. Dealing with scientific concepts with the aid of a popular cartoon character contributes to better understanding of science, connecting with cultural knowledge, and building a strong interactive network in order to achieve meaningful learning.
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Notes
- 1.
We are subjected to change as well. More than 10 years ago, we had started to educate preservice early childhood teachers in science education following the Piagetian perspective. But it turned out that this approach did not work so well with our preservice teachers. They did not see learners and their real and multidimensional cognitive development. This led us to look for a more fruitful theoretical framework. Gradually, we moved to a Vygotskian perspective. Making a leap forward, we adapted cultural-historical activity theory to our program where we now try to study and differentiate it from other psychological theories when applied in early science education.
- 2.
Although it is a platitude to state that teachers develop while teaching – for example, “become more experienced” or “develop teaching skills” – these forms of learning generally are not theorized concurrently with child development. This is precisely where cultural-historical activity theory provides an advantage, especially when it takes its departure from Vygotsky’s statement that all higher order psychological functions are societal relations (Roth and Radford 2010).
- 3.
We cannot emphasize enough that even very young children are part of cultural transformations. This is evidenced, for example, in the fact that parents change as they interact with their first child and, as a result, interact differently with the second one. That is, in interacting with the first child, they learn and develop just as the child learns and develops in the same familial (societal) relation.
- 4.
Activism is a category paralleling that of activity but orients science educators on the need of transforming the world rather than keeping the subjects of activity busy with this or that task (Roth 2010a). That is, rather than having children engage in mere hands-on tasks, activism, as a situation, focuses on actively transforming the material and societal world.
- 5.
This goal is becoming especially salient in the economic crisis that has hit Greece while we are working on this book. A sustainable society is a society that manages its societal and natural resources in such a way that it can cover the costs that come with development without deferring those costs to future generations.
- 6.
This also implies that the preservice teachers can understand the what and why of their course only at the end, when they have realized the object of activity and, in so doing, have come to comprehend the motive (Roth and Radford 2011). Not knowing the motive means for the preservice teachers that they have to act without precisely knowing why and how, and this requires emotional support as well – a little like parents or swimming instructors who have to encourage their children/students to swim even though they cannot yet swim by letting them know that they are present and would not let them sink and drown.
- 7.
Our research with older children (10–11 years) shows that design activities are experienced as true challenges, and some children find it hard to distinguish between reality and fiction of the characters involved when letters describing design challenges are received in a classroom, which is asked to respond to some request for proposals (Roth 1998).
- 8.
References
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Roth, W.-M. (2010a). Activism: A category for theorizing learning. Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics, and Technology Education, 10, 278–291.
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Roth, WM., Goulart, M.I.M., Plakitsi, K. (2013). Preparing Teachers for Early Childhood Science Teaching. In: Science Education during Early Childhood. Cultural Studies of Science Education, vol 6. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5186-6_8
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