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The Danish National Federation of Early Childhood and Youth Educators
CONTENTS
2.
Preface
4.
Childcare and development
7.
Individual and community
12. Care
17. Play and communication
20. Learning
25. Parent-pedagogue cooperation
29. Postscript by Pernille Hviid,
associate professor,
University of Copenhagen
The text was written by Annette Wiborg based on focus group interviews with pedagogues Susanne Froberg,
head of ’Børnehuset Egebjerg’ in Ballerup, Anja Krogh Rasmussen, nursery pedagogue at ’Det Engelske Pakhus’
in Odense, Kirsten Bentsen, deputy head of the nursery ’Mariehønen’ in Holstebro, Mona Markussen, head of
the nursery ’Mariehønen’ in Holstebro and Jonna Uhre, BUPL Western Jutland, and Suz Wang, BUPL’s pedagogical team, BUPL Head Office. Postscript by Pernille Hviid, associate professor at Copenhagen University.
PREFACE
In recent years BUPL has been making a targeted effort to describe the pedagogical
profession. The intention is to describe what characterises the professionalism, knowledge and skills of pedagogues within the multitude of diverse pedagogical/educational
institutions and contexts.
One unique early childhood service is the nursery. To the untrained eye, the everyday
activities of a nursery may look like mere child minding and care giving. Moreover, it may
appear as ceaseless repetition of the same routines; but working with infants and
toddlers is much more than that. Early childhood education is extremely valuable,
absorbing, sophisticated and complex.
The number of nurseries is falling, and more and more daycare institutions are designed
as integrated 0-6-years institutions focusing on the entire group of children. This is certainly not without merit, but at the same time it means that the particular focus on specialised early childhood pedagogy has come under pressure – moreover, within the part
of the childcare sector that offers the lowest proportion of pedagogues.
But it remains important to keep focusing on early childhood education, since this
field is influential and significant for the entire world of pedagogy.
It is important once again to write theses and bachelor projects on early childhood
education and for researchers to start discovering and doing research within the field.
This booklet is intended as an introduction to an exciting and special part of the pedagogical profession. I hope the booklet will lead to increased focus on the potential of
nurseries and early childhood education. Such renewed focus will serve several purposes.
Firstly to attract more pedagogues to early childhood education, also within the integrated daycare centres, but also to make more pedagogues choose nurseries as their
place of work. Secondly, the booklet is intended to inspire the educational institutions
to renew focus on early childhood education. At the same time, it is to be hoped that
also politicians and parents will want to read along, and that the booklet in this way may
open the eyes of the external environment to the exciting and special world of early
childhood education.
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BUPL hopes that many people will find inspiration and points of interest in this booklet.
Both those who are already familiar with the field, but also those for whom this provides
the initiation into an entirely new and interesting part of the pedagogical profession.
The text was written by Annette Wiborg based on focus group interviews with pedagogues Susanne Froberg, head of ’Børnehuset Egebjerg’ in Ballerup, Anja Krogh Rasmussen, nursery pedagogue at ’Det Engelske Pakhus’ in Odense, Kirsten Bentsen,
deputy head of the nursery ’Mariehønen’ in Holstebro, Mona Markussen, head of the
nursery ’Mariehønen’ in Holstebro and Jonna Uhre, BUPL Western Jutland, and Suz
Wang, BUPL’s pedagogical team, BUPL Head Office. Postscript by Pernille Hviid,
associate professor at Copenhagen University.
We hope you’ll enjoy reading the booklet.
Lasse Bjerg Jørgensen
Member of the Executive Committee
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CHILDCARE AND DEVELOPMENT
Childcare and development are not each other’s opposites but
two important components of the early childhood education.
For pedagogues working in nurseries, childcare is not a matter of passive child-minding but of active early childhood education. It is a matter of registering and taking care of the child’s
needs and wishes for the purpose of initiating processes of
development.
A nyone can mind children. The neighbour can look after the children, granny can sing
a song and read a little story, grandad can take them for a walk, and adolescent school-
girls can pick them up and change their nappies and give them a bit to eat until mum
and dad return. Children need looking after, but they also need to thrive, to play and develop while being looked after.
Today children attend nursery as they will later attend kindergarten and school. They
come to be stimulated and to join a rich community with other children and adults. Far
too often early childhood education for children of 0-3 years is regarded as merely a
matter of child minding. But the pedagogues in nurseries have a more profound job
which is to do with care, socialization, learning and education.
THE LARGE WITHIN THE SMALL
Through their education, nursery pedagogues have been prepared to take on this responsi-bility. From the moment the child is received at the nursery, a relation is created
between the pedagogue, the child and the other children which, through planned educational routines and pedagogical activities, is designed to make the child thrive and
grow and prepare it for meeting the world. A world which is concerned with much else
besides ”dirty nappies, feeding bottles and a midday nap”.
What appears to be just another nappy change on the changing table, may actually be
the initiation of close communication between adult and child. Communication that contributes to strengthening closeness and to developing the child’s linguistic competen-
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cies: ”Is there something in your nappy? Do you want to come up on the changing
table? – Do you need to finish playing and then go change the nappy afterwards?” or
”Oops, you could do with a change of nappy, couldn’t you? Come on, let’s put you on
the changing table”… Chatting and baby-talking pedagogue and child will then move
towards the changing table together: ”Do you think you could get up there yourself? –
Why, you’re doing very well! – Look, now we’re raising the table”, ”Can you lie down? –
Well, now we need to get you out of this nappy!”, ”There we go! Hello, I can see you
navel! – Where’s it gone?...Oh, there it is!”
