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The simplicity of complexity: Early childhood teacher education for pre-kindergarten/kindergarten (pre-k/k)

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The Knowledge Base of Early Childhood Teacher Education (ECTE) in relation to Early Childhood Education (ECE) is value-laden within any particular socio-cultural, economic, historical, and political context. The editorial perspective of this paper is nurtured within the currently available socio-cultural, historical, political, and research context. Therefore, the complex non-linear (three-dimensional) nature of learning, as contrasted with a minimalist (two-dimensional) perspective, is central to the editorial perspective of this paper. It is necessary to focus on complex non-linear perspectives in the context of a contemporary movement in the United States toward universalizing national standards within a Common Core. The Common Core tends to create a cascade of minimalist testing based on technical, easily scored data that flow toward minimalist teaching-to-the-tests that, in turn, create scripted simplistic lessons (see Ravitch, 2010; Singer, 2014). The idea of a formalized common standard skirts the issue of equivalence of scholarship that can reside in a variety of forms while judging achievement in absolute metrics rather than relative to the arc of individual children's or teachers' progress. There is a self-similar, fractal relationship in the development of knowledge bases between the fields of ECTE and ECE that includes the nesting of at least three major perspectives: diversity, power, and ideology. These three major perspectives undergird the socio-political, economic, and substantive decisions that impact early education and teacher education; they influence the potential for an ethical education. A discussion of each perspective follows. Then, there is discussion of the distinctive nature of pre-K/K within these contexts. The continuing section outlines some key components for the preparation of early childhood professionals to work with pre-K/K children. (author abstract)
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