The Caring Ethic in Early Childhood Teacher Education.

The "caring ethic" is central to the teaching-learning process. Early childhood teacher educators can promote a teacher as leader paradigm that supports the development of caring skills and perspectives in future teachers. Future teachers can benefit from learning about caring, developing competencies in caring, and continuing their education in the caring/nurturing processes.

The history of early childhood teacher education is in a sense a microcosm of the struggle to become humane, decent, and nurturing (Osborn, 1991). The "caring curriculum" Bronfenbrenner (1979) explicates is a contemporary elaboration of earlier struggles to advance civilization through nurturing and renewing modes of thinking and feeling. What is distinct in our historical context is the urgency for realizing an ethic of caring and the recognition that we have new knowledge and resources to develop a system that promises new possibilities for achieving it (Greene, 1995a).

Early childhood teacher education is ideally positioned to create the needed resources for promoting a caring ethic in our society. It has contact with many of the professionals who interact with children and families. Thus, a "Teacher as Leader" construct that is based on caring is achievable in early childhood education.

Leadership that is "lived" through caring relationships with young children and families is the needed factor in transforming our society from excessive materialism toward more humane and nurturing living. As Noddings (1994) notes:

   An ethic of care starts with a study of relation. It is fundamentally
   concerned with how human beings meet and treat one another. (p. 45)

Teachers of young children (and those who teach and learn with them) are the "leaders" in the community in terms of potentially creating the caring ethic.

In this context, the teacher leader is a growing person whose primary ethic is that of seeking relationship conditions to develop community harmony in ways that enhance the integrity of everyone. This construct advances the importance of educating early childhood teachers in ways that enable them to generate and renew beliefs, values, and attitudes that are consonant with having the "caring relationship" among themselves and the children and families they care for and nurture. This means bringing alive the voices of early childhood teacher education students in ways that validate their journey toward becoming caring persons.

Questions That Shape The Journey

Three questions help to shape the context for transforming early childhood education (and teacher education) into a journey that nurtures and sustains the caring ethic:

1. How do we develop a system that nurtures people in becoming caring human beings?

2. How can we create an environment that engages teachers, children, and families in experiences that nurture in them the ethic of caring?

3. What are the means of extending the caring ethic into all facets of community living?

Nurturing Teacher Leaders in Developing The Caring Ethic

What is needed to sustain our journey to become caring people? Since the journey involves opening up to new ways of relating, our first requirement is to be explorative and sensitive learners. As Bateson (1994) describes this process within the study of cultures so must we craft our vision of the caring relationship for early childhood teacher education:

   Arriving in a new place, you start from an acknowledgement of strangeness,
   a disciplined use of discomfort and surprise. Later, as observations
   accumulate, the awareness of contrast dwindles and must be replaced with a
   growing understanding of how observations fit together within a system
   unique to the other culture. (p. 27)

Helping teacher leaders see the value of learning about a new culture - a "culture of caring" is indeed a critical and integral part of our mission in early childhood teacher education. Indeed, the ethic of caring - while not a priority of our culture - has been significant in our work throughout history.

Opening up to the natural goodness of children, to the hidden strengths of families, and to our own strengths and capabilities as teachers, is the key element in shaping our caring environment. Coming to recognize the transforming ecology that is possible through the caring ethic means engaging teacher education students in experiences with teachers and others who embrace this ethic in their lives. The process of awakening in teachers the meaning of the caring ethic involves an orchestration of knowledge, experience, and reflective practice that is constructed and viewed as a life long journey.

Knowledge in this sense is not information gained to prove one's efficacy as an early childhood teacher but rather is the continuous search for wisdom that can guide our ethical development-the values, beliefs, and attitudes that comprise our total being. Understanding Bronfenbrenner's ecology of human development as a living part of how children and families grow as well as unearthing the key insights of thinkers like Erikson, Piaget, Vygotsky, and others - is paramount.

