“Education is not an affair of ‘telling’ or being told, but an active and constructive process.” – John Dewey.
As a preschool teacher, I always aim to nourish children to become better social beings. My main objective is that by the time a child graduates from my school, he should know how to share, how to respect and how to empathize with others. The elementary schools are doing a great job at teaching the academics. As a preschool teacher, my job is to incept the core social values that will benefit in the long run. Considering this aim, I chose HighScope® over the other learning approaches, as its philosophy allows me to work with children at a social and emotional level and nurture them into better citizens for the society.
In an age where Montessori is becoming an educational brand, not many people know about HighScope® and its benefits for preschool education. Here I provide a walk through of this learning approach and how I apply it in my preschool on daily basis to enhance the holistic development of young learners.
HighScope® – A history
HighScope® is a relatively new approach to learning which was founded in Michigan, USA in 1970. It originated based on the work of Dave Wiekart and Connie Kamii on Perry Preschool Project. This learning approach has a strong genesis in the constructivist theory of education, which promotes that children learn by interacting with adults, peers and the environment around them. This is the defining aspect of HighScope®, which encourages an active learning environment, leaving immense scope for children to ‘learn by doing’, which was effectively promoted by John Dewey, the founder of the constructivist school of thought.
How is HighScope® better?
A study conducted on the HighScope® approach concluded that children who received high-quality preschool education based on active and participatory learning were more likely to graduate from high school and get employed with better earnings.
Between the four different approaches to early childhood learning – Montessori, HighScope®, Reggio Emilia and Waldorf, the idea of a better learning philosophy is subjective in nature.
Having worked with different learning approaches, I chose to implement HighScope® in my preschool, as the idea of promoting life skills in children and allowing them to learn through exploration, experimentation and errors was more luring to me as a teacher. This aspect is missing in the other approaches like Montessori, where learning takes place through the materials designed by Maria Montessori herself. These materials are didactic in nature and since they are supposed to be used in only one way, it prevents the child from committing errors and thus leaves almost no scope to learn by exploration.
Following are some of its defining features:
Active learning environment:
HighScope® promotes a cognitively and socially rich environment that allows children to interact with different materials, as well as promotes social interaction between peers and adults. An active learning environment allows scope for children to get more hands-on learning opportunities where teachers extend learning in the real life set up, which results in a life long understanding of the concept.
As is truly quoted by Benjamin Franklin, “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I remember, involve me and I learn.’
As a part of our weekly theme on farm animals, I asked my 3.5 years old preschoolers, “Where do we get milk from?” Their answers reflected their innocence. “From the fridge!” “From the grocery store.” This gave a perfect platform to create a hands-on learning experience to show children about the real source of milk. I made a cut out of a cow and used the surgical gloves as the udder. I filled the glove with milk. I explained my preschoolers about ‘milking the cow process and let them experience it themselves. Now when these children are playing with the toy farm animals, they point out, “Ms. Annie, that is the cow’s udder. We get milk from it.” These anecdotes define the learning progress of each individual child.
Social interaction:
With its active nature, HighScope® promotes a socially rich preschool environment that promotes lot of interaction between children and adults. The teacher facilitates the learning environment with open ended materials that creates scope for many small and large group discussions. Children are guided to enhance their creative imagination through many play-based activities.
While reading the famous Mo Willems book, ‘Don’t let the pigeon drive the bus!’ one of my preschool children reflected, “No pigeon! You cannot drive the bus! You will bang into something! It is not safe!”
I host interactive read aloud sessions with my preschoolers that foster their language development and boosts their creative thinking. The young minds are encouraged to predict the next element, think about what they would have done and discuss the favorite part of the story. These discussions allow children to extend learning in their real-life situations as well as fosters their language development which is a key element in HighScope®.
Life skills:
The social aspect of HighScope® approach promotes problem solving and decision making in preschoolers which are important life skills that go a long way.
The teachers here act as facilitators of knowledge and allow children to work in groups to explore different materials.
One of my favorite themes to do with preschoolers is to teach them about feelings and empathy. As a part of this theme, I make it a point to dedicate one whole day to the feeling of anger. My main objective is to help children identify this emotion and handle it in the right way. Rather than preventing them from getting angry, which is difficult even for adults, I encourage the young learners to take a deep breath and calm down. I then hold their hands and we talk about the trigger point of their emotion. This not only helps me, but also helps the children in identifying the things that bother them and find a better way to express their feelings. The idea of being heard and being trusted also creates a sense of security for the children, which plays a very important role in their healthy social and emotional development.
