‘A teacher’s hug can make you feel better’: listening to U.S. children’s voices on high-quality early childhood teaching

ABSTRACT

Shown to be the single most influential factor in children’s early learning and development experiences, quality in early childhood education and care (ECEC) teaching has attracted increasing interest in research and policy globally. Yet almost all definitions of quality ECEC teaching to date reflect only adults’ notions of the features that should define a good early-years professional. The present study captures children’s (four-to-six-year-olds’) voices on the knowledge, skills, and attitudes they believe a high-quality ECEC teacher should have. Two major categories emerge from the children’s drawings and narratives, which illustrate children’s perspectives on the quality of their teachers’ role: (1) a teacher who adapts to the culture of childhood, and (2) a teacher who attends to individual diversity. Findings provide alternative measures of quality ECEC teaching grounded in children’s thoughtful ideas about the ways they believe their teachers can have a positive impact on their school lives.

KEYWORDS:

• Early childhood education and care
• high-quality teaching
• teachers’ role
• research with children
• participatory research methods
• children’s voices

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Pseudonyms have been used to preserve the participating children’s identity.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (Gobierno de España), under grant #FPU17/03170; the Universidad de Córdoba under grant ‘Contratos Predoctorales UCO 2017’; and the Universidad de Córdoba under grant ‘Becas de Movilidad Internacional 2017/2018’.