Early childhood learning is very crucial to every child. Therefore, it is the responsibility of those around them to ensure that a positive environment is offered. According to (Arpentieva et al., 2019), children cannot choose right or wrong. Therefore, it is the responsibility of parents and educators to ensure that the environment they expose their children to is positive. A positive environment does not only affect how development and learning happen. Instead, it also shapes the child’s trajectories when fully developed. Be it their career choice, characters, behaviors, and way of living. Since an educator is involved in this stage of a child, I believe that every child is unique and they have different capabilities and skills, so it is the responsibility of an educator to offer opportunities to the children to make them learn, realize and get new ideas about the world. I believe that a child is always open to new things, and when exposed to the right environment with the right resources, they will learn, create and understand new things in every aspect of their development (Tooley et al., 2021). Through this, the children can learn, acquire and develop social, emotional, academic, and technological skills.
As an educator, I believe children start learning away before being admitted to a school. Play and example is the most effective and efficient way that one can use to teach them. They come in a learning classroom with different backgrounds teaching where only some parents are happy with the learning experience one gives their students. However, I believe that, just like adults, choices motivate children to continue learning. I was raised in a rigorous environment where children could not make choices. Instead, they were only to follow and obey what the adults said. To some extent, I believed that a child should always stick to what their parents say, but my perspective changed when I enrolled in early childhood education programs. I came to learn that it was just too authoritative and it could bring harm to the child. Every parent wants the best for their children, but not every aspect they give to them is of help. Some of them are dangerous such they end up ruining their lives. I believe that making their own choices motivates and stimulates them to try new things and ideas (Alam, 2022). It gives them the freedom to interact with everything around their environment. They only need guidance and assistance. As an educator, I provide activities involving their interests to support their strengths and work on their weaknesses. My only way is to support and direct them as they make discoveries.
I agree with Piaget’s theory that children do not necessarily have to be taught everything. Instead, they can learn by themselves as an educator placing children in the right environment helps them choose their interests through observations, investigations, and even experiencing some of them (Sidik, 2020). As an educator, I aim to provide the children with an environment that will make them feel safe and secure to express their feelings. I will work together with the children, and I will be a model. I will always ensure my children work in groups to teach them different aspects such as friendship, sharing, concern, cooperation, and patience. In addition, I will involve my co-educators by always maintaining a professional relationship. I will ensure that the relationship we build is evident to the children and lead them by example for them to follow. My philosophy is to respect every child and their family. Irrespective of their family status, culture, beliefs, and race. My motive is to treat them equally and ensure that they interact freely and that they can embrace diversification. I want to create an environment where the children can learn together despite their differences. Be it their career choices, interests, hobbies, backgrounds, and status. I want to ensure that what I teach my students makes them and allows them to embrace diversification. This will help me know whether I am effectively teaching since the environment I will provide is safe, the children will be free with me, and they can tell me of their concerns where we can work together and make them work. I will also know I effectively teach when I see my children practicing what they have learned, even without my supervision. This is the joy of every educator. Having one’s students practice what they have been learning together and showing positive results it.
To achieve this, I have to create a supportive learning environment actively. I will have to involve all my students in all the activities. I will make them work together, recognize their every effort and encourage them to continue. I will also help those who require coaching to improve and stop feeling inferior. To achieve such an environment, I will incorporate different strategies and approaches always to give the children chances to rectify their mistakes. I will give them guidance on how they are supposed to tackle things. Secondly, I will always ensure that respect is vital for all. The children must respect and treat their peers with love and care, irrespective of their statuses and differences. I will also incorporate tools and resources to help them achieve their dreams, making them a reality. This will help in making a difference in the lives of the students. They will learn to live together harmoniously regardless of the differences in their environment. It will also help in making the right choices.
In conclusion, an educator is a significant person in a child’s early childhood learning environment. Therefore, they are responsible for ensuring the environment they expose the children to is positive and that they are full of the right resources. They facilitate the children’s activities, allowing them to make their own choices rather than making them follow what they feel is good for them .this is because every child has different interests and capabilities. If ignored, they cannot fully understand who they are.
References
Alam, A. (2022, March). Educational robotics and computer programming in early childhood education: A conceptual framework for assessing elementary school students’ computational thinking for designing powerful educational scenarios. In 2022 International Conference on Smart Technologies and Systems for Next Generation Computing (ICSTSN) (pp. 1-7). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSTSN53084.2022.9761354
Arpentieva, M. R., Kassymova, G. K., Lavrinenko, S. V., Tyumaseva, Z. I., Valeeva, G. V., Kenzhaliyev, O. B., … & Kosov, A. V. (2019). Environmental education in the system of global and additional education. Научный журнал «Вестник НАН РК», (3), 158-168.
https://doi.org/10.32014/2019.2518-1467.82
Sidik, F. (2020). Actualizing Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development in learning. Jurnal PAJAR (Pendidikan dan Pengajaran), 4(6), 1106-1111.
http://dx.doi.org/10.33578/pjr.v4i6.8055
Tooley, U. A., Bassett, D. S., & Mackey, A. P. (2021). Environmental influences on the pace of brain development. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 22(6), 372-384.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41583-021-00457-5
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