Dangerous time: a critical qualitative inquiry into early childhood educators' perspectives on planning time in southern Ontario

Abstract

This critical qualitative inquiry lifts the silenced voices of early childhood educators about their perspectives on planning time. Planning time is essential for educators to plan and document ongoing curriculum-making. Yet, not all educators are afforded this time, exacerbating poor wages and working conditions and contributing to stress, burnout and high turnover rates. Framed with feminist poststructuralism and queer time, this study situates planning time within discourses of neoliberalism and developmentalism and reconceptualizes it as a dangerous site of transformation and activism. Nine ECEs participated in a focus group discussion, and two provided written responses. The findings support educators’ need for daily, ample time with their partners to plan and document curriculum along with a revision of unrealistic expectations. Moreover, this study discovers how educators are resisting oppressive power and discourses and identifies how they may further use the transformational document, How Does LearningHappen? as tool in their resistance. Keywords: early childhood educators, planning time, transformation, resistance, neoliberalism, developmentalism

Stop ‘under-mind-ing’ early childhood educators: Honouring subjectivity in pre-service education to build intellectual and relational capacities

“…This is part of the work of teaching, to cast a tale where no one is damaged by living in whirls of words, ideas, images, apprehensions and joys that are partly beyond his or her ken, but, hopefully, no one is left quite the same. (Jardine, 2013: 3)…”

“…Ultimately, what underlies our work is a hope that students will resist pressures to conform to being a 'good educator' (Johnston, 2019;Langford, 2007) and strive instead for 'good work' (Jardine, 2013).…”

How Does Learning Happen? Ontario’s Pedagogy of Oppression?: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Ontario’s Early Years Pedagogical Framework

“…Neoliberalism is an economic system that promotes a global free trade marketplace, minimizes government interference, and focuses on individualism, competition, and consumerism (B. Davies & Bansel, 2007;Johnston, 2021). Governments take on a marketplace model that reduces taxes, limiting their ability to provide services to citizens, and that filters all policies and programs through a risk and reward business model.…”

“…The Ontario government's neoliberal stance on education policy and curriculum oppresses ECEs through the marketization of services, which in turn encourages profits over quality, performance evaluation, and surveillance of professional expectations (Cotton, 2001;Courtney, 2016;A. Davies et al, 2022;Johnston, 2021;Perryman et al, 2017;Richardson & Langford, 2022). This oppression is amplified by poor working conditions, the absence of supports, and burnout.…”

“…Delaune (2019), for example, states, "The OECD promotes particular and narrowly defined domains of learning as 'best, ' couching their educational 'values' within the neoliberal economic discourse, and setting a narrow scope for children to learn and develop within" (p. 63). Due to the consumer-based nature of childcare in Ontario, these pressures are heightened and may be viewed as oppressive (Johnston, 2021;Powell, Fearns, & Burrell, 2021). The competition to be the highest quality is driven by parents, who are the consumers of childcare services and who choose what program is the best for their child, increasing the pressure for ECEs to perform-and naturalizing the oppression of ECEs.…”