Early Learning Project
Illinois Early Learning (IEL) staff asked Lilian Katz (LK) about the challenges and opportunities facing the early care and education field today.
IEL welcomes reader responses! Click here to comment on this interview. We will post selected comments for further discussion.IEL:
You have had a long and distinguished career in early childhood and teacher education. Were there particular influences—certain individuals or experiences—that contributed to your professional path?
LK:
I came into the field about 54 years ago because of my three children. At that time, my oldest child was just over 3 years of age. My middle son was 2, and my youngest child was 5 months old. Needless to say, I had my hands full, and I felt overwhelmed by them! We were living in San Francisco at the time. A neighbor told me that there was a nursery school around the corner that accepted 3-year-olds that my eldest son might enjoy. It was a parent cooperative nursery school. To attend the co-op, mothers—this was 1955, and at that time it was typical for mothers of young children to be at home rather than to be employed—the mother had to participate as an assistant to the nursery school teacher one morning a week in the parent co-op classroom. She was also obliged to attend a class on parenting, child development, and teaching young children one night a week that was provided by the local public school adult education department. Participating in the parent cooperative nursery schools with all three of my children for a total of 5 years provoked my interest in children’s development and teaching the young ones. I was amazed when I watched the teacher in my oldest son’s class. She had about twenty 3- and 4-year-olds and seemed to me to be so calm and in charge—and also very respectful of the children. Watching her was a great inspiration to me. When we moved further south to San Mateo County to have a larger house for our rapidly growing children, I became involved in starting another parent co-op.
Finally, when my youngest child entered kindergarten, I accepted a job teaching 3-year-olds on three mornings a week in a nearby parent cooperative. At the same time, I took a class at the local community college in child development that was taught by Dr. Mary Lane. Dr. Lane encouraged me to finish my bachelor’s degree. I only needed one course to complete my bachelor’s degree at San Francisco State University in 1964 (where most of my prior studies had been in Modern Languages!).
As I taught the 3-year-old class at Redwood City Parent Cooperative, I began to realize that I needed more training, especially in nursery school teaching methods. The closest lab school to where we were living then was at Stanford University; it was part of the Psychology Department. The director there couldn’t help me because I was about to turn 30 years of age and they didn’t take students in the Stanford Psychology Department over 30 years of age at that time.
Dr. Lane, who continued to encourage me to develop a career in the early childhood field, put me in touch with Dr. Pauline Sears in the School of Education at Stanford University. Dr. Sears invited me to enter the Ph.D. program in developmental studies and education there. At that time, there was no master’s program available in child development in that department, so it had to be the doctoral program. I began my graduate work at Stanford in the spring of 1964. Dr. Sears knew then that Head Start was around the corner and there would be a great need for qualified professionals.
Head Start was launched in the summer of 1965. I taught as an assistant teacher in a Head Start class in the Mission District in San Francisco, where almost all of the families being served were from Central America.
I finished my Ph.D. at Stanford with Dr. Sears and worked with many other wonderful professors in the Psychology Department as well as in education. When I was just finishing my dissertation, I got a call from the College of Education at the University of Illinois in Urbana/Champaign (UIUC). They had a faculty opening in early childhood and invited me to apply. I was not familiar with UIUC as a campus, and on its surface, central Illinois was not as inviting a place to live as the San Francisco Bay area. I was, however, aware of many nationally recognized faculty in psychology and education. When I casually mentioned the invitation to apply for the position at the U of I to my husband, who was a civil engineer, he said with some enthusiasm that the UIUC had the best school of civil engineering in the world. And he said, “If you take the early childhood faculty position at the UIUC, I could go back to school and take another degree in engineering and then we could come back to northern California!” It turned out to be a wonderful career move for me and a good place to raise our three children, and my husband did go back to school and was glad that we had settled here in the Midwest.
IEL:
What changes have you observed in the ECE field that surprise you—ones you would not have predicted 10 or 20 years ago?
LK:
There have been quite a few interesting trends and changes since I came into the field.
Recently, I was looking at my dissertation, which was written in the 1960s. In those days, we were focused on children in poverty, whom we referred to as “culturally deprived.” Fortunately, we don’t use that term or concept today. We tend to talk more about cultural diversity, and we have learned more about appreciating the variety of differences among the children we serve and have learned to celebrate and respect our diversity. But it has not been an easy transition.
When I entered the field, there were interesting reports on young children in orphanages—the role of attachment in development and the damaging effects of inadequate attachment. We now know much more about the complexities of very early infant-adult relationships and that the impact of adult-baby interaction on neurological development starts at birth. So the increasing interest in neurological development is a major area we know so much more about today than we did back in the 1960s and 1970s.
Another new issue has to do with supporting young English language learners. Acquiring a second language early in life can be a real source of strength in a child’s life and his or her future—if we do it right. When I came into the field, we had a much more limited understanding of the nature and benefits of second language learning.
The application of standards to ECE programming is another recent focus for our profession. I’m referring to quality standards developed by NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children) and other organizations, as well as the increasing use of tests during the early years.
In response to this question about changes in the ECE field, I’d like to briefly comment on a few of the “distinctions” that I have written about over the years that represent trends in our field. They include the following:
- The distinction between a child’s culture and heritage.
I became interested in this topic because my own grandchildren are the first in my and my husband’s families to grow up in the same country where their own parents grew up. This was not true for me, or for my mother, or for my husband. However, our concern for cultural diversity and respect should not prevent us from understanding that the actual experience that a young child is having wherever he or she lives is his or her culture, and it may be quite different from that child’s cultural heritage. We want children to appreciate their heritage. At the same time, we must acknowledge that a young child’s culture represents his or her actual day-to-day experience. Helping children to know and appreciate their heritage is important…but not quite so much in the preschool years; as children get older, deepening their knowledge of their own cultural heritage can make stronger personal sense to them. - The distinction between parenting and teaching.