While learning about anger as a feeling, I use art to explain children about the importance of deep breathing to calm down. We do what I call, 'Deep breathing painting'. I cover the whole table with paper and pour out some paint. They use brushes or their hands to spread the paint, while listening to some relaxing music. I encourage them to take some deep breathes as they are doing it and the 3 years old kiddos reflect, "This feels good. I feel happy." This sensorial experience makes it easy for them to gradually adapt deep breathing as practice to handle anger and frustration as an emotion.
Another important life skill promoted by HighScope® is the ability to make independent decisions. As a preschool teacher, I get children in the age group of 3-5 years. This is the age when they are becoming independent in many developmental domains and feel pride in showcasing it. The aspect of ‘Plan – do – review’ in HighScope® promotes this independence and allows children to take their own decisions and implement it. This, while filling the child with a sense of pride, also allows scope for errors, which itself is a learning opportunity. Children are able to explore their curiosity and learn “what not to do the next time.”
In the Plan-Do-Review sequence, children are encouraged to discuss, plan and choose their activities from those given, implement their plan and review their experiences.
This sequence of activities improves their decision making, social communication, problem solving and logical reasoning. These abilities, when developed in the early preschool years promotes a strong genesis for kindergarten readiness and assures their higher academic success.
Center based approach
HighScope® has 8 different key learning areas – approaches to learning, science and technology, creative arts, mathematics, social and emotional development, physical development, language, literacy and communication and social studies.
These 8 learning areas are promoted through a center-based approach, where each center is focused on one learning aspect of the concept. This promotes a multi-dimensional understanding of a concept where a child can explore learning through art, craft, math, language and other areas. This, while enhancing their learning ability, also improves their rational understanding of the concept. The center-based approach also allows the teacher to tap on the interest area of children which improves their self-initiative to learn.
One day a preschool friend asked me, “Ms. Annie, why do I need to wash my hands with soap? I only want to wash with water.” The HighScope teacher in me knew that this was a learning opportunity I needed to tap on. I created a whole theme on ‘Good habits’ and dedicated every center to the importance of washing hands with soap. We did a science experiment with black pepper and soap, where the child noticed that water does not remove his germs, but when we added soap, germs “went away!” This provided the child with a rational understanding, which created a self-initiative in him to wash his hands with soap.
Assessments:
Assessments form the key to design an effective curriculum based on the HighScope® approach. A teacher tracks the progress of the child through varied assessment methodologies, like maintaining a portfolio, recording daily observations and anecdotes and reviewing it at the end of the year.
Recording anecdotes is an important aspect of HighScope®, which allows teachers to review the knowledge gained and the progress made by each individual child.
Considering its social nature, teachers encourage children to talk and discuss about their work, which energizes their creative thinking and showcases their academic as well as developmental progress.
I once did a whole theme on ‘Foods we eat’ to promote healthy eating habits among preschoolers. At the beginning of the theme, one of my children said, “Cookies are good. They are so yummy!” Hands-on learning through different art and craft activities, a ‘Healthy Food’ board game and language and communication activities related to the theme helped in changing the perspective of the child till an extent that when he made a play-dough cake in pretend play, he said, “Ms. Annie, we don’t eat it too much! Just a little bit. It can give you owy in the stomach.” Recording these anecdotes helped me gauge the progress made by the child throughout the whole theme and discuss it with the parents as well.
From a personal perspective, I find HighScope® as a better learning approach as it allows me to focus on the social and emotional development of my young learners. I feel proud when children graduate from my preschool as better citizens.
As was once shared by my mentor teacher, “Its okay if my preschooler does not know his numbers or letters. The elementary school will take care of it. But it is not okay with me if my preschooler does not know how to share his toys and how to respect his friends.”
References:
Klein, A. (2008). Different Approaches to Teaching: Comparing Three Preschool Programs. http://www.earlychildhoodnews.com/earlychildhood/article_view.aspx?ArticleID=367
Annie Shah is the owner and teacher at ‘Annie & Friends! Preschool’ in Reno. Annie has been a preschool and kindergarten teacher since the past seven years. With a double masters in Early Childhood Education, Annie wishes to do nothing but create the best preschool experience for the young kiddos out there!
"Do what you do so well that people cannot stop talking about you." - Walt Disney
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