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THE NURSERY AS DEVELOPMENT SPACE
The emotional contact, the sense of security, the caretaking, the development of language and the senses and the possibility of communicating with the little children are
what makes the changing table one of the most significant places in the nursery. At the
table, the pedagogue will allow herself ample time, because she knows that this is the
place to get the child to respond with its full range of facial expressions and body
language and for establishing a small part of the foundations on which the child is to
develop.
The nursery pedagogue will create a development space for the child through the
way she changes its nappy, teaches it to eat with a spoon and drink from a cup, inspires it to play, and the way she talks and sings to the child, tells it stories and puts it to
sleep. Children do not develop by themselves. In the nursery, the individual child will
take other children and grown-ups as its example and – in the words of one pedagogue
– it is given a wall to play up against.
”It is not the dirty nappy that I’m thinking of but all the other things that have to do
with feeding the children, changing their nappies and putting them to sleep. These
sorts of situations create a multitude of possibilities. Possibilities that allow them to
develop physically, emotionally, linguistically and socially… everything!”
At one and the same time, it is the pedagogue’s job to be aware of the individual child’s
possibilities and potential. It is a matter of paying attention, understanding and seeing
things from the child’s perspective – from the point of view of the changing table, the
roadside or the dining table.
”In a nursery time is of the essence, and if we have too little time, it may have fatal
consequences, for we depend on time to be present, to observe, to anticipate, to intervene or to initiate. Time to observe how the children contact each other. Time to
practice drinking from a cup and holding a fork. Time to interpret their needs. There
are no shortcuts to development, it takes time.”
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INDIVIDUAL AND COMMUNITY
The infant or toddler who is just starting in the nursery must
learn to deal with adults and children and to compete with
many others for attention.
Children develop and learn together with other children and grown-ups, and during
their first year they slowly discover the other children. The early-childhood pedagogue
focuses on the individual child but also on the entire group.
In the nursery, pedagogues ensure that children of different backgrounds, sex and
age can function and develop together. The social communities and the dialogue
provide these children with experience of solving conflicts and partaking in democratic
processes.
”As a pedagogue, with my personal and professional resources and time, I am able
to focus on each individual, small human being and experience its personality very
much to the benefit of the group as a whole. The more I know about the child, the
better I will be able to plan activities and provide a framework that fosters good relations with other children”.
Based on solid professionalism and awareness of the needs of this age group, early
childhood pedagogues plan relevant educational programmes for the individual child
and the group as a whole. From 0-3 years the child increasingly develops a need to
enter into relationships with others of the same age, and the nursery is especially wellequipped for creating valuable communities for children.
”It is important for children to be part of a community. At the nursery, we practice
being part of the community, and the community learns from the individual. It is a
two-way process. You learn to listen to others, to hold back a little and put off your
own needs.”
One of the strengths of the nursery is its role as an environment for both infants,
toddlers and slightly older children who are getting ready for kindergarten. At the nursery, the 11 months old toddler is in a position to take the example of other toddlers,
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help a baby of 8 months find its dummy and to copy the big children of 18 months, who
do the most wonderful things. At the nursery, children form their first friendships.
”If a small kid starts worming along the floor in one of the group rooms, it will only
be a matter of a few minutes before all the children enthusiastically start worming
along the floor. And if one of them suddenly stands up, we will soon see others doing
the same – apart from those who are so young that they must settle for watching in
wide-eyed wonder.”
MANY CHILDREN TOGETHER
At the nursery, someone is always taking the lead and showing the others what the
world has to offer. Once it was believed that children that young were unable to benefit
from the company of other children. But experience from nurseries is confirmed by recent research within the field. Children are not necessarily very old before they start
showing their appreciation of being with others and start coming up with things and
showing each other what they do – and being thrilled by the response from other children. In the words of one pedagogue: ”The children are incredibly fond of each other and
don’t need to be very old before they smile and point when a mother enters, carrying a
child: – That’s Emma!”
Children develop within the community with others, and in the nursery the pedagogue
provides a framework within which both to acquire experience independently and as a
part of the community. There must be floor space and pillows and mattresses on which
to tumble around, and there must be quiet corners where they can sit together and
build a tower and then topple it. Space for everyone to sit together in a circle and play
patticake, sing songs and have stories read to them. The fact of having several children
together is decisive for the creation of a community.
”One of our tasks as pedagogues is to create a framework that supports the community and the joy of being a part of it”.
A FRAMEWORK FOR DEVELOPMENT
The design of the nursery is the result of pedagogical considerations on how to create
the prerequisites for the well-being and development of young children aged 0-3. Inside
as well as outside. There must be light, mirrors and windows for the children to look out
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of, so that they can observe what goes on in the world together with the pedagogue:
”Look at that little bird sitting there!” – ”Hello, that’s Julie coming along on a bicycle.
She’s in a hurry, isn’t she! or ”Did you see Anton just now. Isn’t he just a wizard with that
swing”.
At the nursery, the children are not placed in rooms designed for entirely different
purposes, and much of the day is spent outside – in the playground, in the sand box,
under the big tree or out on a walk, which may never go any further than the exciting
rock that hides a world of woodlice if only you lift it a little.
