Early years of children’s life are very critical because they undergo a robust natural development process that encompasses all domains including physical, cognitive, social, emotional, psychosexual, spiritual and moral development. Thus, all children are born with an innate potential to learn and develop if properly nurtured, much like intuition, which is present at birth, can unfold to its innate potential over the first 8 years of life through proper care and attention. This critical feature of human development makes early years of life very sensitive for the entire life time. In the absence of an enabling environment for young children, their innate potential starts withering away, and is eventually lost.

In present times, apart from the role of parents, the teachers’ role has also become critical in the nurturing of children due to the prevailing fashion of early schooling. However, many a time, teachers do not have even the basic understanding of the innate potential children possess and its natural development process. This lack of understanding and ignorance leads to a creation of an environment which is extremely harmful for the nurturing of children. One of the critical things which teachers can do to facilitate the nurturing of children is to STOP their anti-nurturing practices.

This article highlights some of the key current practices of teachers which need to be stopped. It also maps out essential steps for teachers to become good facilitators.

STOP underestimating children; START acknowledging their potential
The first thing that teachers need to do is to stop underestimating the potential and skills of children. Many teachers believe that children are like empty vessels and do not possess any of their own thoughts, ideas, emotions, skills or observations. Although teachers articulate that children have prior knowledge and skills, the teaching practices reflect this very flawed assumption.

Our careful observations of young children show that each child is born with amazing innate capabilities to learn, explore, observe, feel and respond. Recent findings of Cognitive Neuroscience have also proved that "Babies are not 'blank slates' at birth. They come into the world with all kinds of mental skills and predispositions, abilities suited to the critical needs of early life.” First of all teachers have to change their beliefs about children and need to acknowledge their natural potential to learn and grow. This change in understanding will be essential to bring a change in their practices which will consider children as the active architects of their own learning and growth process.

STOP teaching; START facilitating a natural learning process
‘Teachers have to stop teaching.’ This statement may sound outrageous, however, the fact remains that the act of ‘teaching’ destroys the entire natural learning process. ‘Teaching’ actually forces children to participate in the activities which are designed to fulfill curricular needs and expectation instead of focusing on children’s needs and their interest. This forced, mandatory and externally driven process crushes the natural learning spirit of children which makes them curious, enthusiastic and voluntary learners.

What will teachers do if they do not teach? Many of you may be thinking of this question right now. The answer is that they have to facilitate the natural learning and development process. Teachers need to become ‘Gardeners’ instead of seeing themselves as ‘Potters’ who try to shape the soft clay as per their own thoughts only. Gardeners let the plants grow on their own and ensure only that appropriate environment and the conditions for full nurturing are present. They believe that natural growth ability is within the plants and if the environment is nurtured properly then and only then will plants grow by themselves. Just like plants, children are also living beings and have a natural mechanism to grow and develop – a basic fact often defied and ignored by the prevalent educational system. Teachers need to have similar beliefs about children’s natural learning and development. Their key role should be to create an environment that allows children to follow their own path instead of forcing them to be passive recipients of teachers’ words. If the goal of education is to extend the brain's natural inquisitiveness then young children need an environment that offers them stability, challenge, values and cohesiveness that we attribute to functional loving families. It is through constant support and appropriate stimulation that the learning predispositions of the youngest children are effectively nurtured. These predispositions are so powerful that children, if they are not in degraded environments, will discover things for themselves. Children learn whenever and wherever they are stimulated; just what they learn is problematic.

To move from the role of a ‘teacher’ to a ‘facilitator’, teachers have to facilitate children to pursue their own interest and curiosity by creating a flexible and an open environment where children can work in the areas that interest them without interruptions. Children have boundless curiosity and urge to understand the world around them and make sense of it by themselves. Therefore the role of teachers in early years is to engage children in creative tasks that support children to explore various things, converse with one another, think in different dimensions, and use their innate problem solving skills. They can also encourage children to come up with interesting questions and queries to pursue and help them instead of worrying about teaching alphabets and numbers. Nurturing children’s curiosity, creativity and thinking skills will help them to acquire literacy and numeracy skills quite quickly at a later stage.

STOP threatening and bribing; START encouraging
Many teachers use a variety of control techniques such as threatening and bribing children by giving sweets, stars, gifts etc. All this is done to establish their own authority and to get children’s attention and make them work as per “lesson” plans! Early nurturing period requires children to have trustful and caring relationships with adults instead of having relationships based on threats, greed and insecurity. An environment where children are under constant threat and insecurity suppresses their creative abilities as well as the urge to know and explore. Teachers need to build personal relationships with them based on genuine affection and care. They need to be good listeners, have patience and a sound understanding of the way children learn, think and work. In the company of caring and affectionate adults children develop a positive self image and confidently work on various tasks. According to Friedman, a child development theorist, “The science of early childhood development has the most to say about the critical importance of mother-child relationships, but increasingly, evidence supports the great value of a youngster’s interaction with a wide range of loving, attentive adults within the family and beyond. When these relationships offer warmth, support, and intellectual stimulation, experts say, children develop greater social competence, fewer behavioral problems, and enhanced thinking and reasoning skills in school, among other benefits.” To nurture children’s capabilities, teachers need to become caring and affectionate facilitators whose company must not threaten children and make them insecure.

