The formative years are the most crucial stage in the children’s life because it is the time children are building the foundation of their future life. Teachers play an important role in nurturing the intellectual and social development of children during these years and the education they impart plays a significant role in determining the outlook of the children.The role teachers’ play is essential as they are acting as facilitators of the children’s learning using classroom presentations or “individual instruction to help students learn and apply concepts in subjects such as science, mathematics, or English” (Council for Professional Recognition). Aside from being a facilitator of the children’s learning, teachers also plan, evaluate, prepare, handle, and grade tests, assign lessons, listen to oral presentations and uphold classroom discipline.
However, the development in the preschool education has been marred by issues regarding poor outcomes of student’s performance and this negative feedback had been attributed to poor performance of teachers. . Review of Related literature Richard M. Ingersoll and David Perda (2008) pointed out in their article entitled The Status of Teaching as a Profession that, teachers are usually considered the backbone of schools, as without them, there would be no schools.Thus, there is a need to professionalize teaching to introduce an ethos of public service and high standards a sense of professionalism (p. 106).
Ingersol and Perda identified several characteristic used to indicate the teachers as professionals such as credential and licensing requirements for entry, induction and monitoring programs for entrants, professional development support, opportunities and participation, specialization, authority over decision-making, prestige and occupational social standing (p.108).They explain that entry into profession requires credentials, foremost is the license obtained only after completion of officially authorized training curriculum and passage of examinations. In this case, Ingersol and Perda emphasized that doing many kinds of works is illegal, professional and not, without having a license (p. 109). However, in spite of the government effort to standardize the teaching profession, there are those who argue that entry into teaching should be eased.
Adherents of this view have design a range of initiatives, which involve relaxing of the requirements for the entry in to the teaching profession to attract professionals to shift their career to teaching. In this initiative, professionals simply can get alternative certification program, obtain an emergency teaching certificate, and begin teaching immediately. Thus, in many preschools, not every staff in the center-based education is thoroughly educated and adequately trained in the teaching profession.Bernard Spodeck and Olivia N. Saracho (2005) stated that, “The teaching staff in these various early childhood settings varies from well-educated individuals with graduate degrees to those with little more than a high school education. All early childhood education personnel in institutional settings in America are called “teachers” although their qualification may vary greatly (p.
423).Spodeck and Saracho noted that although the requirements for public school teachers had not been challenged, questions have been raised “about the necessary qualifications of early hood teachers in other settings, including child care centers, private schools, and head starts programs” (p. 423). The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) expects highly professional teachers and better prepared paraprofessionals in all classrooms as well as public report on staff qualifications (Spodeck & Saracho 2005, p.
423).The object of the NCLB is to produce high quality education including the early childhood education. High quality preschool education generates significant long-term social, educational, and economic benefits, however, W. Steven Barnett (2004) stated that, research show that substantial benefits are achieved only when teachers are prepared professionally and satisfactorily compensated. The problem according to Barnett is that most of America’s preschool programs are not required to hire teachers who meet even the most basic professional requirements.Barnet noted that fewer than half of the early childhood education teachers have a four-year degree while many do not have college education (Barnett).
Much worse according to Barnett is that in most states, all a person needs to have to teach in a licensed daycare center is a high school diploma. These practice resulted in many teachers inadequately prepared to be educationally in the teaching profession. The table below shows the percentage of teachers with bachelor’s degree and those who do not have college education.Source: In School and Society: A Sociological Approach to Education Critical Analysis Daycare is defined as the care provided for the very young children either in the home or in a center-based facility.
It can be branded nursery schools, child or daycare centers, or preschools. Thus, the term preschool is primarily used in this paper to denote a center-based daycare due to the lack of available sources pertaining to daycare, although daycare it self have some variations such as daycares in homes, daycare in the in the house of a relatives, or private daycare such as in the church.The center-based daycare facilities care for children in groups and they may have diverse backings such as universities, churches, schools, social service agencies, independent owners. Its primary purpose is to provide basic education to the young children who are yet to go to the first level in the grade schools. Although in many cases, the purpose of the parents bringing their young children in the center-based daycare is not primarily to educate them but to free them for work, early child education is essential to the child’ early development.In the center-based daycare, teachers capitalized on interactive activities and children’s play to improve vocabulary and language development utilizing story telling, rhyming games, and acting games, as well as improve social skills by having children work together to construct neighborhood in a sandbox, and introduce mathematical and scientific concepts.
Less structured approached which includes one-on-one instruction, small-group lesson, and learning through creative approach activities such as art, music, and dance is taken up to teach preschool children (Career Information).These learning strategies may be the most effective approach towards educating very young children, as they tend to learn more through their own activities. Although, unstructured play may be more important as they could learn best but it would probably dangerous for very young children to engage in such outdoor self motivated activity with out adult supervision. In this case, teachers’ supervision is necessary to insure the safety of the children. The advantage of center-based daycare is that staff are trained and supervised, and there are sufficient and available resources and equipments.
However, the costs are much higher that the home based daycare. Center-based daycare also has more staff turnover, while it is not easy to find qualified teachers. The qualifications for teachers in the preschools requires not only bachelor’s degree and passing the licensure examination for teachers [as it is required for teachers in the public school all through out the United States] from preschools to high school, but also teaching skills and commitment to the children, as teaching very young children can be frustrating.The licensure exam for teacher is necessary to not only determine the educational fitness of the teachers but also determine the competency in basic skills such as writing, reading, and in teaching. Furthermore, the licensure examination will also serve as a performance prequalification as teachers are expected to demonstrate satisfactory teaching performance over extended period before they could obtain a provisional license. In Texas, license, certifications, or legal requirements can be issued to any upon meeting all the necessary requirements.
Applicants should be at least eighteen years of age, have not been disqualified or the subject of an imminent proceeding that has to do with disciplinary actions, and contested cases. The applicant must not be disqualified by federal law, and willing to support and defend the constitution as well as being able to speak and understand Emily With the tremendous task teachers are confronting, there some facts that needs to be given critical attention.First, teachers deserve to appreciated, justifiably compensated, be given opportunity for trainings and educational benefits. Secondly, teacher’s competencies must be main basis for hiring new teachers. It is no wonder that there is deviant center-based daycare because advocates arguing to ease the requirements for hiring new teachers are successful in their efforts to loosen the entry gate for the reaching profession.
The 2006 data about the employment of teachers reveals that there are four million teaching jobs of which, 1. 5 million are elementary teachers, 1. 1 million are secondary, 674 are middle, and 437 are preschool, while only 174,000 are kindergarten. Of the 473,000 preschool teachers, only fifty-nine percent are employed in child daycare services (Council for Professional Recognition). Statistics in table is table 12.
1 shows that most districts in public schools requires applicant to have certification in the field they applying to teach and the need to pass the licensure exam in contrast with the private schools who are less inclined to implement the restrictions.