TRAILS AND IMMERSION
The pedagogue will have planned her or his activities with the children. But plans can
always be changed, because it is important to be in the present and to be open to what
captivates the children – it is a matter of strengthening their curiosity and capturing their
interests. The day of the outing, when they got no further than the nearest mouse hole,
may turn into a star moment that children and grown-ups in the nursery will remember
for a long time ahead: ”Do you remember the day we saw all the ants marching in a long
line carrying loads on their backs?”
Immersion into the individual child and experiencing the personality of the small human
being are some of the things that enrich the pedagogue’s work at the nursery – and the
child’s sense of being seen. The more the pedagogue knows about the individual child,
the more she or he will be able to offer the children environments in which to develop
and create relations to other children. Both in the group room and in the playground or
on the outing with the neighbouring group. But to be able to provide that, the staff most
have the required personal and professional resources as well as the time needed.
Committed and professionally competent pedagogues immerse themselves in the children. It is all about following in the children’s trail, capturing their interests and making
them conscious of sharing them with each other. Making the children want to do what
the others do and involving them in the community.
”Often it is a matter of coincidence what develops into joint playing. I may be sitting with
a child in my lap. Another child is playing a ball which is rolling towards us, and I catch
it and roll it back: ”Look, how that made Cecilie happy. Now the ball is rolling towards
her… Hello, now she’s rolling it over to you!” It is all about seizing the opportunities for
creating relations, to put what we do into words and to develop a sense of empathy …”
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JOY AND PRESENCE
Humour, fun, joy and authentic presence contribute to shaping a community in which
children and adults may prosper. One of the pedagogues may be good at doing magic
tricks and may within an instant attract the attention of all the children when she spirits
away the bib. Another may have some other exciting skills that will attract the children’s
attention.
But best of all is when the children discover that they can help each other: ”Look how
happy that made Anton! It’s so good that you give him the teddy bear!” It’s all about making the children curious about each other, about putting it into words and strengthening the encounter between children and adults.
”There is nothing so cool as to see a proud child of 2½ saving the day for a small
baby boy by fetching his cup and pouring him some milk from the big jar. The
cooperation of the big children to help the little ones contributes to creating a valuable community in the nursery.”
These things do not appear out of thin air. In the nursery the children are supported in
being attentive to others, in listening, waiting a bit and putting off their own needs. This
is not nec-essarily something children can do, just like that, if they are they are used to
being an only child and the centre of a family of three. But they can learn that in a nursery, where they experience the joy of community and of being assisted into that community by pedagogues who are sensitive to the relationship of each individual to the
group.
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CARE
Children have a basic need of care in order to develop. Giving
care to 0-3-year-old children is about pedagogues, through
their interest, support and encouragement, creating the
necessary framework to strengthen the children’s independent
initiative, activities and desire to explore their surrounding
environment.
Working as a nursery pedagogue, the element of care is implicit in everything you do.
From the time when mum and dad arrive with the child in the morning and the pedagogue welcomes them, establishes eye contact, exchanges information about the child
and the plans for the day and makes sure that the moment of departure will be a positive experience for both parents and child.
”We also need to show care for the parents when they hand over the child. If the child
is feeling a bit upset, we show care by telling the parents that it is OK for the child
to cry, because feeling sad is a legitimate feeling. Rather than just saying: ”Don’t
worry, just leave”, we are showing them that we know what it’s all about.”
Showing care is being actively concerned with the children’s needs, knowing their signals and taking care of their development. The child may have had a bad morning or
may be feeling sad when mum and dad leave or may need comforting for other reasons.
Care is making sure that the child is developing properly, physically as well as psychologically. That the child is getting the rest and the food and drink it needs and that it
uses its body and develops its senses and its motor functions. Care is being attentive
to the child’s well-being and showing interest, commitment and empathy for whatever
fascinates the child. Capturing the child’s initiatives, even if it cannot express them in
words, listening and communicating – at the changing table as well as at a quiet moment with the child in her lap or walking hand in hand on an outing with the nursery.
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”I had a child in my group who smelled and appeared to be neglected. His nose was
running, and one day I discovered that he had lice. We had in fact decided not to
bathe the children but in this case we felt that he needed to experience the caregiving that a nice warm bath represents and to be coddled and to have a nice rub
with some lotion. He was also treated against lice. To us it is a question of what the
individual child needs. Care must be a matter of individual needs, and we must give
it wherever necessary …”.
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DIFFERENT NEEDS
Children attend nursery for widely different reasons. And the pedagogues are trained to
register what the individual child needs and provide care accordingly. Early childhood education is especially cognisant of vulnerable children, and the professional pedagogue
will reflect on their needs and will know what it takes to create a safe environment that
ensures healthy development.
”At the nursery you must expect to encounter more sophisticated insight – more
perspectives. We see the child in different ways simply because there are several of
us. Likewise, there is a greater chance that the children will find a friend with whom
they are temperamentally matched, simply because there are more children of the
same age.”
Some children may need to be picked up and talked to or to rest safely on your arm
while enjoying their feeding bottle. Other children are more ready to explore their
surroundings and do things for themselves. Children should have equal opportunities but
not be treated equally. Meeting the individual child’s needs for care requires professional
insight and systematic reflection.
