Originally Posted by nannyde:
I don't think it truly matters how we define education. I think we can use a broad brush and say we are educating with every action we do in the course of care and call ourselves teachers.
What matters is what the customer thinks is education and what they will pay for it.
I think if you polled today's parent they would tell you full on that education is reading, writing, math, and possibly science. What they want is their kid to read words, write letters, numbers, and words. They want PROOF that their child is being taught to read, write, and do math... math being counting and addition and subtraction.
They don't give a flip what we think is education. They want to see and show others their kid can read, write, and do math.... the younger the better.
They like the art stuff but they really want the daycare to give their kid the experience of messy stuff they don't want to do at home. They want their kid to paint first and then cut, paste, glitter etc. They want their kid to do fun messy stuff so they don't have to do it at home.
We can say words about our every interaction and everything in our environment being a part of education but that's not of interest to them.
Can Johnny read books so they can tape and put it up on Facebook?
Can Johnny write his upper and lower case letters so they can photograph it and put it up on Facebook?
Does Johnny come home with big painting projects or messy to do crafts so they can photograph and put up on Facebook?
Can Johnny show proof he can count, write his numbers, and do addition and subtraction so they can tape and put on Facebook?
THAT'S what they think is education.... nothing less.
They want that but what they REALLY want is it for free and not have to do anything but put it up on Facebook.
The bold is my current DCM who says "oh they love to cook but I keep them out of the kitchen". She loves that I let them do it. The hardest part of the cooking is they all want to do everything so it is a ton of working keeping it "fair" lol. I don't think parents understand that part either, it is real work to teach one child, much less a group even if the group is small.