Investigating Emotional, Sensory and Social Learning in Early Years Practice

Sarah Cousins, Wendy Cunnah

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317233336
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This book explores learning in the early years and emphasises the importance of learning in social contexts, through the senses and within close relationships. It moves away from the focus on 'learning' as the acquisition of knowledge, and instead emphasises the importance of personal, social and emotional development in early years education. Arguing that young children learn best when they are supported by reliable, engaged and attentive people who know them well, this book challenges readers to reflect on their own practice and think about how emotions play a part in young children's learning and development.

Each chapter of this book discusses a different aspect of emotional, sensory and social learning, from philosophical perspectives on learning, leadership and inclusive practice, to the importance of promoting the development of children's emotional intelligence, forming close attachments to children, and encouraging them to learn through their senses. The reader is provided with a wealth of ideas and examples for application in the classroom.

Numerous practical examples, reference to contemporary research, and the authors' acknowledgement of the challenges faced by practitioners make this an inspiring and pertinent resource for new and experienced teachers and practitioners, as well as trainees and students in the fields of early years and primary education. Readers will develop the skills needed to engage in outstanding, learning-focused practice.

1
Introduction

Overview of the Chapter

This chapter is about beliefs and perspectives on the topic of emotional, sensory and social learning in the early years. Love is constructed as important, and education is seen as valuable for its own sake, rather than as an investment for future economic success. Different sets of principles from international organisations are considered. The authors also put forward their own guiding principles for healthy emotional, sensory and social learning in early childhood:

• Childhood is a special time to enjoy
• Children learn about the world through their emotions, their senses and people around them
• It is important for adults to recognise and encourage children’s creative expressions
• Babies and very young children thrive when they have access to the best integrated care and education
• Highly skilled and emotionally self-aware people are needed for work with babies and very young children

Introduction

A phenomenon such as learning is not possible to discuss in any straightforward manner.

(Kultti and Pramling, 2015:106)

Learning is a complex process. It is multifaceted, mysterious, and different at different times and for every child. This book considers learning in its broadest sense, particularly as it relates to young children’s emotional, sensory and social learning. What does research say about learning? How do different policies in England correspond to research on the topic? What of the role of the adult? What sorts of environments support children to develop in these areas? What styles of leadership are needed?

The age-range covered in this book is broadly birth to eight, though some of the content may apply to older children. This is not to say that the chapters go through age-expectations or recommended approaches at different ages in any sequential order. Instead, there are separate chapters on different topics: theory, emotions and love, learning through the senses, learning in social contexts and leadership. Topics are covered in turn and the content in each chapter may be applied to all ages. This recursive, thematic approach accords with the authors’ belief that children learn and develop in different ways and according to their own unique patterns. Things happen as they happen rather than according to pre-set plans or expectations. No child is the same, and this makes the work with young children at once fascinating and complex. As will be discussed in Chapter 2, the authors of this book are more comfortable with uncertainty than certainty, notions that draw on diverse ideas and events rather than single claims to truth. Accordingly, work with young children, families and communities is rich, unpredictable, unexpected and wonderful. Adults who choose to work with very young children have entered a highly complex field, and this explains why many admit to a vocational calling (Taggart, 2011). This book explores the intricacies of some of the work done by these highly committed people.

Children’s everyday learning with family members and people who love them

Babies and young children learn from their earliest sensory and emotional experiences, through everything and everyone around them. Babies learn from expressions of love by those close to them. They see loving faces, feel loving embraces and smell the smells of the people who love them. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) reflected on his early learning supported by the people who surrounded him and loved him:

How could I have learnt bad ways, when I was offered nothing but examples of mildness and surrounded by the best people in the world? It was not that the people around me – my father, my aunt, my nurse, our relatives, our friends, our neighbours – obeyed me, but rather that they loved me; and I loved them in return.

(Rousseau, 2000:10)

Rousseau described a family group made up of the people who encircled him, and who guided him and cared for him with love. When young children’s physical needs are met, when they can rely on their carers or educators to attend to them well, and when they feel loved, they can begin to take risks and explore their surrounding environment with confidence.

Young children’s earliest emotional and sensory experiences shape their brain architecture (Murray, 2014; Lebedeva, 2015) for life and contribute to who they become as older children, and as adults. As Dowling (2010:14) articulated, ‘happy memories from childhood can nourish us throughout life and we can draw on them in difficult times’.

Topics covered in different chapters of the book

This book is about creating nourishing environments that stimulate children’s senses, and support them to build up a bank of positive emotional experiences. The book explores the intricate and important work of adults in early years settings, and how they contribute to children’s happiness and help them to communicate well with each other.

In the introduction we consider different sets of principles. What do different organisations declare as important in early childhood? What principles underpin this book, and why are these important? In Chapter 2 we take a close look at different theories and consider how these can be applied to work with children, especially in relation to their emotional, sensory and social learning. In Chapter 3 we consider emotion and emphasise the importance of building close, loving relationships with very young children. Chapter 4 explores sensory learning, with a focus on supporting children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Chapter 5 focuses on social learning, and how children learn in families and communities. Leadership is the topic of Chapter 6, with an emphasis on providing spaces to talk about this complex work in early childhood.