”Our strongest point is the professionalism that enables us to create the best possible learning environments for the children in our care. We have the required knowledge to spot the children with special needs and the tools to provide them with
what they need. It is not a matter of stigmatising them but of creating environments
that are conducive to making them learn in the best possible way based on their
individual requirements.”
The insight into children’s basic needs also helps ensure that it will be possible to identify any early signs of abuse, neglect or developmental problems that the child may give
off. At the nursery several employees are responsible for the children, but from time to
time the staff may decide that one employee should be especially responsible for an
individual child, while the colleagues take care of the rest of the group. This capacity for
flexibility, prompt reorganisation and taking the current situation of the group of children
into account is one of the strong points of early childhood education.
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SOCIALISING
Socialising is part of the care. At the nursery the child learns how to get on with others,
and while the children are being taught how to handle the close community of the nursery, they are becoming socialised for the large community that awaits them outside. The
way in which everyday activities are organised and the norms and values are passed on
to the children by the staff, provide them with an early understanding of the rules and
demands that must be met if children and grown-ups are to live together in a community.
”There are some rules and standards built into the way we organise our activities at
the nursery. We are very consciously working with specific forms of planning and
terms of socialisation and the rules for being a member of our community. The children very quickly learn what is OK and what is not. They don’t have to be very old
before they start ’reporting’ on each other”: ”Oskar is standing on the table, he’s not
supposed to, is he??”
SONGS AND BOOKS
From infancy the children are sung to and told stories. This strengthens their linguistic
devel-opment and teaches them to use the language to express emotions, thoughts
and needs and to communicate with others.
”We had some students visit us from college and they asked the children who was
in charge in the nursery. The older children replied: ”The grown-ups but some times
we decide what’s to happen”. – ”How do you mean?”, the students asked, and one
child answered: ”Some times I decide what we are going to sing”. The children learn
to take responsibility to the extent they can manage. This is also giving care:
Helping the children to coordinate demands and choices.”
Songs, nursery rhymes and little stories from books with a lot of pictures contribute to
developing the children’s language. Sitting in a circle at the nursery, with the children
listening and intensely observing the pedagogue while she reads, tells a story or makes
funny gestures, is one of the activities at the nursery that is capable of engaging young
and old alike. The little ones may sit in the laps of the grown-ups, while others sit on the
floor, absorbing everything. The same song, the same story read over and over again,
and gradually the children come to know the story of ’Goldilocks’ or familiar children’s
songs by heart.
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”The children can almost sing before they can talk, and songs are very useful for their
linguistic development. They learn the melody of the language, and even if they do not
under-stand the silly nursery rhymes, their sense of language is stimulated. It is important to develop their senses continually and in different ways. And to repeat and do the
same over and over again.”
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PLAY AND COMMUNICATION
Pedagogues create the space and framework for the children’s
learning processes by planning and initiating different activities
and by supporting the children in learning from each other by
experiencing, investigating and experimenting together.
C hildren learn about the world from using their bodies and senses. The motor skill
acquired by jumping and dancing, climbing and running, develop their self confidence,
their ability to concentrate and their physical well-being.
Children’s play develops hugely during the years they attend nursery. From being
absorbed by things and objects that move and make sounds to starting to experiment
and putting things together, knocking them over and putting them on top of each other
and discovering what they can do: That a ball may roll, a telephone make a noise.
”We show the way. And some things we have to show them quite deliberately. For
instance how to play together with dolls or cars. Some children gather all the cars in
a big pile just for themselves and need to learn how to involve the other children in
the playing”.
After a few months they become more and more aware of each other, and the parallel
playing turns in to communal playing: Running around the table in a chain of children,
shouting with joy, or throwing yourselves on the mattresses, one after each other, finally
ending up in a big pile. The distance from joy to tears is short, and the little ones will
imitate the older children who are brimful of good ideas. Chairs and stools are put up in
a row and turn into a bus full of little and big passengers with up to several bus drivers.
Without actually communicating in words, they catch each other’s initiatives and discover what they are on to.
At this point it is still too early for true role-playing, because the rules have not quite
been established, but it is during these months and years that the children learn to
play alone and together with others. The body and the language are involved, and the
playing helps develop the communication between the children. They are developing a
sense of themselves and their surroundings.
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OBSERVANT INTERPRETERS
But it is not just a matter of free play. The pedagogues at the nursery are watching or
initiating from the sideline, ready to intervene if the playing takes an unfortunate direction, or to inspire the children and handle disagreement and help them join the playing
and involve each other.
”I had a very spirited little girl who was very good and initiating playing. But the other
children were not always willing to go along, and that would make her quite desperate. We had to tell her that we understood why she was upset but that it is OK
to say no. At other times, the opposite is the case: That a child is not allowed to join
in. It may be OK for two children to refuse to allow a third child to join, but in such
cases it is our job to make sure that the same children are not refused time and
again.”
It may be necessary for the adult to mediate and infuse the playing with new substance
and direction. This requires attentiveness and imagination – and experience of interpreting the children’s intentions. Even if the children’s activities may appear unstructured
and meaningless, they often contain an agenda that the pedagogues must be able to
discover: ”We need to be observant interpreters”, in the words of one pedagogue.
”We are our own tools but we do not have to perform at peak level everyday all day
long. The beauty of it is that the responsibility is shared among many. The professional level must be such that quality of care is maintained, irrespective of whether
the individual is ’on’ or not. The professionalism is always there.”
