9

Click here to load reader

Beliefs about the Importance of Use of Developmentally Appropriate Practices Among Early Childhood Teachers in India

  • Upload
    sai

  • View
    215

  • Download
    3

Embed Size (px)

Citation preview

Page 1: Beliefs about the Importance of Use of Developmentally Appropriate Practices Among Early Childhood Teachers in India

This article was downloaded by: [McMaster University]On: 21 December 2014, At: 22:12Publisher: Taylor & FrancisInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Journal of Early Childhood TeacherEducationPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ujec20

Beliefs about the Importance of Use ofDevelopmentally Appropriate PracticesAmong Early Childhood Teachers in IndiaSai Jambunathan aa New Jersey City University , Jersey City, New Jersey, USAPublished online: 18 Dec 2007.

To cite this article: Sai Jambunathan (2005) Beliefs about the Importance of Use of DevelopmentallyAppropriate Practices Among Early Childhood Teachers in India, Journal of Early Childhood TeacherEducation, 26:3, 275-281

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10901020500369878

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever orhowsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arisingout of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Page 2: Beliefs about the Importance of Use of Developmentally Appropriate Practices Among Early Childhood Teachers in India

275

Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, 26:275–281, 2005Copyright © National Association of Early Childhood Teacher EducatorsISSN: 1090-1027 print/ 1745-5642 onlineDOI: 10.1080/10901020500369878

UJEC1090-10271745-5642Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, Vol. 26, No. 03, November 2005: pp. 0–0Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education

Beliefs about the Importance of Use of Developmentally Appropriate Practices Among

Early Childhood Teachers in India

Beliefs About Use of Appropriate Practices in IndiaS. Jambunathan SAI JAMBUNATHAN

New Jersey City University, Jersey City, New Jersey, USA

This article explores beliefs of Asian Indian teachers regarding the importance of useof developmentally appropriate practices in early childhood classrooms. A total of 178Asian Indian early childhood teachers working in various early childhood classroomsin the southern part of India participated in the study. The teachers filled out a ques-tionnaire to determine their beliefs about the use of developmentally appropriate prac-tices. The questionnaire contained 62 statements with five subscales: (1) parentparticipation, (2) assessment, (3) curriculum development and integration, (4) teach-ing strategies, and (5) caring for children’s development. The teachers responded tothe questions on a Likert scale of 1–5, where 1 was “Not at all important” and 5“Extremely important.” Preliminary analysis of the data indicated that all the teacherswere not very inclined towards the use of the western definition of developmentallyappropriate practices. Parent participation was rated highest (3.74), followed byassessment (3.44), teaching strategies (3.29), curriculum development and integration(3.16), and caring for children’s development (2.76). The results of the present studyseem to indicate that Asian Indian teachers were leaning more toward the use of whatwesterners view as inappropriate practices. This brings up the issue of the meaning ofdevelopmentally appropriate practices in various countries. What is considered devel-opmentally appropriate in one country might be considered inappropriate in another.Therefore, as teacher educators we need to start thinking about how we can best studythe teaching practices in various countries without making judgments about the“right” way to teach. This sentiment is echoed by various early childhood profession-als who are urging us to look beyond our environment and learn about how we canimprove our practices based on this new information. This information may prove tobe useful in preparing our teachers to be able to better meet the needs of children andfamilies from other countries.

Introduction

The Indian subcontinent is a cauldron of values, religious beliefs, spoken languages,socioeconomic status, and diversity of people. The one value that is common to all inIndia is strong acceptance of the value of education. Historically, the focus of Indian edu-cation has been centered on religious beliefs, philosophical values, and imparting a love oflearning. The education system in India was developed as a result of the influence of suc-cessive historical periods, namely, the Vedic period, the Buddhist influence, the Moghulinfluence, and finally the British influence (Paranjothi, 1969). During the Vedic periodrevered teachers, who were frequently referred to as gurus, imparted knowledge as

Received 5 April 2005, accepted 9 August 2005.Address correspondence to Sai Jambunathan, 2039 Kennedy Blvd. 329 PSB Dept. of ECE,

NJCU, Jersey City, NJ, 07305. E-mail: [email protected]

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

McM

aste

r U

nive

rsity

] at

22:

12 2

1 D

ecem

ber

2014

Page 3: Beliefs about the Importance of Use of Developmentally Appropriate Practices Among Early Childhood Teachers in India

276 S. Jambunathan

surrogate parents to the children. Students lived in the gurukula, which was the residenceof the guru, situated in a forest away from all the distractions of a city. The guru served asthe spiritual and educational leader for the students (referred to as shishyas). The guru alsofocused on teaching the students that they were capable of practicing what they hadlearned and, more importantly, could now impart it to others. Literature indicates that thistype of education was very broad and focused on the philosophy of life and the studying ofreligious books, and was not centered on specific content areas. With the advent of theMoghul rulers several changes took place in the educational system, the most significantof which was the fusion of Hindu and Islamic philosophies, which resulted in culturalenrichment and diversification of education (Paranjothi, 1969).