Principles and precepts

Different organisations have their own sets of guiding principles. The Early Years Regional Alliance (EYRA), run by the International Step by Step Association (ISSA), for example, is an international body made up of partners and organisations from across Europe and Central Asia. Different international stakeholders are united around a shared message and are committed to increased access, equity, quality and investment in early childhood development, education and care (ISSA, 2016). EYRA’s mission is to promote a comprehensive, inclusive and rights-based approach to full development of young children and their parents. The organisation believes that this is the strongest possible foundation for the well-being of children and nations (ISSA, 2016).

Organisations such as this are engaged in important work, enabling dialogue across different professions in order to strengthen links between research, practice and policy. In order to do this important work, EYRA agreed the following principles as part of its manifesto:

• Every child has the right to a positive early childhood: realising this right is in the public interest and is the responsibility of all members of society
• The full realisation of young children’s rights must be made an explicit public policy priority
• Young children thrive in nurturing, responsive, stimulating and safe family environments
• Children learn and develop through play and meaningful interactions
• All young children benefit from early childhood development services when they are inclusive and of high quality
• Building a just society for all children and their families requires proactive ways of addressing exclusion, inequality, poverty and violence
• Individualised and family-centred services support children with developmental challenges and/or disabilities to reach their full potential
• Integrated and professionalised early childhood systems support positive developmental outcomes for all young children
• Quality early childhood development services must be a priority for the allocation of public resources

(ISSA, 2016)

These are important and expansive principles. Each principle makes a particular point, but is also connected to all the other principles. So, for example, we cannot achieve the first principle, to give every child the right to a positive early childhood, if we do not also meet the third principle, and offer children a nurturing, responsive, stimulating and safe environment.

Under the principle about learning and development through play and meaningful relationships, the manifesto makes the following statement:

Loving and respectful interactions, reading and play are essential for development and must be valued and embedded in every child’s daily life: at home, in preschools and schools, in early childhood services, and the community. Families and other adults working with children should be supported to understand the importance of play and interactions with young children.

(ISSA, 2016:3)

It is encouraging that this international, interdisciplinary body of professionals makes a clear statement about the importance of loving and respectful interactions with children. Loving interactions are not restricted to familial contexts, but extended to ‘other adults working with children’. There is an acknowledgement that the people who work with babies and very young children are crucially important to their healthy mental and physical development.

Reflection: Formal and Informal Learning

• How are you supported to understand the importance of play and interactions with young children?
• To what extent do you draw on your formal training?
• To what extent do you draw on your learning from life, and intuition?
• What is your setting policy on adult interactions with children? What, if anything, does it say about loving and respectful interactions?

Another set of principles was developed by the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University (2016). The aim of these principles was to incorporate recent advances in the science of early childhood development and its underlying biology. The research community at the University of Harvard articulated the following principles:

1. Even infants and young children are affected adversely when significant stresses threaten their family and caregiving environments
2. Development is a highly interactive process, and life outcomes are not determined solely by genes
3. While attachments to their parents are primary, young children can also benefit significantly from relationships with other responsive caregivers both within and outside the family
4. A great deal of brain architecture is shaped during the first three years after birth, but the window of opportunity for its development does not close on a child’s third birthday
5. Severe neglect appears to be at least as great a threat to health and development as physical abuse – possibly even greater
6. Young children who have been exposed to adversity or violence do not invariably develop stress-related disorders or grow up to be violent adults
7. Simply removing a child from a dangerous environment will not automatically reverse the negative impacts of that experience
8. Resilience requires relationships, not rugged individualism

The emphasis made within these principles is on quality relationships. Importantly, the principles are built on strong, interdisciplinary research. It is interesting that they convey a non-deterministic stance whereby children may or may not overcome adverse experiences, and where there is scope for positive development and recovery beyond the age of three.

Reflection: Windows of Opportunity for Sensory, Social and Emotional Learning

The following statement is made under Point 4 of the Harvard principles:

While the regions of the brain dedicated to higher-order functions – which involve most social, emotional, and cognitive capacities, including multiple aspects of executive functioning – are … affected powerfully by early influences, they continue to develop well into adolescence and early adulthood. So, although the basic principle that ‘earlier is better than later’ generally applies, the window of opportunity for most domains of development remains open far beyond age 3, and we remain capable of learning ways to ‘work around’ earlier impacts well into the adult years.

(Center on the Developing Child, 2016:2)

• What implications does this perspective have on your practice?

As authors of this book, we too hold our own beliefs about what matters in early childhood. We have our unique perspectives. We did not write this book from a detached stance, as academics in some way cut off from the real world, with particular specialist knowledge, but as living beings, ‘intertwined’ (Martin and Kamberelis, 2013:672) with the world. We wrote this with our own broad experiences of living in families and working in early years contexts. We are fully involved in the world. Our learning and experiences, therefore, inevitably contributed to our writing. In other words, our informal life stories, as well as our scholarly learning and experiences as professionals, have contributed to our beliefs, and these flow into our constructions on the topic. There is no objectivity in what we write. On the contrary, our subjective stances permeate the contents of this book.

Through our accumulated knowledge and understan...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Philosophies, frameworks and contemporary perspectives
• 3 Emotions and love
• 4 Sensory learning
• 5 Social learning
• 6 Leadership for learning
• Conclusion
• Index