SOCIAL COMPETENCIES
The development of social competencies is the basis of children’s friendships and play.
For the playing to be successful, the children must be able to negotiate with each other
and take turns in coming up with initiatives and taking charge. The children must see
themselves as part of the group. This requires the assistance of an adult who is observant of the negotia-tions that take place within the group of children and who can support the child that wants to join but for some reason is prevented from joining.
Understanding the codes, the game plan and all the ideas that emerge along the
way, takes practice and negotiation skills at a high level. Being able to communicate
your wishes and ideas in such a way that other children will understand requires many
competencies.
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”A large group of children are running up and down the hallway, and it’s a lot of fun.
A little boy is watching. ”Wouldn’t you like to join?” – ”How about it?”. It is such a
big thing to play along, and often it takes very little. And the joy of the child is all the
greater!”
Playing is an educational process of socialisation. Through playing the children learn to
come to terms with each other and establish some rules. They become ”aware” of each
other’s capabilities, and they learn to put things into words and listen rather than hit and
bite, and it re-quires presence of mind and knowledge of when to intervene – and when
to let the children settle the conflict themselves.
”The children learn that it is OK to say no. It is important to learn to do that in other
contexts: The fact that I decide what I want and do not want and that it’s OK.”
INTERACTION OF ADULT AND CHILD
At the nursery the focus is on nonverbal communication and the interaction between
adult and child. The pedagogue focuses on the child and mirrors the children’s body
language and facial expressions while putting her actions into words: ”Show me how big
you are?”– ”Now I’m going to pick you up! There we go!” – ”This is how big you are!” –
”Now I’m going to take a wet piece of cloth …”
Equally important is putting the children’s emotions into words: ”I can see that you
are upset!” or ”Hello, I think you would like to play with this car?”
”The conversation with the child is carried on in a sort of baby language. We have something going on together and our conversation is based on our individual abilities. This is
what professor of psychology Daniel Stern terms ”affective attunement”: You know it as
a mother when you interpret your baby’s needs before it can talk. You detect the
beginning of a smile and you are immediately attuned: ”Look, how you can smile!”
”Nursery pedagogues are really tuned in. You use yourself all the time: Down on the
floor, down at eye level, observe, listen, interpret. It is also a matter of guesswork! When
you work with little children you become very adept at reading signals. We become
code language specialists. Even little children are good at ’assisting’ by signalling that
we are guessing right.
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LEARNING
Learning takes place within a context in which the relations between children and pedagogues determine what skills and
knowledge the children acquire.
Children play in order to play. Not to learn anything in particular. But through playing
they develop their imagination and reasoning, and playing forms the basis of their daily
learning processes.
When pedagogues create the framework for the children’s learning processes, they
do so based on knowledge of the activities, games and forms of social intercourse that
correspond to the children’s age level and their physical and psychological development.
”You will always have doubts, for there are no unambiguous truths. But professional
sparring is very important. At the nursery we meddle in everything. If in doubt you can
always turn over things with a colleague. It is important to accept the correction and
support of your col-leagues.”
But learning does not only take place through deliberate and planned processes. Learning does not begin and end at any fixed point but will take place anywhere while the
child is awake. The children learn through sensing, experiencing, investigating, experimenting and imitating each other.
”We fully realise that we are role models, and the way we, as adults, demonstrate
care and cooperation with each other rubs off on the children. This is why getting on
well with each other as employees is uniquely important – and crucial to the wellbeing of the children. We have to enjoy going to work!”
Adults as well as older children serve as role models. Learning takes place when the
child is receptive and curious and feels safe within an environment that provides the
necessary care and sense of well-being. As one pedagogue puts it: ”Time and attentiveness are the most important qualities we can bring in order to provide the best
possible learning environments at the nursery”.
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”We have a job to do in terms of taking care of children who are somehow disadvantaged. There are little children who are in a really bad way and who have special needs
that prevent them from fully benefitting from learning environments. It is our job to create some environments that fit them and their needs.”
CURRICULUM
Nurseries work according to pedagogical targets formulated as a curriculum forming
the basis of a description of the children’s formalised learning processes. The curriculum puts into words the learning process organized for the children by the staff of the
individual nursery, from they are dropped off in the morning till they are picked up in the
afternoon.
”This is about being professionally able to document to the parents what I see what I believe has helped, what makes sense and what I intend to offer their child to develop its
language, challenge its motor development and do the best I can for their child.”
Nursery curricula are divided into six themes: Body and movement, All-round development of the child’s personality, Language, Social competencies, Nature and natural
phenomena and Cultural forms of expression and values. In the nursery’s business plan
the staff describe how they intend to work with the themes, and afterwards they may
choose to draft curricula based on various situations encountered in their daily educational routines.
”To us it makes sense to question whether we are doing things well enough. We want
to be-come wiser and choose some focal points that make us curious to know more.
Some of us have attended courses, others may have read an interesting book or heard
a presentation. We suggest the points we want to know more about and decide to focus
on them for a period and include them in the curriculum.”
REFLECTION
The curriculum reflects the learning that takes place at many levels of early childhood
education – vis-à-vis children, parents and colleagues. And through documentation it invites reflection and new initiatives: What do we wish to teach the children? When and
how do they learn? And what did they learn from this?
