Overturning the Rules
and Creating Amiable Classrooms

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The children and families served

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  The three centers are all nonprofit sites—one with 63 children on a university campus, one (42 children) in a workplace setting, and the other (32 children) in a high school. In the latter, eight children have special needs and another 16 are considered to have general developmental delays. All three centers are inclusive settings with resource-teacher consultants for children with special needs. Staff are qualified early childhood educators, and the centers accept early childhood education students in practicum placements. As an example of diversity, in one center 40% of the families served use English as a second language in their homes, with 10% being newly arrived immigrants. Cultures and languages of the families include Mandarin and its dialects, as well as Spanish and Portuguese. The centers serve many single-parent families and families with two parents on shift work.

Established practice in the centers

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  In all three centers the established, conventional practice was rule based, yet staff felt they had few rules and no problems as a result. Safety for young children was the highest priority, with rules often designed to prevent harm to children. However, in creating the rules the educators did not consider the possibility that harm might come to the children and teachers in other ways as a consequence of these rules. Callaghan noted, “Safety, you can justify any rule with safety.”

  Another justification was government requirements; that is, the authority of the official regulating body. Sometimes these regulations were real; sometimes they were assumed to exist by the teachers but in fact did not. Teacher anxiety over responsibility for young children’s lives is clear. Rules proliferated out of fear for the safety of the young and vulnerable charges.

  Bobbie-Jo described how her center had been “very structured.” For example, “we had pictures of three faces” defining how many children were permitted in a location, and “children were not allowed to take toys [from one play area to another].” Brenda, at another center, said, “You always had to go down the slide feet first, and you always had to sit up going down the slide.” Laurie noted that in the center serving many children with special needs, staff were “stopping things from happening all day long.” For instance, only four children were allowed in the water play area, so any additional children who tried to join the play would be redirected to another activity.

  With tightly defined spaces for every activity, teachers acted as traffic officers, directing children to available spots. The time segments for activities were brief, play spaces rigorously defined, and play areas small and tight. In one center, for instance, two separate playrooms each had precisely the same interest areas, all of them small.

 

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