Analyzing concept of teacher’s profession in standard-based early childhood curriculum reform in the United States from a perspective of lived-experience

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyze concept of teacher’s profession in standard- based early childhood curriculum reform in the United states from the perspective of lived-experience. Findings of this study come from a narrative case study of an early childhood teacher. The teacher worked in an early childhood institute at Chicago narrated her experience as the form of short cinema. Referring Ted T. Aoki’s concept: Dwelling in the zone of between curriculum-as-plan and curriculum-as-lived-experience, this study articulates how the curriculum reform operate teacher’s professional development and how teacher experiences the operation in their lived-experience. Specifically, this article highlights a gap between the model of professional development of the early childhood curriculum reform and the teacher’s subjective process that is to understand meanings of children’s experience. In addition, it addresses how teacher reflects on a conflict between the gap.

The first paragraph of this paper discusses with an idea of standard-based curriculum reform. Federal government started a discussion about standard-based early childhood curriculum reform from 1980’s. At the end of the discussion, National education goals panel suggested that the standard-based curriculum should be organized in terms of the concept of readiness. The panel argued that the purpose of public early childhood education is to guarantee test scores beginning in the first or second grade. The panel established a new concept of teacher’s profession. Early childhood teacher’s essential abilities were limited to use assessment tools and to apply its results to their practice.

The second paragraph of this paper reviews the phenomenological curriculum theory. The phenomenological theorists in North America rejected both rationalism and empiricism and tried to understand experiences as lived of individuals. From this perspective, teaching in classroom is an orientation for teachers toward being in a specific situation. Ted, T Aoki conceptualized the situation as pedagogical situation. Teacher was understood as a being who was dwelling in the zone of between curriculum-as-plan and curriculum-as-lived-experience.

The third paragraph of this paper analyzes a narrative of an early childhood teacher from the perspective of phenomenological curriculum theory. The teacher described her lived-experience as the form of short cinema. She depicted her memory of a boy’s activities who was her student. She attempted to understand his experience from two perspectives. In the first part, she reduced his activities into behaviors to measure his developmental levels using an assessment tool. In the second part, she understood his activities in classroom within his life world. She discovered that he tried to reconstruct identity formation through the activities. Through the inquiry, she realized the operation of standard-based curriculum reform on her pedagogical situation.

Teacher’s lived-experience was disregarded in the reform. Since the horizon of curriculum-as-lived experience was restored into the horizon of curriculum-as-plan, in the operation of the reform, the teacher’s inquiry that was described in second part of her cinema was ignoring. As a result, the reform disturbs teacher’s opportunities to understand a process of children’s growth.