Introduction
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One of the most important goals of all education, at every level, is to support and strengthen the disposition to go on learning throughout life. In the case of young children, the disposition to learn can be assumed to be in-born—granted, stronger in some newborns than in others. Indeed, it is a good idea for parents and early educators of young children to keep in mind that young children always learn—some more readily than others—and not always what we want them to learn. Along similar lines, it is useful to remember that learning is largely experience dependent. Thus, an important question to bring to this discussion is what experiences are most likely to foster the disposition to go on learning?
The challenges facing early childhood educators regarding science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education are taken up here in three sections. The paper begins with a discussion of some distinctions between academic and intellectual goals and their implications for early childhood pedagogy. Then the potential contribution of the Project Approach to addressing basic STEM goals is outlined, and finally a discussion of issues related to standards is offered.
Some Distinctions between Academic and Intellectual Goals for Young Children
A strong trend has emerged in the United States over the past 20-plus years to emphasize supporting young children’s readiness for school by introducing formal academic instruction during the preschool and kindergarten years. The issues involved are not simple matters of choice between emphasizing academic instruction versus traditional spontaneous play activities. A main argument is that much of the discussion and debate about appropriate preschool curricula is based on a misleading dichotomy. I suggest that a more useful way of looking at the choices involved in preschool and kindergarten curriculum approaches is to examine the distinctions between academic and intellectual goals and activities rather than to insist on a dichotomy of either formal instruction or play.
Academic goals are those concerned with acquiring small discrete bits of disembedded information, usually related to preliteracy skills, that must be practiced in drills, and worksheets, and other kinds of exercises designed to prepare children for later literacy and numeracy learning. In an academic curriculum, the items learned and practiced require correct answers, rely heavily on memorization, on the application of formulae versus the search for understanding, and consist largely of giving the teacher the correct answers that the children know she awaits. Although one of the traditional meanings of the term academic is “of little practical value,” these bits of information are essential components of reading and writing and other academic competences. The question here is not whether academic skills matter; rather the question is when does the acquisition of academic skills matter?
Intellectual goals and their related activities, on the other hand, address the life of the mind in its fullest sense, including a range of aesthetic and moral sensibilities. The formal definition of the concept of intellectualemphasizes reasoning, hypothesizing, predicting, the quest for understanding and conjecturing, as well as the development and analysis of ideas. An appropriate curriculum for young children focuses on supporting their in-born intellectual dispositions, for example, the disposition to make the best sense they can of their own experience and their own environment. An appropriate curriculum in the early years is one that encourages and motivates children to seek mastery of basic academic skills (e.g., beginning writing skills) in the service of their intellectual pursuits. The children should be able to sense the purposefulness of their efforts to master a variety of academic skills (e.g., writing, counting, measuring) and to appreciate their usefulness and their various purposes. These intellectual pursuits include the whole range of knowledge, understanding, skills, and dispositions related to STEM goals.