CURRICULAR ETHICS IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION PROGRAMMING: A CHALLENGE TO THE ONTARIO KINDERGARTEN PROGRAM

McGill Journal of Education, Winter 2006 by Heydon, Rachel M, Wang, Ping

ABSTRACT.

Through a case study of a key Canadian early childhood education program, The Kindergarten Program (Ontario Ministry of Education and Training, 1998a), we explore the relationship between curricular paradigms and early childhood education (ECE) models, and the opportunities that each creates for enacting ethical teaching and learning relationships. We position the "cult of efficiency" (Stein, 2001) as the antithesis of ethical ECE, and we forward suggestions for enabling teachers to consider the kind of person they must become in order to develop a nonviolative relationship with young children (Cornell, 1992).

ÉTHIQUE PÉDAGOGIQUE DANS LE PROGRAMME D'ÉDUCATION DES JEUNES ENFANTS : UN DÉFI POUR LE PROGRAMME DES ÉCOLES MATERNELLES DE L'ONTARIO

RÉSUMÉ. À travers l'étude de cas d'un programme clé canadien d'éducation des jeunes enfants, le Programme de maternelle (Ministère de l'Éducation et de la Formation de l'Ontario (1998a), les auteures explorent la relation entre les paradigmes pédagogiques et les modèles d'éducation des jeunes enfants (EJE), ainsi que les possibilités que tous deux créent pour la promulgation de l'enseignement éthique et de relations d'apprentissage. Les auteures y suggèrent que le « culte de l'efficacité » (Stein, 2001) est l'antithèse d'une EJE éthique et formulent des suggestions pour permettre aux professeurs de découvrir quel genre de personne elles doivent devenir en vue d'établir une relation nonviolatrice avec les jeunes enfants (Cornell, 1992).

INTRODUCTION

Like education in many other countries in the "Minority World" (Dahlberg, Moss, &. Pence, 1999, p. 6) (i.e., developed world) during this globalized period, curriculum in Ontario, Canada has become increasingly standardized, developed from outside the classroom, and monitored. While accountability is important in public endeavours, the educational system in Ontario has been hit by a "cult of efficiency" (Stein, 2001 ) where bureaucracy, standardization, and surveillance, the soldiers of cost-effectiveness, fight for efficiency as an end in its own right. When efficiency is the value of a society rather than the vehicle to social values, it may become harmful to the society that heralds it. In an educational context there is risk for harm, because curricula that are built mainly on efficiency offer scant opportunity for educators to consider questions of ethics, that is, the person they need to become in order to develop a nonviolative relationship with the other (Cornell, 1992).

As Canadian early childhood education (ECE) gains notice, efforts to achieve efficiency while formalizing learning is happening earlier in children's lives. Consistent with this trend, in 1998 the Ontario government published its first policy document for kindergarten in over fifty years, and the Ministry of Education and Training is already entertaining consultations on the program with the aim of revising it soon. The Kindergarten Program (Ontario Ministry of Education and Training, 1998a) (hereafter, The Program) regulates programming for junior kindergarten and kindergarten. Given that during the school year of 1999-2000, 81 percent of 4-year-olds in the province enrolled in junior kindergarten and 95 percent of 5-year-olds enrolled in kindergarten (Canadian Education Statistics Council, 2003), the importance of The Program cannot be underestimated. Consequently, the time is ripe for considering where kindergartens in the province have been and where they are going.

This paper is an attempt to understand the implications of The Program for young children and their teachers in Ontario. This endeavour is a contribution to theorizing in ECE in general, not just in the province. Through a document analysis, we hope to provide insight into some of the ways that various forms of curricula configure children and teachers, and we hope to provide talking points to promote responsive, ethical curricula for young children that improve their quality of life and that allow teachers to be professional decision-makers.

METHODOLOGY

The document analysis that informs this paper follows a critical postmodern literacy methodology. We looked to literacy methodology because a document analysis is a form of reading. Our interest in critical theory within this methodology stems from our desire to labour towards the theoretical goal of "emancipation," meaning to "free human-kind of what presents itself as 'natural' or given by making apparent the points of view from which such a version of 'reality' are constructed" (Habermas, 1972, p. 311). We have adapted a synthesized version of critical literacy (Lewison, Flint, & Sluys, 2002) to be used as a means of interrogating various forms of text (including policy documents) and educational phenomena (Heydon, 2004). We have infused this methodology with the postmodern goal of deconstruction (Lather, 1991) since we appreciate that truths can be situational. We are aware that employing a critical postmodern methodology in this case is akin to an "intellectual version of the hokey-[p]okey" (Stronach & MacLure, 1997, p. 19), where we acknowledge the material world while calling attention to its shifting nature. Even so, we find that this mixed approach is best in keeping with our beliefs outlined in the section below. Thus in the examination of The Program we seek to: