Early childhood education key to success

Early childhood education key to success

Simon Marcus Gower, Contributor, Jakarta

As with many other areas of Indonesia's school system, the
area of pre-school provision is mostly at an early stage of
development. But more attention needs to be given and importance
attached to helping little children along the path to beginning
their formal schooling.

Pre-schools and playgroups have become more available but
there is danger that these end-up grouped baby-sitting sessions
rather structured and constructive in beginning little children's
educational encounters.

There is clear scientific evidence to support the value of
planned and managed pre-school programs. In the United Kingdom
researchers have compared the performance of children that
experienced playgroups with those that did not.

What they found is perhaps surprising but is a clear
recommendation for pre-school provision. Children that
did not attend some pre-school activity were found to get lower
scores across most of their efforts. This included lower scores
for language development, general intelligence, listening skills,
mathematical understanding and reading ability.

The researchers found that children that had participated in a
pre-school program were better able to organize and structure
their thinking and achieve greater success.

Previously some had poured cold water on the benefits of pre-
school. They suggested there was insufficient scientific proof of
the value of pre-schooling and notions of its value were cast
aside and even dismissed as "fuzzy science".

It was suggested that social scientists and psychiatrists were
allowing conjecture and opinions to lead them, but times have
changed and so have views on the value of well thought out pre-
school planning. Less "fuzzy" fields of research have been
applied to education. This has allowed people to recognize that
pre-schooling is valuable. Brain research has examined the nature
and importance to learning of the process of interaction with
other people.

Academic skills emerge from the positive interactions that a
child has. By engaging the child in positive interactions,
learning is being fostered. Naturally the child will imitate,
identify with and internalize the ways, actions and examples of
those around it. Early interactions with people become important
because they help to make sense of the world. Early (pre-school)
learning can include development across a range of skills, which
in turn can smooth the path towards academic development.

For example, each of the following can be developed through
pre-school activity: Physical development will be helped, social
and interactive skills will benefit, psycho-emotional
skills will be enhanced, ethical behavior may be introduced,
linguistic skills can be increased and intellectual and cognitive
ability can be stimulated.

Good early learning experiences will help to equip the child
with the skills needed to easily start early school years. But
these good 'early learning experiences' have to be properly
managed. Educators have developed understanding of the value of
play. To adults the idea of play is not one associated with
learning. Generally, adults connect words such as relaxation,
pastimes and hobbies to the word play but for little children
play is a way of learning.

In pre-school groups, play must be constructively
incorporated. They will play to interact with the world. Play to
express their feelings and understanding of things. Play to mix
with children and play to discover their abilities.

But this play should be well structured by the organizers of
the playgroup. A good playgroup might have a variety of both
indoor and outdoor toys for the children to play on and discover
what they can do. But a good playgroup is not merely about the
quantity of toys it has, it is more about the quality of the
people that supervise the children.

This means that playgroup staff need to be trained in how to
maximize the play - and so by definition learning for the
children. It is an often-repeated misconception that teaching
little children is easiest. It can prove the most demanding of
educational challenges. Also, it is not sufficient for people to
say that they love little children; they must be able to balance
love with knowledge of what to do with children in a playgroup
setting.

Take the example of one Jakarta-based playgroup. Although well
equipped with indoor and outdoor facilities much of the learning
opportunities that these facilities presented were lost because
the staff members were not well trained to stimulate the
children's responses.

Arguments and even fights would breakout because of poor
supervision. The children were not learning the most basic of
lessons of 'turn-taking'. They were allowed too much freedom and
almost inevitably squabbles would breakout.

With supervision and a structured pre-school provision those
children could have been learning in such a way that allowed them
to develop social and interactive skills, ethical knowledge,
self-awareness and even linguistic development in knowing when to
ask permission from or give acceptance to a peer.

This is one example of how planned interactions at pre-school
can help begin learning. Obviously there are no complete
guarantees and a child's education is significantly dependent
upon on-going good learning experiences and guidance through
school but the value of pre-school learning cannot be overstated.
The development of a child is influenced by early experiences.
Future development builds upon the past and so placing positive
learning early in a child's life may be hugely beneficial. A good
education should be a positive life experience that empowers
students.

The writer is Director of Research and Development, Harapan Bangsa
School, Kotamodern, Tangerang, Banten.