Experiencing one's transformation into a mature and caring adult may be the most significant element in our journey to become caring persons. This means that we as early childhood teacher educators have to model this transformative experiencing as natural, as essential, and as at the heart of the evolving ethic of caring. In ourselves and in our students we must nurture the "flexible boundaries of the self" that Mary Catherine Bateson (1994) describes:

   More flexible boundaries of the self open up attention to the environment
   that may ultimately be essential to survival, for it is not the individual
   organism that survives but the organism in the environment that gives it
   life. We need to find ways to encourage a sense of the self as continuing
   to develop through responsive interaction. Relying on competition as a way
   of motivating learning eventually subverts not only cooperation but also
   the willingness to learn. The models for a more responsive sense of self
   might be borrowed across lives of culture and gender or be treasures from
   an undamaged childhood. (p. 74)

Nurturing The Caring Ethic Through Early Childhood Teacher Education

Teacher leaders need to have the "transformational skills" for creating learning environments where caring relationships flourish. These tools include: one's development of personal interaction skills conducive to modeling the caring ethic; knowledge and competence in designing environments in which children and families gain a sense of decency; and inquiry strategies and perspectives that assure one's continuing involvement in becoming a caring person and professional.

The transformation of any human situation evolves from the interactional nature of personal and environmental relationships (Bateson, 1994). A significant part of children's early learning happens in these relationship patterns. We need to engage early childhood teacher education students in challenging their relationship focus. They must first learn to listen to themselves, their values and beliefs; and to observe themselves in interaction with life. Through narrative story teachers/future teachers can explore questions like the following:

* What values and beliefs am I carrying into relationships with children, parents, and other teachers?

* Who am I becoming as a person who will spend significant time with people who will be our future?

A second tool early childhood teachers must nurture is their efficacy in creating environments that foster caring relationships in children and families (Noddings, 1994). At the classroom level, teachers can take various steps to design experiences where children and families are engaging in the caring ethic. They can establish a setting where children take ownership and pursue activities in which they learn about their talents and then have chances to use them with others in caring ways. Most importantly, though, teachers need to understand that any classroom design must center on loving the children and their families. This involves all of us in the process of seeing the child in multiple ways. As Edgerton (1995) notes:

   Seeing the child as someone with her or his own special, individual, and
   collective needs does not end at the end of a "formal lesson." Nor does it
   end at the end of recess or lunch or with social interactions that seem to
   do with academic lessons. Seeing and respecting children pervades all these
   areas.

A third and in many ways the most significant tool early childhood educators need is an inquiry focus that sustains the journey toward a caring ethic (Ayers, 1995). This process comprises the story of our journey. To teach is in essence a journey to inquire into the human experience in ways that raise the level of caring in ourselves and in others. This involves early childhood teacher educators in nurturing three attributes in their students: 1) an ethic of self growth, 2) a sense of the richness present in diverse ways of living, and 3) a valuing of human inquiry that furthers the caring ethic (Ayers, 1995).

The caring relationship is rooted in each person's focus on self growth, inquiry that nurtures the self toward deeper understanding of the human condition and thus leads each of us toward a community caring ethic (Greene, 1995a). Teachers who become enmeshed in control issues lose sight of this growth orientation. Preoccupation with culturally prescribed mores can limit our vision of the caring relationship. Seeing beyond our immediate understanding can only happen as we openly engage in new experiences with children and concentrate on learning about their strengths - through caring, empathic relationships.

Actively learning about the richness present in the diverse cultures and social contexts of children and families is or should be a part of the teacher's total journey (Derman-Sparks, 1994). Yet, as Bateson's (1994) comments on Carol Stacks All Our Kin suggests, pursuing a culturally sensitive orientation in our lives is challenging because of the conceptions which most of us imprison ourselves.

   Carol Stack, in All Our Kin, explored patterns of sharing and fostering in
   a black ghetto in the sixties, under conditions of poverty and
   vulnerability, as cash, furniture, and even food followed need from house
   to house, recycled garments gave the thrill of novelty to multiple wearers,
   and children rested where there was an adult available to care for them.
   Such patterns are harder to recognize than the geometrics of Tondo, since
   they demand that an observer stay to note daily behaviors, looking and
   listening instead of administering questionnaires. (p. 217)

Indeed, the journey toward actualizing the caring ethic is one of continually learning about others in authentic and sensitive ways - thus enriching and transforming our conceptions of those we truly want to serve.

