♪ Down came the rain and washed the spider out ♪

♪ Out came the sun and dried up all the rain ♪

♪ and the itsy bitsy spider crawled up the spout again ♪♪

That's your favorite song, again?

Again?

♪ The itsy bitsy spider crawled up the water spout ♪

♪ Down came the rain-- ♪♪

(Claire Knox) All of our competencies

with regard to understanding child development

and understanding dual language learners

and understanding mental health issues

for young children and understanding special needs,

all of these competencies weave together

into something that has a character in the early years

of life that is different than the character that it has

in later years.

All gone.

Oh, a little bit more actually.

(Claire Knox) What's important about early childhood

is that it's early childhood, that it is a time in life

when children are laying down foundations

that are gonna make a difference in terms of

their relationships with the world around them,

with how they learn, with how they think about things,

with how they handle mistakes, with how they deal with things

that don't work, with how they feel about working hard

to accomplish things.

That's what we're doing, and that's why it's important,

and that's why it's special.

The connection between studies of child development

and what we're doing with young children

in the early childhood setting is critical,

and it provides an essential foundation

for all the work that we do to prepare teachers

of young children.

So when you look at the areas of research

that are most informative for our field,

there have been incredible advances in terms of

what we know about how children think

and how they develop knowledge

and how they construct knowledge.

That has really influenced then how we theorize about the child

as a learner and the adult as someone who supports that

meaning-making child, so as we think about how do we prepare

teachers to work with young children,

we need a very strong foundation in knowing who the child is.

You notice that we need something there.

Will any of these things work?

Yeah.

(Mary Jane Maguire-Fong) One of the things

that the study of child development

provides us is that children are meaning-making creatures from

the moment of birth.

They arrive at birth gathering information from the world

around them, organizing that information,

constructing concepts about themselves,

about others, about the object world.

That process continues throughout early childhood.

What we can be mindful of, those of us who are preparing teachers

to work with young children, is how do we help teachers

think about the image of the child as a learner

and the image of a teacher

who supports that child in learning,

and what does it mean to teach and to learn when you're working

with children from birth through 5 years of age?

Here, would you like that?

(Mary Jane Maguire-Fong) The organizing principles

that I would hope that a teacher

preparing to work with young children be offered

include a very strong foundation in the image of the child

as one who constructs understanding

from everyday experiences.

(Claire Knox) And so

developmentally- apppropriate practice

has to draw not only on what we know about

developmental science and typical patterns and trends

in terms of children's social-emotional development,

their cognitive development,

their development as whole people,

but it also calls on us to really think about

who's in front of us

in terms of what we know about typical development--

Can I have that?

I was using it first.

(Claire Knox) But also the individual,

the culture that person is in.

Who is this person who's reacting this way?

Later I can give you, but--

(Claire Knox) What we know about typical pattern and trend

and what we know about how children learn

and how their behavior changes is like a reference library.

We use that as we're working with individual children,

individual families, and individual contacts

as a resource, but none of that answers the question of,

what do I do in the classroom this afternoon?

The circle was very, very sad,

and Mommy asked him--

Baby, why are you crying?

Because nobody want to play with me.

Why you not ask the square?

(Claire Knox) Because I can't answer that question

until I also factor into what I'm thinking about

the needs and interests of those children,

the needs and interests of those families,

the challenges that we're facing.

What's going on in our community?

The contacts that we're in,

who's gonna be there in the classroom that day,

what kind of caring community I'm trying to build,

and what the skills and competencies of the children

are in that process.

Dump it out and try again?

Angel.

Angel?

Yeah.

Are you calling Angel?

She's outside right now.

Can you see her from there?

Thinking about her?

Up.

Up?

You're thinking about going up?

We're gonna stay here for a little bit.

Do you wanna read a story with us?

There are lots of books here.

You take a look outside. You say, "Hello."

Early care and education is all about relationships to me.

That's the way I define it,

is that it's all about relationship building.

Are you gonna go get it?

What are you looking for?