STOP worrying about future career goals; LET children enjoy their childhood
Childhood is the period of spurting growth and development with a sense of excitement, enthusiasm, freedom, and relationship building. Children want to explore the world around them using their own senses, experiment with different things, take risks, imagine, feel and create relationships with people, places and nature. Usually they want to be on their own. Unfortunately, children are forced to leave all the enjoyment, excitement and wonders of childhood for the sake of an unknown future career. Their jubilant PRESENT is spoiled for an unpredictable FUTURE through testing, exam, homework, grades, marks, memorization, reinforcement etc. To facilitate children’s nurturing, teachers need to stop worrying about the future career of children and need to release them from rigid, mechanical and meaningless processes introduced in the name of teaching and learning. They also need to free children from the worries of testing, grades, competition, home work assignments, fulfilling teachers’ and parents’ expectations etc. It is essential for teachers to create an environment where children can enjoy their childhood. The only way to preserve natural creativities, curiosity and happiness alive in children is to provide an environment which is full of exciting possibilities and opportunities to learn, explore, experiment, play, talk, sing, dance and supports children’s fascination, imagination and creation.

STOP measuring and labeling children; START understanding them as people
Current practices of teaching and learning, try to measure the learning and development of children with the yardstick of numbers, grades and other rating tools which are quite erroneous and extremely limited. The tyranny of the process is that in spite of using very limited and erroneous tools, results are taken seriously and the children who do not come up to these flawed standards are labeled as ‘Slow’, ‘Underachievers’, ‘Problematic’, ‘Lazy’, ‘Duffer’ etc. The reality is that actually teachers have proved themselves ‘slow’, ‘lazy’ and ‘underachiever’ in terms of understanding and knowing children. Labeling at such an early age without understanding the child is a serious crime because it destroys the self image of a child forever. Learning and cognitive development in children occurs at such a fast pace in early years that it cannot be measured fully through any tool and there is no need to measure it in the first place. Teachers need to understand children and their growing abilities with a deeper sense of respect and realization that children learn and develop at their own pace. Their role is to observe them carefully and facilitate them as per their needs and requirement without making any judgments.

STOP keeping parents and community away from schools; LET them be your partners
Many teachers see parents, families and communities of children as their opponents and try to keep them away from schools and classes. At times, they assume that parents and family do not know much about the learning and development of their children and hence may not be able to play an effective role. Yet at other times, there are complaints that parents are not interested in the progress of their children and do not pay regular visits despite various summons sent by the school.

Teachers need to change their assumptions about parents and families as well. Parents, families and communities have a wealth of knowledge and understanding related to their children which is essential for teachers to know and understand. Together they can create a better and consistent framework for the early nurturing of children. It will ensure synergies between school and home environment while helping children to see learning as a natural process and not an isolated activity of schools. Parents and communities can also support schools in creating a better environment and also help teachers in facilitating children for various activities. This will necessitate a change in schools’ mechanisms of involving parents such as the parent-teacher meetings. Parent- teacher meetings can become a vibrant forum of sharing and learning from each other about children and planning together for their future.

STOP competition; PROMOTE collegiality and collaboration
‘Competition’ is seen as the prime tool for motivating children to learn and get engaged in various activities. It is used as a tool of motivation without realizing that actually it does not generate any real interest for learning but on the contrary it promotes an urge for ‘beating’ or ‘defeating’ others based on pure ‘self interest’. Those who win the competition develop a false sense of self worth and arrogance and those who lose it, assume a negative self concept. In either case, it has very adverse and dangerous effects for nurturing children. Teachers must stop comparing children and putting them in competition against one another. By nature, children want to work together and it is essential for teachers to let them work collaboratively and support each other in learning new skills and constructing new knowledge for themselves. In early years, when children are in the process of developing new ideas and learning new skills at their own pace, efforts of all the children in all the areas need to be acknowledged and supported. Early learning environments should be free of any competition and all children and their efforts need to be treated equally. Children need to be inspired from their own efforts, interests and achievements instead of getting motivated by defeating their peers.

Many teachers argue that real life is full of competition and it is important to prepare children to face and be a part of the competitive world. Not questioning the logic of this argument or highlighting social injustices, it is ridiculous to assume that by putting young children in the competitive environment, their capabilities to face the challenges of a competitive world will enhance. An individual can face any competition and the challenges that go with it if they possess patience and tolerance a positive self image, the ability to think, problem solve and resolve conflicts and the capacity to accept critique in a positive manner. It is quite stupid to put children in a competitive environment instead of helping them to build those skills and competencies which are essentials to face a competitive environment.

Young children are born with a brain that learns through a natural process. Every new born baby is equipped with the ability to learn a language, observe, explore and understand the environment, seek patterns, solve problem and build relationships. The adults’ role in various capacities is to create a loving and caring environment for children which support them in harnessing their innate potential. They should protect children from the elements which are harmful for their nurturing. Any forced, unnatural and humiliating imposition on children will suppress their innate capabilities. The teachers’ key role is to ensure the nurturing of children’s potential at their own pace. They can play an effective role if they know and understand how children learn naturally and how the human brain functions. It is also important for teachers to realize that the purpose of early years’ schooling is to support children to nurture their innate talent and not to make them memorize and get engaged in the drill and practice of knowing alphabets and numbers.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Yasmeen is associated with the field of education for last 21 years and currently works with the Habib University Foundation

Sources:
http://www.developingchild.net
http://www.21learn.org
Lise Eliot. What's Going on in There? (New York: The Penguin Press),
1999, pp. 7-8.