Aleader possess a rich basket of knowledge. Useable knowledge is not only defined as that which is written about, researched and taught, but about experiences. On-the-job experience is undeniably important. Our own experiences of early childhood are also essential and understanding them is an important part of being a reflective practitioner.
CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES
We are inevitably shaped by our own childhoods: where you were when young, who you were surrounded by and the political and cultural context are all factors. They create the mood music against which you were living and which you will have unconsciously absorbed. There are also the events themselves which took place, which include big milestones such as births, deaths, marriages and divorces. These experiences are multiple and varied between practitioners.
These experiences inform who we are and how we make decisions about what to do when we work with children. Take, for example, memories of playing outside on hot sunny days, building dens in the woods or cloud spotting. Yes, the nostalgia may distort our memories (hot sunny days in the UK – really?), but those memories might also have ignited a passion for outdoor learning, driving us to actively seek such opportunities for the children we work with.
Working with young children often means being aware that experiences of childhood might not always be happy ones. Some practitioners’ negative experiences in childhood can be a motivation for the job. You might want to create happier childhoods for children than you had, or put right mistakes that were made by those around you. Whether the experiences were bad or good, they were all experienced prior to any formal training as an early years practitioner, and they shape why and how a person wants to work with children.
Experiences prior to working in early childhood education and care (ECEC) also include our own experiences of learning. The memory of a first teacher for example, may have been accompanied with the feeling ‘If only I could be like Ms Smith’ or ‘Ms Smith was mean.’ As we get older we experience responsibility for the first time. We may have experienced being a carer – as an older sibling or babysitting for the family next door, or even for a parent. Some of us are parents ourselves. All of these experiences become part of the basket of knowledge that we can rummage through to inform how to work with children, how to support families and how best to interact with and lead teams.
All experiences are equally important, as you never know when they can support you in a given situation. Often we are not conscious that we are drawing on our experiences – both positive and negative – yet understanding how they shape us as practitioners is crucial and we should seek to engage with those experiences (‘Psychoanalytic theory, emotion and early years practice’ in The Routledge International Handbook of Philosophies and Theories of Early Childhood Education and Care, Elfer 2016, for more about how experiences can shape us).
EXPERIENCES IN PRACTICE
Once working in ECEC, our on-the-job experiences are often the ones that we draw on in daily practice – sometimes consciously, but all too often the pressures of daily practice means that the process is unconscious. Again, the experiences are inevitably varied, such as turning up for the first day of a placement (or work) and discovering that the manager had not informed the staff that you were coming and no one seemed to know what to do with you. Such an experience is likely to make any leader want to ensure that robust systems are in place for ensuring that a warm welcome is provided for whoever comes in the door.
The experience of meticulously planning a sensory play activity to find it is all over in two minutes and you are left picking tiny little bits of lavender out of children's hair will also provide a learning opportunity that can range from ‘never again’ to reflecting on how things might be done differently next time. Could it be done more collaboratively, or extended further, and can you do anything to speed up tidying up at the end (such as investing in a decent set of combs)?
Other experience helps to make more individualised decisions. The knowledge basket will be rich and deep in regards to the needs of children and families in the community. You will know that what is appropriate for one child may not be for another and that where one approach does not seem to work, another will succeed. This knowledge, gained through experience, is invaluable for informing daily working practices.
Often, experiences are not regarded as legitimate knowledge – they do not have a special theoretical name, nor been ‘discovered’ through research. Furthermore, often our experiences have not been written down or made explicit in any way, thus forming a more tacit knowledge. Nonetheless, they are a powerful form of knowledge, a practical wisdom, that provides a certainty of knowing what to do and why.
It is important to recognise that experiences are tied to context, so the experience of how to manage a particular problem in one situation on a particular day may not be appropriate in another. While experiences can provide the starting point, recognising this – that context will shape the appropriateness of taking one experience and applying it to another – is imperative. For example, leading one setting is not the same as leading another; a new setting requires an evaluation of experience to enable an appraisal of what will and won’t work henceforth, often drawing on theoretical knowledge as well. As lecturers and researchers, we have both encountered leaders who thought they could lead their new team in exactly the same way they led the previous one, despite differences in personality and expectations, with disastrous results.
Equally, culture informs the evaluation of experience. There are culturally acceptable and unacceptable ways to interact with children. This wider cultural knowledge links back to those experiences gained in childhood. Childhood is an important stage of learning cultural norms. This is not to suggest that either the cultural context or the immediate context is fixed, as both will shift and evolve with time. New experiences will provide new knowledge that can be applied in new and different ways, but also the evaluation of knowledge (both that gained from experience and culture, along with that from theory) will ensure that knowledge is always evolving.
Time should be taken to identify the varied forms of knowledge and consider how they inform daily practice in ECEC. In the next issue, we will be thinking about how the knowledge of and in an ECEC setting might come together, including identifying with our own personal experiences as well as those of the colleagues and families that we work with.
Understanding the varied forms of knowledge provides a rich knowledge basket that is at your disposal.
Verity Campbell-Barr is currently undertaking research on the knowledge, skills and attitudes needed for working in Early Childhood Education and Care. You can participate in the online survey here: www.surveymonkey.com/r/ECECWorkforceUK