Experiences of administrators and teachers espousing child-centred learning in three Utah County charter kindergartens

Abstract

In the United States, national laws regarding education have been pushing for higher standards in terms of academic rigour and accountability. Standards-based education is now the law of the land. In response to these legal and political pressures, highly structured, didactic pedagogical approaches have become more common in kindergarten, the first year of state-funded education (comparable to Grade R in South Africa). Utah, specifically, has the largest class sizes and the lowest per-pupil funding of any state in the US, compounding the challenges in protecting child-centred pedagogical approaches. Because of these pressures, child-centred pedagogical practices have become threatened in kindergarten to make way for more direct-instruction, highly academic work with narrow focus on math and literacy achievement. The problem facing kindergarten stakeholders is how to incorportate child-centred practices in the face of these new pressures and expectations. This research seeks to elucidate what three Utah County Charter Schools are doing to include child-centred practices in their kindergartens by examining the experiences of administrators and teachers who establish or maintain these programmes. The objectives of the study are these: to explore how child-centred kindergartens are established, determine specific strategies used by administrators and teachers to support child-centred learning in kindergarten, and to identify resources necessary to maintain a child-centred kindergarten programme. For this qualitative study, the public websites of all charter elementary schools in Utah County were consulted and all those that indicated they use child-centred approaches were selected as case study sites. From each of these three schools, one administrator and any experienced kindergarten teachers were invited to participate. One administrator and two teachers from Site A, two teachers from Site B, and the sole kindergarten teacher at Site C all participated. These six participants were all interviewed. A classroom at each site was observed. Documents regarding child-centred practices at each site were collected. Gathering data using these three methods bolsters the creditability of the findings. Framework analysis, chosen for its qualities of weighing all data equally and usefulness in evaluating the application of theory, was conducted on the data from the interviews, observations and documents. Significant findings include substantial agreement among participants with the literature in philosophies and strategies espoused by other child-centred programmes. Interestingly, all three schools profess very distinct philosophies: one Montessori, one Waldorf and one with a general emphasis on discovery- and play-based learning. However, despite their differences they all have successful child-centred kindergartens. One strategy common to them all is their schedule. They all have full-day programmes, over twice as much daily time as Utah law requires for kindergarten, and they all budget significant time for play. Other findings common between sites include extensive resource use in terms of toys, space and hands-on learning materials. A surprising finding is that there is a lack of training in child-centred approaches given to teachers at Site A and Site B, yet these kindergartens still have many child-centred elements. One possible explanation for this success despite minimal training is the unifying philosophy each school is founded on, codified in each school’s charter. Recommendations based on this research include both theoretical and practical recommendations. Theoretically, children would benefit from their school adopting a unifying philosophy across a school; this would help teachers to self-regulate and self-train according a shared set of balues. Practical recommendations include striving for small teacher: pupil ratios, devoting adequate resources to kindergarten, making child choice a part of every day, and providing children in kindergarten with a wealth and variety of experiences.