Inquiry is a life style that serves to energize our journey to become caring persons. It must become our "system" for sustaining in ourselves and in others the needed compassion and courage for negotiating the change-continuity process that is a integral part of our stories (Greene, 1995b). Early childhood teacher education students need support, models, guidance, and caring mentors that engage them in ever widening circles of caring arrangements. Fromberg (1995) provides direction on how this process can occur:

   In order to move beyond each teacher' s own educational autobiography, the
   early childhood teacher educator needs to work in collaborative, supportive
   ways with teachers/future teachers to help them reflect upon the cognitive
   dissonance between their prior experience and their new expertise.

Meeting The Challenge: Educating For The Caring Ethic

The NAEYC Code of Ethics (Feeney & Kipnis, 1992) provides a framework for early childhood educators to pursue in the journey to achieve the caring ethic. The preamble to this code identifies six core values that should guide our journey:

* Appreciating childhood as a unique and valuable stage of the human life cycle.

* Basing our work with children on knowledge of child development.

* Appreciating and supporting the close ties between the child and family.

* Recognizing that children are best understood in the context of family, culture, and society.

* Respecting the dignity, worth, and uniqueness of each individual (child, family member, and colleague).

* Helping children and adults achieve their full potential in the context of relationships that are based on trust, respect, and positive regard. (p. 3)

Decisions regarding choices in curriculum, classroom organization, parent/family involvement, and setting our priorities in relation to children's development, can be based within the focus established by the core values of the Code of Ethics.

Teachers also need to gain a sense of extending their caring ethic through community empowerment. Many strategies are available: advocacy work for quality child and family services, providing leadership for developing school improvement efforts, volunteering in ways that model community improvement activities, and other proactive efforts. A considered review of the risks and challenges children and families face offer a context that requires our ethical involvement in creating a caring community.

Ultimately, the caring ethic can only be achieved when all facets of the community are working together to bring about caring relationships. Early childhood teacher education can and should take the lead in promoting this ethic. Early childhood teacher education must assure that teachers: 1) experience a caring education, 2) practice caring relationship skills, and 3) continue to learn about caring as the ethical center of teaching. Organizing our teacher education designs and extending these designs through collaborative work with schools and communities - to fostering caring relationships among children, families, and citizens - can be a powerful force in creating a caring society.

References

Ayers, W. (Ed.). (1995). To Become A Teacher: Making A Difference In Children's Lives. New York: Teachers College Press.

Bateson, M. (1994). Peripheral Visions: Learning Along The Way. New York: Harper/Collins.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The Ecology of Human Development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Derman-Sparks, L. (1994). Empowering children to create a caring culture in a world of differences. Childhood Education, 70(2), 66-71.

Edgerton, S. (1995). How to write a lesson plan. (pp. 180-192). In W. Ayers. (Ed.). To Become A Teacher: Making A Difference In Children's Lives. New York: Teachers College Press.

Feeney, S., and Kipnis, K. (1992). Code of Ethical Conduct and Statement of Commitment: National Association for the Education of Young Children. Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children.

Fromberg, D. (1995). The simplicity of complexity. Journal of Early Childhood Education, 16(3), 7-10.

Greene, M. (1995a). Releasing the Imagination: Essays on Education, the Arts, and Social Change. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.

Greene, M. (1995b). Choosing a past and inventing a future: The becoming of a teacher. (pp. 65-77) In W. Ayers. (Ed.). To Become A Teacher: Making A Difference In Children's Lives. New York: Teachers College Press.

Noddings, N. (1994). Caring: A feminist perspective. (pp. 43-53). In K. Strike and P. Ternasky. (Eds.) Ethics for Professionals in Education. New York: Teachers College Press.

Osborn, K. (1991). Early Childhood Education In Historical Perspective. Athens, GA: Education Associates.

Kevin J. Swick and Mac H. Brown, Professors of Early Childhood Education, Department of Instruction and Teacher Education, College of Education, University of South Carolina.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Dr. Kevin J. Swick, College of Education, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina 29208.