Should Spirituality be Taught in Post-compulsory Education? Justifications for its Inclusion in the Further Education Curriculum

Marilyn Tatarkowski points to Dearing's suggestion that all providers of education and training should take spiritual and moral issues into account in the design and delivery of the curriculum. In her own FE college she found that social science students were generally positive about the idea of a forum to discuss religious and spiritual issues, and that a high percentage of them had become more interested in this area since moving into HE. Having provided a detailed analysis of the concept of spiritual development, she ends by providing both a justification for the inclusion of spiritual development in the FE curriculum and some suggestions as to how this might be done.     

How can we find out what 3 and 4 year olds think? New approaches to eliciting very young children's understandings in science

This paper outlines work in progress on a study which is investigating what children understand about natural and processed materials and how scientific learning on the topic could be extended and reinforced in the home. Four different interview schedules for eliciting children's understanding were developed and tried out. Children's understandings prior to each of the four units, and at the conclusion of the teaching program were documented through individual interviews. Family interviews were also conducted prior to and at the conclusion to the teaching. In this paper the difficulties associated with researching young children's thinking are explored. The rationale for a storytelling context for the interviews is presented, and there is a preliminary discussion on the effectiveness of the methodology utilised. Specializations: early childhood science education; the Curriculum Corporation K-3 Science Program. Specializations: primary science education, teacher education in science, adult experiences of science and technology; the K-3 Science Program.     

Welfare-to-Work Single Mothers' Perspectives on Parent Involvement in Head Start: Implications for Parent–Teacher Collaboration

Single mothers' perspectives on selecting child care reflect their experiences of the significance of parent–teacher collaboration in a Head Start context. Mothers spoke of their motivations for selecting child care, their experiences of their relationships with Head Start teachers, and how their self-development and learning were enhanced by interactions with Head Start staff. Such collaboration has positive effects for their children, their development as parents, and their development as individuals. Implications of their perspectives for teacher best practices are drawn.     

Models of supervision in early childhood programs: Implications for training

Many child care directors inherit their role of supervisor without having had adequate training or experience. Given the wide disparity in the field with respect to staff preparation, child care directors, in their role as supervisors, are called on to develop, train, evaluate, and appraise child care workers on a daily basis. The literature in the field suggests that there are common threads among supervisory models in early childhood and that directors of child care programs can benefit from in-service training that specifically addresses their supervisory functions. “The most difficult part of my job as Director is trying to get my staff to change certain practices.” Director, Church Preschool Program “I don't feel comfortable with my role as evaluator; I guess I don't like telling people they're doing something wrong.” Director, Day Care Center     

Temperament,tympanum, and temperature: four provisional studies of the biobehavioral correlates of tympanic membrane temperature asymmetries

Previous research in both humans and nonhuman primates suggests that subtle asymmetries in tympanic membrane (TM) temperatures may be related to aspects of cognition and socioaffective behavior. Such associations could plausibly reflect lateralities in cerebral blood flow that support side-to-side differences in regional cortical activation. Asymmetries in activation of the left and right frontal cortex, for example, are correlates of temperamental differences in child behavior and markers of risk status for affective and anxiety disorders. Tympanic membrane temperatures might thus reflect the neural asymmetries that subserve individual differences in temperament and behavior. This report merged findings from four geographically and demographically distinctive studies, which utilized identical thermometry methods to examine associations between TM temperature asymmetries and biobehavioral attributes of 4- to 8-year-old children (N = 468). The four studies produced shared patterns of associations that linked TM temperature lateralities to individual differences in behavior and socioaffective difficulties. Warmer left TMs were associated with "surgent," affectively positive behaviors, whereas warmer right TMs were related to problematic, affectively negative behaviors. Taken together, these findings suggest that asymmetries in TM temperatures could be associated with behavior problems that signal risk for developmental psychopathology.