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”The major part of learning is a process taking place within ourselves: Are we doing
what we think we are doing? For this purpose, the curriculum may serve to verbalise
our actions, and it produces a kind of professional satisfaction to be able to see that
you have accomplished some of the things you set out to do.”
Documentation is an important part of the curriculum and serves as a tool for pedagogues, children and parents. In the words of one pedagogue: ”Giving children their
own narratives back through joint recollection is a good way of stimulating linguistic
development, and images and descriptions of activities at the nursery and at home are
a good way of bringing the two worlds together”.
MEALS
Meals at the nursery are a separate chapter. Sitting down together for a meal is very
much a learning experience, and many nurseries are known for their good food, which
is nutritionally adapted to little children between 0-3. When lunch is approaching, the
smell of freshly prepared food spreads throughout the institution, and the kids stick to
matron in the kitchen like flies to a flypaper.
”Our food is a source of eternal wonder to the parents, because here the children eat
everything! At home they like and they don’t like, but here they observe the salad
passing round and see that other children eat it happily. So they want it, too. Some
times it is just a matter of tasting it. Children imitate each other round the table, and we
do what we can to contribute to the good atmosphere …”
EATING CULTURE
A child that has never learnt to chew, because all it has ever had was gruel and a
feeding bottle, must be introduced to food that is eaten with the fingers or with a spoon
or fork. The pedagogue takes care that the food is healthy and that the child’s senses,
chewing muscles and fine motor skills are stimulated, but also that the child develops
the social competencies needed to be part of the community round a dining table.
Our eating together shows care for the community: ”Would you pass on the fruit bowl)
– Can you pour milk into Anton’s cup? – Xenia would also like to have a bite of banana,
will you pass it on to her?” We influence the children’s social lives at an early stage to
show them that we have a responsibility to each other and should not only care about
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ourselves. Being together when eating contributes to strengthening the children’s empathetic skills and gives them an early experience of being important for each other.”
In little groups the children adopt an eating culture that they carry with them throughout
their lives. At the nursery they taste and eat new things that they don’t know from home.
But many other pedagogical contexts are also inherent in the meal itself. At the table the
children must wait their turn to scoop up food or poor milk from the jar, and they are reminded that they must pass on the plate to others and that there must be enough for
everyone.
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SENSES
The meal is an occasion for verbal communication and the joy of life. We smell and we
taste, and all the senses are put to use when the little fingers try to catch the tasty but
slippery peas on the plate. The pedagogues exploit the communal eating to teach the
children how to put their impressions into words: ”There’s a smell of curry in here!” –
”What’s it taste like?”… The meal becomes an obvious opportunity for dialogue and
strengthening of the sense of com-munity in the group of children.
”Accommodating the sensual is a great challenge. A bit too often I come across children in kindergarten who do not want to have greasy fingers. These are children who
have not been pushed or pressed into anything, or who have had their fingers wiped
every time they have touched anything sticky. Children should have an early experience of touching the food. Before learning to eat with a fork, they must experience
how it feels to mess around with and sensing the food. One day a mother said: ”He
hasn’t got round to eating solid food yet because he is so messy” – ”Well, let’s get
on with it, then,” I replied”.
BEING ABLE TO DO THINGS FOR YOURSELF
The meals are some of the situations when children learn to do things for themselves.
And the pedagogues need to hold back and allow the children to get on without constant help from the grown-ups. Care is also about helping children to do things for themselves.
Many nurseries subscribe to the view of children expressed by the psychologist and
ergonomist, Lise Ahlmann, in her books on life at the nursery and the interaction of
children and adults. Her observations of how meaningful communities are created by
enlisting the help of the children have become part of the philosophy of early childhood
education:
”A young child strives to acquire competencies, self-control and the possibility for
entering into meaningful communities with others. Therefore, the aim of our care
must be to promote the children’s growth by enabling them to do things for themselves rather than a form of care-giving that turns them into objects of mechanical
care routines”.
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PARENT-PEDAGOGUE
COOPERATION
The close cooperation with the parents is valuable for the
educational work in the nursery. Through dialogue with the
parents, the pedagogue verbalises the child’s well-being and
development, and she offers counselling and guidance on
parenthood.
Good cooperation between parents and staff is of special significance when parents
drop off a small child who has not yet learned to talk. This presupposes an atmosphere
of trust, safety and openness, where parents are a natural part of the life of the institution.
Mum and dad must feel welcome and comfortable about dropping off their child.
Good contact must be established, and the parents must feel that they are able to influence the everyday life of their child in the nursery.
”There is a difference between dropping off a child, as it is done in kindergarten, and
the arm to arm handing-over, which is how we do it in the nursery. You are so close
to mum and dad that you can almost smell if they have had tea or coffee in the morning, or if they have had a glass of red wine the night before. The children hand over
their child to us, confident that ”it is good for our child”, even if they leave crying.
Now, that’s a big thing!”
Parents who have chosen to have their child attend a nursery expect that early childhood
education will meet the needs of their child for care and development. They often say
that they experience that their child needs to be with other children and become part of
a community with close relations between children and adults. And they expect the pedagogue to be a professionally qualified sparring partner in the project of raising and
educating their child.
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It is a major declaration of confidence for parents to hand over their 6-12 months old
baby to the pedagogue at the nursery and an equally great responsibility for the pedagogue to receive what is most precious for the parents.
