Teacher Education to Nurture Leaders for the Collaboration and Connection between Early Childhood and Elementary School Education

Abstract

This study provides an overview of trends in the collaboration and connection between early childhood and elementary school education and discusses the challenges of teacher education to nurture leaders in this field. In 1989, with the revision of the elementary school course of study the “Living Environment Studies” was newly established. With the revision of the kindergarten course of education in the same year, the “six areas” of childcare content were reorganized into “five areas.” Around the year 2000, the “Elementary 1 Problem” began to become a social problem. The results revealed that the importance of collaboration and connection between early childhood and elementary school education was widely recognized from the perspective of “to solve the Elementary 1 Problem.” In 2010, a report from the “Conference of Research Collaborators for the Smooth Connection between Early Childhood and Elementary School Education” was published. It became clear that the collaboration and connection between early childhood and elementary school education are intended to guarantee the continuity of children’s development and learning. Both the Elementary School Course of Study and the Kindergarten Course of Education, which were revised in 2017, aim to realize making the “curriculum open to society.” The collaboration and connection between early childhood and elementary school education is a philosophy that values the natural way of learning of children and human beings, enhances that learning to competencies through school education, and aims to lead to the formation of a future society. The aim is to create educational practices based on this. To this end, it is important to activate the teacher’s intellect and to perceive the child’s actions as an expression of their inner world.