Teaching was a revered profession in India prior to British occupancy of the Indiansubcontinent. With the onset of European influence during the 17th century, teachingemerged as a career in itself. Christian missionaries took it upon themselves to reach out tothe masses, educate the working class, and revamp the educational system. The content ofthe curriculum, the books used, and the philosophy of education reflected British viewsand traditions. The ancient emphasis on valuing and learning about the rich traditions ofthe Indian subcontinent was lost (Gupta, 2003). Teachers were trained in the British wayof teaching. Gone were the rapport of trust and sharing the nuances of religion and tradi-tion between teachers and children. The teachers’ roles changed from being surrogate par-ents to imparters of content dictated by the British supervisors. The main purpose ofeducation was to prepare middle-class working families to learn the skills needed foremployment. Even after the downfall of the British rule in India, the British way of educa-tion continued in India.

After India gained its independence, thanks to work by key philosophers of educationsuch as Shri Lajpat Rai, J. Goshal, and Rabindranath Tagore, a focus on Indian traditionsand values returned (Paranjothi, 1969). These philosophers argued against an authoritarianrole for the teacher. They favored teachers’ having dispositions towards understandingtheir pupils, promoting creative expression in the students, and blending western and east-ern philosophies of education to help children understand other cultures and practices.They also proposed that the medium of instruction be the children’s native language andthat content areas include the following: social studies, math, general science, art, Hindi(national language), and physical education. According to these philosophers, the salientfeatures of an educational system should include the following tenets: The child should bethe focal point of education; curriculum should be integrated across all content areas;hands-on experience should be provided to facilitate learning; activities in the class shouldbe planned and purposeful; and finally, both teachers and children should not worktowards being successful on a test, but rather focus on all areas of social-emotional, phys-ical, and cognitive development (Paranjothi, 1969).

These basic tenets, however, did not have the expected success due (it was thought) tothe lack of physical facilities, financial support, and competent teachers who could inte-grate hands-on experiences with teaching content. Many evaluative inquiries were con-ducted to find the reasons for the failure of this appropriate educational system, and oneuniversal underlying cause in all the reports was seen to be the inadequate preparation ofteachers. As a result of this finding, efforts were made to better prepare teachers and reduceclassroom sizes. With coordinated efforts by the Indian government, the United States gov-ernment, and the government of the United Kingdom, land-grant universities and manyother universities were created to prepare professional educators (Paranjothi, 1969).

The curriculum in the resulting teacher education programs was based on the schoolsystem and what was taught in the schools. Following the passing of the seventh Five

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

McM

aste

r U

nive

rsity

] at

22:

12 2

1 D

ecem

ber

2014

Page 4: Beliefs about the Importance of Use of Developmentally Appropriate Practices Among Early Childhood Teachers in India

Beliefs About Use of Appropriate Practices in India 277

Year Plan (1986–1990), the teacher education programs were revised to reflect innova-tive and more appropriate ways of educating children. The National Council for TeacherEducation in India oversees teacher preparation programs across the country. Morerecently the Central government passed a bill enabling the National Council for TeacherEducation to oversee the standards for teacher preparation and to serve as a liaison to allthe agencies that teacher preparation programs are expected to affect (Govindarajan &Malathi, 1993).

Still, the current curriculum for teacher education programs in India focuses morethan previously on teaching in the content areas and enabling children to pass the appro-priate exams. Not much emphasis is placed on child development, factors influencingchildren’s growth and development, or developmentally appropriate practices or curricu-lum. The existing courses to prepare teachers in child psychology and development bor-row heavily from the western theorists; little emphasis is placed on incorporating Indianphilosophies and values into the content of such courses (Gupta, 2003). The main objec-tive for Indian teachers remains preparing their students to perform well on the exams.This, in their minds, is what the child needs, what parents expect, and what the schooladministrators want.

