Preschools In Three Cultures Revisited: Analysis

[Michael Hue]

I. Introduction

In 1985 Joseph Tobin did a study on  preschool education which culminated in a book, accompanied by a series of introspective videos. The book and surrounding material are entitled Preschool in Three Cultures. In the study, Joseph Tobin, Yeh Hsueh, and Mayumi Karasawa visit a preschool in China, Japan, and the United States. The contrasts of the educational techniques used, respectively in each preschool, reflected the social, political and economic values of each nation at that time. In Preschool in Three Cultures Revisited, the original authors take a second look at schools from China, Japan, and the U.S., almost two decades later (2003). The schools depicted in Preschool In Three Cultures Revisited have progressive approaches to education that highlight a shift in priorities for all three nations but more importantly, highlight behaviorist and constructivist teaching strategies that will be discussed in this analysis.

 

II. Behaviorism

The chief idea behind behaviorism is that learning is a change in one’s behavior. More often than not, behaviorist learning is teacher-centered. The theory of behaviorism claims that learning occurs in humans through the pairing of stimuli and behavior. A stimulus can be defined as anything that affects one or more of the five senses. Stimuli can range from the smell of a flower or the sight of your mother, to the complex arrangement of sounds that make up human speech. The only  reason that you can read this document is because you’ve learned to pair specific symbols (letters and words) with specific sounds, meanings and ideas. This aforementioned pairing is called conditioning. Two forms of conditioning exist, classical conditioning and operant conditioning; although the latter is primarily utilized in a learning environment. The most prominent idea to remember about operant conditioning is that its consequence-based. A practical example of operant conditioning in a learning environment is a teacher praising his or her student for doing homework. If the consequence (praise) causes the behavior (doing homework) to increase, then the teacher is reinforcing the behavior of doing homework. Wanted behaviors are reinforced and unwanted behaviors are either ignored or punished.

The students of Sinanlu You’eryuan in China took part in an exercise routine every morning, a necessary and effective practice for reinforcing an active lifestyle. The children were then led to an area of the school where they could participate in the act of gardening. This act is more on the constructivist side, but it is my opinion that it also promotes traditional awareness among the students of Sinanlu You’eryuan. China’s population is fairly homogenous compared to the rest of the world; therefore, very much influenced by tradition. In this case, it is the tradition of agriculture. The class also engaged in an activity known as “story telling king”, another instance that reinforced the children to take part in a traditional Chinese activity. After the story, the teacher acknowledged and praised good word choice and allowed the students to comment and critique.

In Madoka Yochien, a public preschool in Tokyo, Japan, the activities and practices contain strong behaviorist tendencies. The behaviorist tendencies of the Japanese school seemed to be a reflection upon the culture’s strong reservation towards uniformity and respect (especially in hierarchical situations). These tendencies are apparent even in the teacher’s morning staff meeting. All of the teachers had to be standing and lined up at their respective desks and were required, timely,  to respond “Good Morning” to the first “Good Morning” posed by the woman that was leading the staff meeting. The same type of behavior was reinforced at many times throughout the school day. The children were reinforced to say certain chants before and after meals or begin most activities in unison (many times with a chant). There was an ordeal with two boys, sometime near the end of the school day at Madoka Yochien, in which one boy pulled another boys hair, but they both claimed that their hair was pulled . The narrator notes that this was one of the few situations that the teacher intervened in a dispute between the children. The teacher tried to appear visually upset to the two boys while explaining the negative consequences of abusing a friend and also about lying. This seemed a very effective strategy at changing the boys future behavior.

At the Alhambra preschool, a public preschool in Phoenix, Arizona, there were the most signs of behaviorist learning strategies. There was an activity in the beginning of the video where a student had a specific day of the month on the calendar. The student whose day it was would go up to the calendar in front of the other students and put their name on the correct slot in the calendar. I agree with the reasoning behind the activity, which was to teach the students about the how to effectively read from right to left and how to use the calendar, but the implementation did seem almost too teacher directed in comparison to the other two schools. The teacher was hand feeding the children information and with good reason, I believe that she was making sure that all the children were on the same page at all times.The most apparent example of behaviorist teaching was during an activity where one student a day had to take home this stuffed animal named Buddy Bear and write what they did when the bear was home with them. The student would then talk about what they wrote with the whole class. Once again, the idea was agreeable, but the implementation caused the activity to be led by the teacher instead of the student that took the bear home. It turned into the teacher asking the student questions about what he did with Buddy Bear instead of allowing him to think critically.  It is my opinion that the teachers depicted in the Arizona video basically had to teach the way that they did because of the benchmarks imposed on them by the school board.