(Alice Nakahata) This goes back a lot

to how important it is for children

to feel emotionally secure

so that then they have the freedom

to explore, to learn, to be self-confident,

and all that comes from the kind of nurturing

and the kinds of interactions and relationships

that they have had in that growing up period.

You went around?

You went around?

(Mary Jane Maguire-Fong) Part of our image as a classroom

is we've got a triangle of relationships.

We've got children, teachers, and the families,

and so how do we engage in dialogue alongside the families

occasionally so that they, too, can inform our thinking about

their children's ways of learning and thinking?

I think that the children want to spend time with

their families and their friends and their parents

and their grandparents.

Some of our children come from very extended families,

so there's other people in the home,

and I know that they are very important,

and they, too, are a part of the child's development.

So the family part, for a teacher to say to a parent,

to a grandparent, to an auntie, "Here's what we do together."

But in working with families what really came across is that

is a context for each child.

They are the primary caretakers of that child,

and that child will learn values,

will be able to do things within that context.

I think one of the challenges in terms of getting students

to be acquainted with the impact of families

is for them to see the differences

and also to be open to those differences

and to be respectful of those differences

and how much impact they have on the way

that people raise young children.

All that asphalt goes down, and the grater goes over,

and what does it do?

It flattens it out?

(Mary Jane Maguire-Fong) California developed

the foundations and the framework

that describe what we want children to learn and how we

want to encourage teachers to provide for that learning.

This one's big.

This one's short, and this one's tiny.

(Mary Jane Maguire-Fong) Emotional, cognitive, language--

[speaking in a foreign language]

Motor, all of those domains of learning.

For example, young children accomplish this

incredible agenda of motor milestones.

[children talking]

How do we support that process of exploring what they

can do with their bodies in a way that is very natural

and that allows them to use their bodies freely

in order to move through these motor milestones?

In the back of a teacher's mind there is a sense of these are

the concepts and skills that I know the children

are in the process of making sense of

with respect to science,

with respect to math, with respect to language,

literacy, social understanding, et cetera,

so as I set up a meaningful context for children to engage

in figuring something out I'm aware of the possibility that

children may reveal their thinking around some of these

concepts and skills.

I need a plate.

You need a plate? Okay.

(Mary Jane Maguire-Fong) Play really is the vehicle

that allows us to integrate the curriculum

because children within play are going to

effectively accomplish language, cognitive,

social, emotional, physical development

all wrapped into one.

Hey, Anthony.

Hey, Anthony.

Anthony, this is yours.

This is yours here.

Anthony, you sit right here.

I'm gonna get this chair for you.

(Mary Jane Maguire-Fong) And so it's really incumbent

on the early childhood teacher

to keep that awareness of what are the skills and concepts that

we want children to learn.

Teacher, what is this?

It is a vest.

Do you like it?

It looks pretty flashy, huh?

(Mary Jane Maguire-Fong) So when a child enters

the room there are play spaces

that are inviting the child to discover a wonderful array

of engaging materials.

What are those, Ella?

For looking.

Oh, they're binoculars, huh?

Yeah, these are for looking like this.

Uh-huh.

How those play spaces are set up is very intentional,

and this is where a well-prepared teacher

or team of teachers makes sure that this happens,

that the play spaces can be seen as learning spaces and that

there is a lot of thought into how they're prepared

as context for learning.

Fix your bike.

Fix your--look.

(Mary Jane Maguire-Fong) The role of the teacher

in setting up the play space is very different

than the traditional role of the teacher

as one who imparts knowledge or creates an activity

that expects a certain answer.

It's important that in setting up these environments for

learning for young children that we adopt an attitude

of not knowing what the children are going to do precisely

or not expecting one right way of playing in those play spaces

because there is no one right way,

but we know we've been successful as teachers

if we have children who are deeply engaged in play

and if they are using the materials well.

Okay, you make a letter, and when you see one like this

that means that's mine.

When you see one like that, that means it's yours?

Oh, you have to put an envelope.

The adult part of it is really to observe what is