Typically in the Indian school curriculum there is little room for creativity or expres-sion of independent thought. The competition is very intense among the students to farewell on exams and eventually to secure admission into professional courses like engineer-ing or medicine. Given such a climate, it is frustrating for the teachers to try creative strat-egies in their classes. Recently there has been an increase in awareness of the use ofdevelopmentally appropriate practices in early childhood classrooms, and efforts are nowbeing made to do away with exams in the early grades and to focus more on the educationof the whole child.

The study reported in this article explored the beliefs of Asian Indian teachers aboutthe importance of use of developmentally appropriate practices. Developmentally appro-priate practices (DAP) as defined in western educational literature encompass three mainparadigms to which the teachers must attend: (1) human development and learning, (2)individual characteristics and experiences, and (3) the social and cultural contexts of thechild. Teachers should bear in mind that children come from different backgrounds, andlearn and develop at different paces. This awareness should be reflected in the teachers’use of different types of learning materials, strategies, and guidance techniques to embodythe core idea behind the National Association for Education of Young Children’s positionstatement that “the child is the basic unit of the curriculum” (Bredekamp, 1987; Brede-kamp & Copple, 1997).

Past research in western educational settings has shown that the use of DAP in theclassroom has positive benefits for children (Burts et al., 1993; Charlesworth, Hart, Burts,& DeWolf, 1993; Dunn & Kontos, 1997; Hart, Burts & Charlesworth, 1997; Larsen &Robinson, 1989; Marcon, 1994). Furthermore, many teachers in such settings concur thatthe use of DAP in classrooms will benefit children (Hoot et al., 1996). While someresearchers have found that teachers’ beliefs and practices are related to one another(Charlesworth, Hart, Burts, Thomasson et al., 1993; Smith & Shepard, 1988; Stipek,Daniels, Galluzo, & Milburn, 1992), others have found no such relationship (Dunn &Kontos; Verma & Peters, 1975). However, very little is known about the beliefs and prac-tices of teachers in developing countries. The confusing issues related to what develop-mentally appropriate practice might mean in different contexts are important to explore inorder to better prepare teachers by reflecting a global understanding of the definition ofdevelopmentally appropriate practice.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

McM

aste

r U

nive

rsity

] at

22:

12 2

1 D

ecem

ber

2014

Page 5: Beliefs about the Importance of Use of Developmentally Appropriate Practices Among Early Childhood Teachers in India

278 S. Jambunathan

Study Participants and Method

A total of 178 early childhood teachers working in various early childhood classrooms in thesouthern part of India participated in the study. Fifteen of the teachers were working in daycare centers, 28 were working in child care centers while completing their teacher certifica-tion, and 135 teachers were working in early childhood classrooms in Pre-K–12 schools. Allof the participants were Asian Indians. Sixty-two of the participants held a bachelor’s degreeonly, 35 held a master’s degree, 2 had completed a PhD, and 69 had a bachelor’s degree witha teaching diploma/certificate. The researcher contacted several schools, child care centersand teacher training institutions, explained the purpose of the study, and invited the teachersto participate in it. The participants completed a questionnaire that was distributed to andcollected from the teachers by trained data collectors who visited the classrooms.

Instrument

This questionnaire used in the study is a modified version of teacher questionnaire devel-oped by Charlesworth, Hart, Burts, Thomasson, et al., (1993) and Burts, Buchanan &DeWolf (1997). The questionnaire contains 62 statements with five subscales: (1) parentparticipation (sample item: It is ___ for teachers to establish a collaborative partnership/relationship with parents), (2) assessment (sample item: An evaluation of children’sprogress in the program using readiness or achievement tests is____), (3) curriculumdevelopment and integration (sample item: It is ___ to integrate math across the curricu-lum), (4) teaching strategies (sample item: It is____ for teachers to provide a wide rangeof activities for children to develop their language skills), and (5) caring for children’sdevelopment (sample item: It is ___for activities to be responsive to the individual differ-ences in children’s levels of development). The teachers respond to the questions using aLikert scale of 1–5, where 1 is “Not at all important” and 5 “Extremely important.” Aver-age scores are calculated for each of the subscales. There are no open-ended questions onthe questionnaire.

Results

The descriptive statistics for each of the subscales are presented in Table 1. Mean scoresfor each of the subscales indicate that the teachers were not favorably inclined towards theuse of the Western definition of developmentally appropriate practices. Parent participa-tion in the early childhood classrooms was rated as most important (mean = 3.74, range =1–5), followed by use of developmentally appropriate assessment (mean = 3.44, range =

Table 1Descriptive statistics of the subscales of the checklist for the use of developmentally

appropriate practices

Subscale Mean Min Max S.D.