The phrase “parents are children’s first teachers” has always concerned me because parenting is distinct from teaching in many ways. They are not opposites! Certainly, parents do teach their children many important things, and teachers of young children do sometimes provide parental kinds of care and concern for the children they teach. For example, it is appropriate for a mother to demand good care for her child and to have strong emotions about the care her child receives and about promoting her child’s interests. It is likewise appropriate for a teacher to make her own knowledge, skills, and care equally accessible to every child in the class. Teachers are to be optimally rational, whereas mothers or parents are to be optimally emotional, biased in favor of their own children. As Urie Bronfenbrenner once said, “No one in his right mind would become a parent”! - The distinction between self-esteem and narcissism.
At the time that I was living in California in the 1950s and early 1960s, self-esteem was a big topic. A special division in the California State Department of Education was entirely devoted to self-esteem, and its mission was to help teachers support children’s self-esteem throughout the state! However, I suggest that there is an important distinction between self-esteem and narcissism. Narcissism is a preoccupation with how others see you and how others judge you. Self-esteem is based on the word “estimate.” It takes into account what criteria are used for estimating how you should feel about yourself. The criteria are certainly influenced by culture and by family histories and preferences. The criteria for one’s self-esteem should come from feeling that one has put his or her best foot forward…so to speak. It’s a big topic! - The distinction between academic and intellectual goals.
Many people who are not educators fail to take into account the important distinctions between academic and intellectual goals. Academic tasks are typically carefully structured, sequenced, and decontextualized small bits of information that we have good reason to believe must be taught and mastered by the learners. The tasks frequently involve memorizing lists or symbols and responding to questions that have correct answers. Intellectual goals, on the other hand, have to do with engaging children’s minds in raising questions, speculating about possible answers, and making predictions about what might happen if one thing or another is undertaken or not undertaken. Intellectual goals address dispositions, or habits of mind, that help children to make sense of their experiences, to theorize about cause-effect relationships, to hypothesize possible explanations to account for observations, and to analyze and synthesize whatever information is available. I believe that children are born with these intellectual dispositions, and I worry that premature academic instruction damages them too frequently.
IEL:
Are there any changes or current ECE trends that concern you?
LK:
The increase in testing young children is a concern. Young children are notoriously bad test takers. Data show that test scores of young children are unreliable. There is good reason to believe that just because children look good on their tests in the short term doesn’t mean that they will look good on standardized tests in the long term. Students who do well on tests in the short term are often those who are trained on test-taking skills. We have evidence that children in classes where autonomy, independence, and intellectual goals (vs. academic goals) are emphasized do not score well on tests in the early years, but they do better in the long term than children with early academic training.
IEL:
You are an active proponent of the Project Approach to learning as well as the approach used by the schools in Reggio Emilia, Italy. What in your view prevents our education system from embracing the Project Approach and the Reggio approach to education?
LK:
When done well, the Project Approach engages children in learning about what matters most to them, as well as what we think should matter to them. The quality of children’s experiences at the schools in Reggio Emilia, Italy, is stunning. I’ve visited the Reggio Emilia pre-primary schools 15 times, starting in 1990. The quality of their provisions in the pre-primary schools is so remarkable that they have attracted support and attention and visitors from 96 different countries. However, it is important to keep in mind that what they do in their programs in Reggio Emilia is not cheap. They have some national funds, as well as income-based fees for the parents. And about 20% of the city budget is devoted to the early care and education programs in Reggio Emilia.
I believe that testing pressures and the emphasis on state standards often discourage many teachers from using the Project Approach or elements of the Reggio Emilia approach. Good project work does address state standards, and some data indicate that good projects improve test scores—in the long term. Doing good project work takes a skillful teacher who is willing to take some initiative. But it has to be good project work in which the children are conducting in-depth investigations. I have been training many teachers here in Illinois (as well as nationally and internationally) to help them implement good-quality projects. But I believe that the teachers need good support to maintain the high quality that benefits the children.
IEL:
Parents often hear competing messages about what constitutes high-quality early childhood and kindergarten school experiences. What factors do you think are central to a positive learning environment for young children?
LK:
Parents (as well as educators and others concerned about early childhood education) should consider the basic question: What does it feel like to be a child in this program day after day? There may be some days when the child would prefer to be home, certainly. On most days, does the child feel welcomed in the program or simply stuck there? On most days is the experience one of being intellectually engaged and challenged? Does the experience encourage a child to apply skills in purposeful and meaningful ways? Does the day-to-day experience help the child to overcome setbacks and obstacles? Does the experience instill feelings of belonging to a community? Does it provide opportunities to take initiative, assume responsibility, and help others? My advice to parents is to think about how the environment and experience feel to the child most of the time.
IEL:
You have highlighted some of the challenges facing the early care and education field today. Are there reasons for optimism?
LK:
I hope so. In the Education Commission of the States update today, the first item was about the long-term benefits of high-quality ECE. That’s encouraging news certainly. For several years now, reports have been issued concerning the long-term benefits of good preschool education, especially for our children most at risk for school difficulties. I also worry that our economic challenges may prevent us as a nation from investing in programs that we know can benefit young children. An area that I am less optimistic about has to do with compensation. Salaries and working conditions for ECE professionals must be improved.
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