For my Colleagues (only?)

On December 1st I had honour to present my PhD-study to my closest colleagues who teach diverse disciplines at early childhood education programs at my university college (Vestfold University College). The presentation was based on the trial lecture (held on November 1st) where I was asked to comment on the on-going national revision of the early childhood teacher education.

The preparation for the trial lecture led to an understanding that the process of the revision is influenced by two parallel processes: making the early childhood education better adjusted to the early childhood practice, and the process of internationalizing Norwegian higher education. But this was not all: the important insight was that these two processes build on quite opposite ideologies. The largest problem though, the way I see it, is not that the two ideologies are impossible to unite, but that the people responsible for the revision do not seem to be aware of the ideologies! This ignorance has already led to number of conflicts, misunderstandings and tensions… and I cannot see any hope for “better” (whatever “better” or “higher quality” might mean) early childhood teacher education if the ideologies are not discussed!

Many of colleagues who listened to the presentation on December 1st seem to share my opinion that the insight about the opposing ideologies is important and should be discussed more. I am thankful for their support and I truly hope that teacher educators and leaders at Vestfold University College will find time for discussions before the new, national education program is to be implemented in our institution.

This is how I have illustrated the ideologies:

	Ideology behind Norwegian early childhood education	Ideology behind the international educational trends
	Embodied, pre-verbal competences	Knowledge as verbal-language-based
	Holistic, unity, embodied metaphor	Traditional, divided disciplines
	Complexity and contextualized understanding	Structure, generalizing and dis-contextualized testing
	Prolonged engagement, explorative play	Efficiency and economizing
	Self-motivation for learning	Knowledge externally defined
	Building identity on respect and will to contribute to others	Exclusion and focus on incompetence
	Imaginative cognition	Memorizing
	Quality of life – here and now	Quality related to international competition