Teaching Matters:The changes Ireland has undergone in the past 15 years have had a massive impact on the lives of young children. The most noticeable of these is the changing role of the mother in the family and in the child's early life. Between 1995 and 2004 the number of women at work outside the home increased from 483,000 to 771,000. About 55 per cent of women with a child under the age of five are employed. A pattern of both parents working outside the home is increasingly the norm in Ireland.
The experience of childhood has changed in others ways too. The media and internet revolution have a hugely pervasive presence in the lives of children, even those of pre-school age. As much of the engagement with television and computers is individualised and sedentary, there is growing concern about the role of technology in the emotional, social and physical development of the child. There is also concern that in an increasingly consumer-orientated society, much that is consumed by children contributes little to their development, or may indeed be incompatible with it.
It is reasonable to propose that the pre-school child will develop to the limits of their environment. The parent is the primary educator of the child. This is not to confuse the role of parenting with one of child instructor. It is rather to see the parent as one who creates the loving, stimulating, creative environment in which the child's innate capabilities and intelligences are nurtured and supported.
Notwithstanding the massive significance of this role, few people receive any kind of formalised tuition or support in performing it. As a society, we are inclined to assume that parents are somehow pre-programmed or know instinctively how to play with their children; to lead them into new imaginative worlds through storytelling and reading; to refine and develop their aesthetic capabilities through music, song, dance and art; to create fun moments of daily chores and to support on an ongoing basis the development of the child's verbal skills, communication skills and self-image.
It can be argued that the home is now a more sterile learning environment for the child than it once was. As everyday activities such as cooking, meals and family-based recreation have increasingly moved out of the home, the learning opportunities for the child have also been lost. These days many parents must contrive to create alternative opportunities for their children to provide them with possibilities for exploration, multiple learning experiences and the integration of experiences around activities that domestic life once provided. Instead of assuming the parents know how to do this, it might be more reasonable to assume that they do not, and need to be supported.
The Victorians introduced the post-natal house visit of the public health nurse at the end of the 19th century to advise parents on the physical care of the newborn child. High rates of infant mortality caused by gastric infections arising from poor domestic hygiene were a particular cause of concern. The lime-washed cottage, so emblematic of the rural idyll ,was a gesture at least as much in the direction of disinfection as it was to landscape aesthetics.
There may now be a case for replicating this model of the house visit in contemporary Ireland with one that focuses on the intellectual, emotional and social development of the pre-school child and in supporting parents in this process. Such a service would provide critical support to parents in helping them reflect on their role as parents; informing them on key developmental tasks of their child in the pre-school years; helping them to construct a stimulating learning environment, indoor and outdoor; alerting them to the significance of every aspect of their behaviour to the well-being and development of the child and assisting them to enter the imaginative world of the child.
While the Celtic Tiger has required the home to make profound adjustments in the manner of its organisation, it has made nothing like the same demand on the workplace. While parental leave entitlements have been improved, and workplace creches are more common, workers outside the home must invariably segregate their working lives from their child-minding lives. A child-friendly workplace would aim to overcome this separation and invite children into its daily routine. To the extent that children must compete with the workplace for the time and attention of their parents, they are in a uniquely weak position. Public policy should move to strengthen the child's bargaining position.
One area of clear public policy responsibility is that of pre-school provision. A report from the National Economic and Social Forum makes a cogent argument for one year's universal pre-school provision for all children prior to entering primary education. The report cites studies from many countries, including both the UK and the US to show that pre-school experience at age three or four enhances all-round development of children - emotional, intellectual and social/behavioural disadvantaged children benefit significantly and disproportionately from such provision, especially where there is a mix of children from different backgrounds the benefits of pre-schooling extend to adults in mid-life, in relation to issues such as "crime prevention, health, family and children" it is an effective mechanism for addressing child poverty
Considering the social and other benefits which such an initiative would yield, both immediately and in the longer term and the relatively minor cost to the Exchequer of such a new departure, it is somewhat surprising that this issue has not been seized upon as the last frontier in the development of mass education. It is all the more surprising when one considers the difficulties and costs associated with efforts at remediation and compensation in education in later life - problems which might well have been pre-empted by earlier pre-school intervention. Experienced teachers say they can identify a future drop-out at the age of six. If this is so, it is imperative that the learning opportunities prior to this age are not missed.
Prof Tom Collins is head of education at NUI Maynooth
