The Unique Child: What does this look like in Early Childhood Education (ECE)

A few years ago I was visiting a large primary school with a colleague.  As we walked along a corridor a line of children came towards us meaning we had to step to one side.  As they approached I said to my colleague ‘Oh look – lots of little people’.  The child at the front of the line stopped, looked up at me and said ‘We aren’t little people we are children’.  This comment caused me to reflect, and since then I have looked at things through a different lens.

Across the world there are curriculum documents and policies about Early Childhood Education.  Many, if not all, have the child front and centre of the thinking.  In England we have, what we call, the Overarching Principles.  The first of these is –

The Unique Child

Every child is a unique child, who is constantly learning and can be resilient, capable, confident, and self-assured.

The comment from the child at the front of the line demonstrated this principle perfectly and it was a timely reminder.  And I now quote him regularly during my training.

Whose agenda is it?

Whilst our policies and documents might be telling us that the child is at the centre of everything we do, is it actually happening?  How often is it the case?  How do we know?

A question I often ask those I work with is ‘Whose agenda is it?’.  This is to spark a discussion about daily practice and provision.  How often is the voice of the child heard, or even integral to what we do?

The answer to all of these questions is premised on how the adults involved in teaching view the children.  This means that answering the question can be quite difficult as it requires self reflection.

The first aspect to reflect upon is how we refer to the children we work with, and children in general.  I was pulled up on saying ‘little people’, but what other vocabulary do we use when we talk about children?  For example –

Kid

Kiddie

Preschooler

Baby

Toddler

‘Ankle -biter’

Nipper

Squirt

Little person

This is just a small selection of terminology that adults use when they are referring to children.  Whilst they mean well and think they are being funny in some cases, none of these respect the fact that children are people too.

Children are not ‘pre’ or ‘little’ anything as they are also people with thoughts, ideas, actions and agency.  The significant difference being that they do not have the same amount of life experience as the adults around them.  Whilst this means that they have a great deal to learn about the world, it does not that they have interesting problems to solve and ideas to share.

By using unthinkingly belittling terminology when we talk about children we could well be inadvertently planning poorly informed practice and provision because we are underestimating what the children we work with know and can do.  It becomes our agenda. 

So how can we adjust this agenda so that it becomes more balanced?

Check reality against assumptions

As adults our individual lived experiences have taught us a great deal about the world which we have interpreted through the lens of our own families and cultures.  We have all grown up with our own ideas about children and childhood.  And these ideas automatically influence how we see the children we work with and the provision we develop for them.  In a document available online Malaguzzi writes -

The environment you construct around you and the children also reflects this image you have about the child. There’s a difference between the environment that you are able to build based on a preconceived image of the child and the environment that you can build that is based on the child you see in front of you — the relationship you build with the child, the games you play.

(Your Image of the Child: Where Teaching Begins by Loris Malaguzzi)

Modern learning environments and the teaching that happens within them are frequently dominated by ideas from the internet, or commercial packages.  These, combined with opinions about how children ‘should’ be, can create misplaced assumptions about the children we receive at our settings. The ‘preconceived’ image.

If we continue with this viewpoint then we are seeing ‘little people’ not ‘children’.  In order to take a more informed view, it is important to reflect on these two questions -

What is your role as ‘teacher’?

What is the role of the child?

If answered honestly these questions will enable us to challenge common assumptions.  Thus steering us away from seeing the child through a preconceived image.

Once we have challenged our preconceptions and our assumptions about the children it becomes more possible to see children as unique individuals.  And once this is established we can challenge further the idea of whose agenda it is in our settings.

So the next question must be -

who decides which knowledge is most important?

Once it is established that each child is a unique individual, the perspective must move away from a ‘one size all’ approach to teaching to one of the teachers planning their teaching with input from their observations of the needs and interests of the children.  The role of the teacher and the role of the child must be balanced and interactive.  Each informing the other -

Children’s learning has personal meaning and content. It can follow unexpected trajectories.  Children’s ways of learning and knowing involve innovative thinking and thoughtful problem solving. 

Children’s searches for relevant information show a connection with intellectual subject matter.

(Hedges, H. 2022. Children’s Interests, Inquiries and Identities. Routledge p177)   

So how do we acknowledge the ‘Unique Child’?

We cannot make assumptions about the children we work with, as they will astound us with what they already know and can do.  This knowledge may not be perceived as fitting a conventional teaching agenda.  But it is the key to that child and we must use it to inform our practice and provision.  Children are people too.

By Dr Sue Allingham EdD MA BA (Hons)