Personal ethic of caring
The men expressed their personal ethic of caring (King 1998; Noddings 2005) more
through their relationship with the children than through their narratives. A variety
of caring modes revealed a focus on meeting the needs of children rather than their
own needs or curriculum requirements, thus illustrating motivational displacement
(Noddings 2012). With the youngest children, caring had a physical manifestation –
touching, hugging, holding, and soft-spoken address. For example, both Leon and
Reidar, nursery caregivers in the UK and Norway, eased stressful transitions from
home through empathetic treatment of a crying child at times of separation. The kindergarten
teachers evidenced caring through verbal and physical responses to children’s
stress. Eli, an Israeli kindergarten teacher, noticed a socially isolated child and sat to
eat with her at snack time. In these cases, the men showed awareness of the children’s
emotional needs and reacted sensitively to help them overcome their difficulty and
move forward.
Besides these responses to stress, the teachers showed caring in daily routines.
Elton, an American kindergarten teacher, used body language, leaning towards the children
and making intense eye contact, creating ‘intimacy’. Levien, a Dutch teacher,
mediated his individualized instruction for self-selected tasks by lightly enfolding the
child in his arms as he modeled possible solutions to the task. The physical presence,
intense focus, and creating challenges were all important components of caring.