 

III. Constructivism

 

Constructivist learners actively build their own information, and that social interactions are key in the building of knowledge (Woolfolk, 2010). Because of these two ideas, constructivism in a learning environment is centered around language and self discovery. As said before, the students of Sinanlu You’eryuan participated in the act of gardening and in turn were able to construct knowledge about food and agriculture through their own discovery . In preschool aged children (and students of any age), hands on activities are useful for developing an overall understanding for almost any subject. It allows the the student to ask questions, not only of a peer, but of themselves. The children were then able to see the after effects when the school staff took the beans that they had previously planted and cooked them into the children’s lunch. There was a scene in the Chinese preschool where a young boy wanted to write about what he had done in the garden, but he could not remember how to write the word for okra. Fortunately, there was a word wall in the classroom where the teacher posted words that the children would likely need to use for the current activity. So the child was able to build a connection with that word without the direct help of a teacher. The most constructivist activity during the Sinanlu You’eryuan portion was the “extended dramatic play”. The children were encouraged to bring in real items that would be used in different jobs like a comb and scissors for a hair stylist or empty food containers for a grocery store clerk and reenacted real life work and adult situations with one another. They did all of this freely without any interference from the teacher. At first glance, someone might just call the activity “play”, but this activity allowed the children to engage in interpersonal situations with one another and ultimately grow socially and emotionally.

At Madoka Yochien, the narrator comments about the school being the curriculum for the children. The narrator goes on to describe the school as a giant tool or toy that the children can  manipulate and learn from. Out of all three schools, Madoka Yochien was probably the most constructivist. It seemed that a large portion of the time spent was doing non-teacher led activities. My thought is that some may see this as a bit too constructivist.

Unfortunately, I was not able to see many traits of constructivism at the Alhambra Preschool. This is not to say that the teachers did not attempt to create constructivist learning situations. The instance with buddy bear and Alhambra’s dramatic play portion were both constructivist activities, but the teachers just had too many hindrances to execute them properly.

IV. In My Own Classroom

If I were to teach preschool children, I would try and employ strategies from behaviorism and constructivism with an inherent bias towards constructivism. My opinion, which is loosely inspired by Preschool in Three Cultures Revisited, is that children in preschool have ample time to learn about math or science. Instead these children should focus on core social skills , as well as physical and emotional development; having that said, it is also my belief that language skills should be continuously honed at a very early age. On the walls of my classroom, I would have words put to corresponding illustration along the walls. I would also employ activities that stress the importance of self articulation like “Storytelling King.” I would allow my students to have a wide range of the experiences that one would deal with in the real world. I might accomplish this through dramatic play, pictures, music, and occasional field trips. Finally, My students would have a reflection period at times during the day where they may write a few sentences about what they did and how it made them think and feel.

In more mature school settings, my strategy would center around building connections and providing students with the tools to grasp concept and context. I would employ audio and visual examples in my classrooms along the lines of published media related to the subject or even self made illustrations (charts, flowcharts, graphs, timelines, etc.). In my opinion, once a student has an understanding of a concept and its function, it is very likely that said student will start to discover even more connections on their own.

 

V. Conclusion

Preschool In Three Cultures Revisited has given me a greater insight on the importance of mental and social development of young children around preschool age. It revealed strategies to me that I might use in my own classroom including learning through play, hands on activities, and the importance of discovery learning. This analysis has allowed me to learn about and become interested in the hard science behind the learning theory. I will hopefully go on to develop a greater understanding of both behaviorism and constructivism.

 

References

 

Woolfolk, A. (2010). Educational Psychology (11th ed.). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education inc.

 

[Shea Roberts]

Very interesting. I work at a Japanese kindergarten myself, and a lot of that is true. Japanese culture is very structured from childhood all through into the adult world as well. It's almost very cult like, but the society does it on the whole. Thank you for providing this study.