”When parents are asked about the most important aspect of sending their child to
the nursery, they often say that it is the being together with other children. Of course
it is important that their child is comfortable and develops as it should but their
relations to other children are also of great importance. That they have a unique
opportunity of developing friendships”.
Good cooperation between the nursery and the home requires dialogue between
parents and staff to enable the parents to support the themes with which the group of
children is working. It may be a book or a song the children are especially fond of, or it
may be that the child is just now learning to eat with a fork. In these cases the parents
are able to support and back up the development, albeit without playing the part of
pedagogues at home.
In the words of one pedagogue: ”We can help the parents be good and attentive
parents. But they should not be given educational tasks. We take care of that.”
PARENTS MAKE DEMANDS
Today parents are very aware of their children’s development and make sure that the
peda-gogues are attentive to their children’s needs. Many parents read literature about
children and learn about the importance of acquiring social competencies and possibilities for establishing friendships to avoid exclusion.
”New parents are uncertain of their new roles and seek to do the best they can, and
the nursery pedagogue is able to challenge them and give them much needed feedback.”
Also, many parents have a feeling of uncertainty, and often the pedagogue must assume the role of educator – not just of the children but of the parents, too, who need to
learn that the children will be part of a community that must accommodate everyone.
A community of children with very different backgrounds who must all be treated differently in order to be treated equally.
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”We need to develop a good relationship with the children, of course, but equally important is a good relationship with the parents. Being able to small talk is an art. But
the very fact of having established good relations will make it easier if you have to
bring up some difficult or unpleasant matters one day.”
Parent meetings and arrangements during the year, where parents turn up at the nursery, contribute to strengthening the close cooperation. By virtue of her professionalism
and intimate knowledge of the child, the pedagogue will be able to challenge and advise the parents and meet their need to know that their child is developing as it should
and is offered the challenges that prepare it for meeting the world.
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POSTSCRIPT
By Pernille Hviid,
associate professor,
University of Copenhagen
“Much besides dirty nappies, feeding bottles and a midday nap”. This is how the pedagogues describe their work at the nursery in this booklet. Midday nap, dirty nappies and
feeding bottles is a modern version of ‘tranquillity, cleanliness and regularity’ which dominated our ap-proach to little children some decades ago. But there is more to early
childhood education today, the pedagogues say. They talk about the “children’s interests and engagements”, about their own ”close relations with the child” and not least
about the significance of the ”children’s mutual relations”. Forty years ago, this would
have sounded quite absurd, so the world must have changed.
Nevertheless, we still encounter discursive challenges from that period. We ’know’
from play research that children of such young age engage in parallel play, we ‘know’
from attachment research that the only close relationship formed by children at this age
is with their mother. And we ’know’ that these little children do not want much but are
entirely dependent on what we show them and the contact we offer them.
In the following I shall refer to Selby and Bradley’s (2003) recording of a 12-minute
laboratory experiment with three children who had never met each other before. There
are no grown-ups in the room. The children are Ann and Joe aged nine months and
Mona aged 6 months. The three children are facing each other in a ’stroller triangle’. It
is clear that from the start they have different preferences for whom they wish to look
and smile at. Joe was the one both girls looked at most. Ann looked at Joe three times
as often as at Mona, Joe looked more at Ann than at Mona, while Mona only looked
slightly more at Joe than at Ann. All in all, Mona was the least looked-at.
During the first minute, Ann and Joe smile at each other several times. During the next
three minutes, Ann makes many sounds while looking at Joe (104 times), especially
heightened by Joe’s rejoinders. At one point Joe turns to Mona, as if inviting her to join,
he leans towards her while waving his arms up and down, smiling and with raised eyebrows. Ann is looking at that. Her legs, otherwise pointing straight into the air, fall down
limply, and she looks down her chest. Mona and Joe are smiling at each other for about
30 seconds. Then Ann reaches out with her foot, touching Joe’s left foot with her right
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one, which catches his attention. Mona is watching and rubbing her feet against each
other. Meanwhile the two others are playing ‘footsie’, as the authors call it. Mona
stretches out her feet towards Ann while continuing to rub them against each other.
Mona is coming close and whines as if to catch the attention of the others. (”What about
me?”) Joe and Ann look at her briefly and return to their footsie. Finally, Mona manages
to touch Ann’s left foot with her own right foot. Ann looks at her and then withdraws both
her feet. She holds her feet by her hands and brings up her legs in front of her face,
watching her feet. Then she reaches out her right foot towards Joe to establish contact
with his foot, while tucking her left foot under the stroller, in this way turning completely
away from Mona. Ann and Joe return to playing footsie, while Ann is pointing both her
index fingers at him; once she turns and sneers at Mona and makes a gesture towards
her with the back of her hand. While this is happening, she has withdrawn the foot from
Joe. Joe observes this and once again makes a smiling invitation at Mona, as he did six
minutes earlier. Mona looks at him and gives him a big smile in return. Ann begins
crying and 30 seconds later the observation is broken off on account of her crying.