Curriculum development and integration 3.16 1.32 4.31 .50Caring for children’s development 2.76 1.21 3.73 .47Teaching strategies 3.29 1.14 4.33 .53Assessment 3.44 1.12 4.33 .53Parent participation 3.74 1 5.00 .79

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

McM

aste

r U

nive

rsity

] at

22:

12 2

1 D

ecem

ber

2014

Page 6: Beliefs about the Importance of Use of Developmentally Appropriate Practices Among Early Childhood Teachers in India

Beliefs About Use of Appropriate Practices in India 279

1.12–4.33), teaching strategies using appropriate means (mean = 3.29, range = 1.14–4.33),curriculum development to reflect each child’s development and meets its needs, and theintegration of this purpose across the curriculum (mean = 3.16, range = 1.32–4.31), andcaring for children’s development (mean = 2.76, range 1.21–3.73).

Discussion

The results of the present study seem to indicate that Asian Indian teachers were leaningmore towards the use of what Westerners view as inappropriate practices. To understandthe role and practices of an Asian Indian teacher we will need to elaborate more on thefindings from each of the subscales. Parent participation is traditionally viewed in Westernsettings as involving the parents in activities related to the class/school and helping themto understand what goes on in the school. In the Asian Indian context, such involvement islooked upon very favorably. It is not uncommon for parents to volunteer at the schoollibrary, help during social gatherings at the school, raise funds for the school, serve asguest speakers, maintain the school garden, etc. The content and direction of the participa-tion subscale seems to ring the same bell in both the American and Asian Indian contexts,and that explains the high scores of the Asian Indian teachers in this subscale.

Assessment of children’s performance is a very daunting task for Asian Indian teach-ers. Individual assessments and performance-based assessment are not the norm in theIndian context. Typically children are tested on monthly tests and periodic exams whichare content-based. The scores on these tests and exams are critical in promoting the childto the next class. The Asian Indian society also favors such assessment and ranking ofchildren’s work. High scores on these exams usually ensure admission into engineeringand medical schools, which is much desired in the Asian Indian society. Given such anenvironment, teachers are left with no choice other than to use these content-based assess-ment strategies, and it comes as no surprise that these teachers do not perceive perfor-mance-based assessment strategies as an appropriate means of assessment.

Since assessment and test and exam results play such an important role, Asian Indianteachers tend to “teach to the test” in order to prepare the students to do well in the exams.Moreover, teachers in the Asian Indian context have very little freedom in creating theirown tests. Another limiting factor is the class size. Typically there are about 25–30 stu-dents in a classroom with no aide. Given this situation, it becomes very hard for the teach-ers to create and administer appropriate performance-based tests. Similarly, the schools inthe Asian Indian system follow one of four curricular practices across the entire country:the Indian Certified School Examination, the Central Board of Secondary Examination,the State Board of Examination or the Matriculation Board of Examination. Thus, depend-ing on which school the teacher is teaching in, he/she has to follow a specified curriculum.Moreover, in the Indian context a lot of focus is given to scores for each of the contentareas; therefore, not much emphasis is placed on integrating subject areas and awarenessof child development across the curriculum. However, this does not mean that teachers donot have to take into consideration each child’s developmental history and needs whenimparting lessons. Closer examination of the responses of the teachers seems to indicatethat lack of an applied knowledge of Western notions of child development and pressurefrom the administration were some of the roadblocks for them in meeting the individualneeds of the children. This brings up the issue of the meaning of developmentally appro-priate practices in various countries.

What is considered developmentally appropriate in one country might be consideredinappropriate in another. Thus, as teacher educators we need to start thinking about how

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

McM

aste

r U

nive

rsity

] at

22:

12 2

1 D

ecem

ber

2014

Page 7: Beliefs about the Importance of Use of Developmentally Appropriate Practices Among Early Childhood Teachers in India

280 S. Jambunathan

we can study the teaching practices of countries different from our own without appearingto make judgments about the “right” way to teach. This sentiment is echoed by variousearly childhood professionals who are urging us to look beyond our environment and learnabout how we can improve our practices based on this new information (Gupta, 2003;Hoot et al., 1996; Sanagavarapu & Wong, 2004). This information may prove to be usefulin preparing our teachers to develop their own culturally responsive philosophy of earlychildhood education and teaching (Grant & Wieczorek, 2002; McAllister & Irvine, 2000).This information could be used by teachers to globalize their teaching beliefs and strate-gies to better meet the needs of children and families from other countries.

