Martha Lash

Laboratory Schools as Places of Inquiry: A Collaborative Journey for Two Laboratory Schools.

Research Findings: Although there have been organizations that have supported cross-university collaboration (e.g., the National Organization of Child Development Laboratory Schools and the National Coalition of Campus Child Care), most laboratory schools have not engaged in sustained cross-program collaboration in order to advance their missions. This narrative describes an innovative and sustained collaborative journey of 2 university laboratory schools that share similar program philosophies and a common value for teacher research with children and preservice teachers. These 2 groups of faculty have developed a unique cross-university collaborative inquiry. Practice or Policy: The authors share highlights of their journey and their insights regarding the positive outcomes of their collaboration, including building a community of practice, articulating their practices, becoming a collective catalyst for change, and providing opportunities for professional development to occur on a daily basis within the context of their work with children. Challenges such as distance, time, cost, and the difficulty of sustaining ideas and relationships are also shared. These minor challenges were outweighed by the participants’ sense of joy in sharing perspectives and engaging in continuing dialogue that created lasting, genuine relationships and reenergized their view of the mission of laboratory schools as catalysts for change both for the laboratory faculty as well as for professionals in their communities.

The Child Care Trilemma: How Moral Orientations Influence the Field:

The achievement of quality, affordability and availability — what has been called the ‘trilemma’ of child care — continues to pose relevant, moral challenges for administrators, teachers and parents. These three dimensions of the trilemma are directly related to questions of moral significance related to how the US child care structure affects the families, teachers, and administrators who are intimately involved in the care and education of children. An examination of the trilemma is made to clarify mutually dependent dimensions of this complex system and the inherent moral confounds that accentuate the intra- and interrelated flowing moral tensions. The moral orientations of justice and care are reviewed, not to the exclusion of one another, but to characterize each orientation, the tension between them, and the possibility of moral pluralism. The moral orientations of justice, care and moral pluralism are used as lenses through which to view the perspectives of the three study participants (i.e. a parent, teacher, and administrator) and their exploration, advocacy, and decision making on issues they find salient within the child care trilemma. The perspectives and insights shared by the participants in this study contribute to our understanding about the thinking, decision making and action that surround this inherent moral complexity of the trilemma.

Child Development Laboratory Schools as Generators of Knowledge in Early Childhood Education: New Models and Approaches

Research Findings: University-based child development laboratory programs have a long and rich history of supporting teaching, research, and outreach activities in the child development/early childhood education fields. Although these programs were originally developed in order to conduct research on children and families to inform policy and practice, this mission has yet to be fully achieved. Practice or Policy: This paper provides an overview of the potential for 21st-century child development laboratory schools to be places that generate and disseminate new knowledge and understanding of children, families, teachers, curriculum, and classroom processes. An overview of the current context for laboratory schools is presented, outlining the challenges that limit schools’ ability to actively support comprehensive teaching, research, and outreach/engagement activities. An overview of applied developmental science is presented as a framework that can play a critical role in the future as laboratory schools strive to continue and enhance their important roles in the generation of new knowledge into the 21st century. A laboratory schools consortium is proposed as a mechanism to support knowledge generation.

Preschool Education in Saudi Arabia: Past, Present, and Future

Despite differences in specific teaching styles, nations around the world are united in the belief that early education is essential for preparing children for success throughout their school life and beyond. This tenet is as applicable to the Saudi Arabian early childhood education (ECE) system as it is anywhere else. Yet, little is actually known about preschool in Saudi Arabia, especially beyond the Arabic-speaking world. How might the Saudi system be similar or different from the ECE systems of other countries? How might social, cultural, and economic factors uniquely influence preschools in the Kingdom? Specifically, how might the teachings of Islam, an integral aspect of Saudi culture, be integrated into ECE? And what are the future possibilities for this system, which has experienced so much growth in the last 50 years? Drawing on articles and books on the modern preschool situation in Saudi Arabia, translated from Arabic to English by the first author, this article presents an overview of one of the worlds most rapidly growing early childhood education systems.

Seeking justice through social action projects: Preparing teachers to be social actors in local and global problems:

In this article, we share a social action process useful in teacher education and derived from a decade of practical experience with social action projects. Influences, theoretical underpinnings, and individual leadership in an early childhood teacher education program are considered alongside practical enactments of social action projects by preservice teachers in their licensure program. One particular type of field-based assignment, the social action project, is described and analyzed. An examination of program transformations expanding the social justice framework to include more global perspectives, such as the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Program, shaped and challenged our earlier notions of working to address isms to frame justice and advocate for children in larger social and educational networks. We suggest what social action should and can entail in teacher education for an interdependent world and offer a gradient of social action for justice in early childhood education practices and environments.

Professional Identity of an Early Childhood Black Teacher in a Predominantly White School: A Case Study

ABSTRACT This qualitative case study investigated the role of race, school context, and personal and professional experiences in the formation of an early childhood minority teacher’s professional identity. Data sources included interviews, observations, conversations, field notes and school artefacts. Member checking, triangulation and extended observation were used to support the trustworthiness of the results. The findings of the research indicated that the major themes which were related to identity formation included family influence, teaching values and beliefs, emotions, personal experiences and school context. Suggestions for early childhood education programmes and future researchers are offered.

Seven Wonders of the Early Childhood World

Since the ancient Greeks first identified the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, many similar lists of extraordinary things—both ancient and modern, natural and man-made—have been created. Lash, Monobe, Kursun Koptur, and Black use the format to recognize seven wondrous curricular approaches of the early childhood education world. No less wondrous than the Pyramids of Giza, and just as globally appreciated, particularly since the rapid worldwide growth of early childhood education in the 1990s, the authors explore approaches such as the well-known International Baccalaureate Primary Years Program, the long-revered Reggio Emilia approach, and Te Whāriki, a bicultural national curriculum adopted in New Zealand. Linked by the prevailing view that schooling must prepare children to become global citizens capable of building a more peaceful world, the approaches explored in this article can inspire educators around the world as they consider new directions in early childhood education policy and practice.