There is much to marvel at in this brief sequence. It is a matter of very complex interaction and demonstration of an emotional register which is far beyond the basic emotions normally expected of children at this age. The children demonstrate active in- and
exclusion strategies that you would not ordinarily expect of them. There is no adult
mediation among the three children. Please recall that Mona is six months old, the two
others nine months. They are not yet able to walk. Mona can hardly sit by herself. And
they are unable to produce one singe human word. What is most sensational, scientifically speaking, is that the three children are interacting with each other – all three of
them. Their interaction is triadic. This seriously chal-lenges the psychiatrist John
Bowlby’s assumption of the human child’s inherent ’dyadic (two-way) programming,’
which in paradigmatic terms has dominated our knowledge creation and thinking about
the child’s social repertoire and an exclusive mother-child relation.
Selby and Bradley are not just ’exclusively’ interested in little children. They seek to
answer the very basic question of how the psyche develops, and in this experiment they
demonstrate a ’human programming’ and sociality which is far closer to Marx’ (1846)
thesis of the individual (the psychological dimension) being the ensemble of social relations than to Bowlby’s (1982) ideas about the dyadic nature of human attachments.
Their and my intention is not at all to claim that the mother-child relation is now scientifically obsolete or unimportant, for there is no indication of that at all. It is rather to point
to the countless ways in which the infant appears to have been equipped for social life.
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This places the nursery as development space in quite another light. It suggests that we
once again question the legitimacy of assuming that, in spite of everything, it is better
for the child to remain with its mother at all times. But, of course, it is quite legitimate to
discuss for how long and to what extent children should be away from their mother/
family and the good conditions we should offer them while they are away.
If we wish to take Selby’s and Bradley’s experiment seriously, and I believe we should
for there is other research (such as Verba, 1994) pointing in the same direction, well, then
this quite considerably shakes our understanding of a child’s mental preparedness
as well as the importance of the child-pedagogue relation as ’compensation’ for the
mother-child relation. It also challenges rigid notions and ideas of children’s mutual
relations. For instance, it is worth asking what we really mean when we say that children engage in parallel play at the nursery?
FREDERIK: 2.6 YEARS AND ROSA: 2.5 YEARS
Rosa is running down the hallway, laughing. Frederik is running after her, shouting ’yeah’
and laughing.
Rosa runs over and picks up one of the foam pillows from the floor and carries it to
the other end of the hallway. She jumps on it while laughing. Frederik runs over and
picks up another pillow, puts it next to Rosa’s on the floor, jumps on it and laughs. They
fetch other pillows and jump on them. Rosa brings the doll’s pram into the hallway. She
fetches a saw and puts it into the pram. Frederik is watching her. She fetches a scarf
and places it over the saw. Then she goes to get a duvet. Frederik is holding on to the
pram. ”No” says Rosa out loud, ”better me”, while trying to push Frederik away. Rosa
manages to push him away. Fredrik is looking into Rosa’s eyes asking: ”Go?” ”Go?”
”Yes, go to work”, says Rosa. Then both of them wave to me saying bye-bye. And walk
side by side down to the other end of the hallway.
The children start out imitating each other, but together they manage to expand the
script into a common story. This is far more an example of cooperation than of parallel
play. If I were to pick one place to challenge my knowledge it would be the nursery. The
small child is surrounded by so much pre-understanding that it makes us blind, both to
the child and to human nature in general. This is why the pedagogues of this booklet are
right. In order to see these children, you must be well-equipped professionally. And
brave. And full of curiosity. In my view, the nursery is one of the most challenging pedagogical workplaces, intellectually speaking. They are much more than dirty nappies,
feeding bottles and a midday nap.
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References
Bowlby, J. (1982). Attachment and loss: Vol. 1. Attachment. London: Hogart
Bradley, B.S. (2005). Psychology and experience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Marx, K. (1846). Theses on Feuerbach. In Marx: Selected writings. Harmondsworths, UK: Penguin.
Selby, J. & Bradley, B.S. (2003). Infant in groups: A paradigm for the Study of early social experience.
Human development, 46, 197-221.
Verba, M. (1994). The beginnings of collaboration in peer interaction. Human development,
38, 125-139
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PEDAGOGY IN DENMARK – A DANISH CONCEPT
The concept Pedagogue is specific to Denmark. The Danish pedagogues are
comparable to “pre-school teachers” in other countries. In the sector out of
school care they might be compared to “play workers” or “recreation instructors”, and in other services they are more like “social workers” or “educators”.
In Denmark the pedagogues have a Union of their own unlike other countries
where pedagogues usually are organized as pre-school teachers within
teachers unions.
Danish child care centres are an integral and independent part of the Danish
welfare society and should not be mixed up with the school system and formal
teaching. This does not mean, that children in the Danish nurseries, kindergartens, pre-school classes, free time centres or out of school care and youth
clubs are not supposed to learn anything, but the learning the pedagogues
perform stresses the importance of play and the child’s social and comprehensive development.
Always under consideration is the child’s intellectual, social, emotional, neuromuscular, ethical, moral and aesthetic development. To the Danish pedagogue
early childhood education and care is neither reduced to formal learning of
numbers and letters, nor pure play, but about learning, developing and playing
in a caring environment.
BACHELOR IN SOCIAL EDUCATION
The education programme for a Bachelor Degree in Social Education is
geared towards the entire educational occupational area, with specialisation
within a specific occupational, functional or academic field.
Published August 2012
BUPL, The Danish National Federation of Early Childhood and Youth Educators
Blegdamsvej 124, 2100 Ø
Text: Annette Wiborg
Editors: Suz Wang and Peter Engelbrekt Petersen
Layout: zentens