Narratives of infants’ encounters with curriculum: Beyond the curriculum of care

Abstract

Australia’s National Quality Framework identifies responsibilities for early childhood educators who work with infants to plan for and assess their learning. Educators are urged to be ‘responsive to children’s ideas and play’ and to ‘assess, anticipate and extend children’s learning’. Responsiveness in relation to infants is often couched in terms of emotional support and attention to the attachment relationship, or in detailed guidance about supporting the infant in care routines. Drawing on Levinas’s ideas of ethical encounter to frame a consideration of infants’ learning more broadly, this article suggests the possibility to see beyond traditional perceptions of infants as objects of the attachment relationship, and identifies the potential for infants to be viewed as ‘initiators’ who guide educators’ responses. Working with Levinas’s ideas of absolute responsibility in the face-to-face encounter, the notion of ‘response-ableness’ is used to examine educators’ decisions and actions as they share in learning encounters with infants. Using video footage captured during an infant’s encounter with learning, the decisions of the educator prove influential. Creating a narrative of this experience illuminates the educator’s response-ableness, and shows how an infant’s ideas and investigations might form the basis of the learning encounter. Close examination of educator response-ableness may lead to richer possibilities for infants’ encounters with learning, beyond the curriculum of care.

Challenging or creative? Impatient or curious? Disposition discourse in the early years

“…One practitioner referred to two-year olds as being interested but went on to say 'you can easily get them interested in any activity' using resources indicating that children need adults to gage their interest. This one-way transmission of knowledge and skills is also evident in the perception that the role of the adult is to make 'sure we are there to interact quite a lot as well because they learn from us' and supports Cheeseman's (2017) view that practice is affected when there is a perception that adults hold the wisdom and responsibility and are experts (Degotardi, 2017).…”

“…Best practice focussing on age related norms demonstrates an emphasis on 'becoming' rather than 'being' and 'belonging,' favouring and promoting dominant ways of knowing, thinking and acting (Ebrahim, 2010). Certainty is assured where children's learning, development and care is limited to well-known discourses around attachment theory and child development (Cheeseman, 2017) however, by reducing certainty and reliance of dominant discourses or ways of knowing, educators open up new possibilities for young children (Degotardi, 2017). It is argued therefore that early childhood education should not be concerned simply with developmentally discrete learners who can be categorised into infant, toddler and pre-school classifications (Farquhar and White, 2014).…”

“…The challenge of viewing children in the ways outlined above is that 'Becoming's' (Reynaert and Roose, 2014) hinder agency (Stoecklin and Fattore, 2017). It is apparent that young children, in particular, infants and toddlers lack agency (Cheeseman, 2017, Adair, 2014, Buzzelli, 2018 where the voices of young children are "silenced under the weight of "adult" psychological, educational and policy constructions of and for them" (Cannella, 2002:162). These perspectives restrict the capacity of early childhood practitioners to support learning appropriate to individual children (Murray, 2015).…”

“…These responses indicate that children's capacities, their agency and their agendas are not at the forefront of practice and this serves to limit opportunities for responsive encounters and deep engagement (Cheeseman, 2017). One practitioner referred to two-year olds as being interested but went on to say 'you can easily get them interested in any activity' using resources indicating that children need adults to gage their interest.…”

“…This co-construction could be embedded in practice if practitioners relied less on taken for granted assumptions based upon child development theory (Cheeseman, 2017) inherent in policy documents such as the EYFS. By adopting a mind mindedness approach (Degotardi, 2017) and acting as partners in learning, toddlers benediction, their interests, agendas and intents would be revealed (Cheeseman, 2017) and practitioners would be less constrained by a limited discourse. This however would require confidence and reflective practice, and this is dependent on the agency of practitioners which shall now be explored.…”