This study has some important limitations. At present analyses have not been done ofpossible correlations between the participants’ levels of education and the specifics oftheir beliefs about DAP, or of possible correlations between the settings in which theteachers are working and their beliefs about DAP. These remain interesting questions thatshould be explored through further analysis.

References

Bredekamp, S. (Ed.), (1987). Developmentally appropriate practices in early childhood programsserving children from birth through age eight (Expanded Ed.,). Washington, DC: National Asso-ciation for the Education of Young Children.

Bredekamp, S., & Copple, C. (Eds.), (1997). Developmentally appropriate practices in early child-hood programs. Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children.

Burts, D. C., Hart, C. H., Charlesworth, R., DeWolf, D. M., Ray, J., & Manuel, K., et al. (1993).Developmental appropriateness of kindergarten programs and academic outcomes in first grade.Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 8(1), 23–31.

Burts, D. C., Buchanan, T. & De Wolf, M. (1997) Teacher Beliefs Questionnaire, Baton Rouge; LA:Louisiana State University.

Charlesworth, R., Hart, C. H., Burts, D. C., & DeWolf, M. (1993). The LSU studies: Building aresearch base for developmentally appropriate practice. Advances in Early Education and DayCare, 5, 3–28.

Charlesworth, R., Hart, C. H., Burts, D. C., Thomasson, R. H., Mosley, J., & Fleege, P. (1993). Mea-suring developmental appropriateness of kindergarten teachers’ beliefs and practices. EarlyChildhood Research Quarterly, 8, 255–276.

Dunn, L., & Kontos, S. (1997). Research and review: What have we learned about developmentallyappropriate practices?. Young Children, 52(5), 4–13.

Govindarajan, G., & Malathi, V. (1993). Teacher education in India. Education, 114(2), 265–272.Grant, C. A., & Wieczorek, K. (2002). Teacher education and knowledge in the knowledge society: The

need for social moorings in our multicultural schools. Teachers College Record, 102(5), 913–935.Gupta, A. (2003). Socio-cultural-historical constructivism in the preparation and practice of early

childhood teachers in New Delhi, India. Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, 24(3),163–170.

Hoot, J. L., Parmar, R. S., Hujala-Huttunen, E., Cao, Qiuping C, & Chacon, A. M. (1996). Cross-national perspectives on developmentally appropriate practices for early childhood programs.Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 10(2), 160–169.

Larsen, J. M., & Robinson, C. C. (1989). Later-effects of low risk on preschool children. EarlyChildhood Research Quarterly, 4, 133–144.

Marcon, R. (1994). Doing the right thing for children: Linking research and policy reform in theDistrict of Columbia public schools. Young Children, 50(1), 8–20.

Mc Allister, G., & Irvine, J. J. (2000). Cross-cultural competency and multicultural teacher educa-tion. Review of Educational Research, 70(1), 3–24.

Paranjoti, V. (1969). East and west in Indian education. Lucknow, India: Lucknow PublishingHouse.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

McM

aste

r U

nive

rsity

] at

22:

12 2

1 D

ecem

ber

2014

Page 8: Beliefs about the Importance of Use of Developmentally Appropriate Practices Among Early Childhood Teachers in India

Beliefs About Use of Appropriate Practices in India 281

Sanagavarapu, P., & Wong, M. (2004). An exploratory study of early childhood educators’ views onculture and play. Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, 24(4), 303–309.

Smith, M. L., & Shepard, L. A. (1988). Kindergarten readiness and retention: A qualitative study ofteachers’ beliefs and practices. American Educational Research Journal, 25, 307–333.

Stipek, D., Daniels, D., Galluzzo, D., & Milburn, S. (1992). Characterizing early childhood educa-tion programs for poor and middle-class children. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 7, 1–20.

Verma, S., & Peters, D. L. (1975). Day care teachers’ practices and beliefs. The Alberta Journal ofEducational Research, 21(1), 46–55.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

McM

aste

r U

nive

rsity

] at

22:

12 2

1 D

ecem

ber

2014

Page 9: Beliefs about the Importance of Use of Developmentally Appropriate Practices Among Early Childhood Teachers in India

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

McM

aste

r U

nive

rsity

] at

22:

12 2

1 D

ecem

ber

2014