Eleanor Duckworth once said, “The essence of science is the struggle to find out about the material world.” She went on to say, “This struggle entails both the ability to solve problems which are already articulated and the ability to find problems not yet articulated."
The struggle to find out the material world through science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) begins at birth. Lucky are the infants and toddlers who have observant, caring adults who support STEM learning from the start.
This is the first in a series of four blog posts written by Dr. Jill Uhlenberg who will describe four types of effort adults can employ to nurture STEM from the beginning.
Dr. Jill Uhlenberg
STEM with Toddlers takes effort from the adults around them. That effort can be so rewarding for both the children and the adults. For me, there are four different kinds of effort needed for adults to successfully support these young children in their learning. These are being a liberator, a curriculum developer, a chief historian, and a learner.
The first and probably most difficult effort for many adults is to be a liberator. Liberating a toddler means offering to share the power that adults hold just by being bigger, older, and more experienced. Sharing power is a risk that many adults just cannot take. It makes life messier. It makes young children more independent. It makes the toddlers question rules and limits. But in the long run, it makes them excited learners who want to find problems and solve them.
Lacey is two and loves to paint. Her teacher covered an entire tabletop with paper taped down and handed her a cup of paint and a brush. Lacey began to paint. She focused on one corner of the table to the extent that she painted right through the paper, so that she was eventually painting the tabletop. Still she continued to paint only in that one place on the paper. Her teacher could have told her to stop, redirected her to paint other places on the paper, or removed her entirely from the activity.
The teacher knew that the paper would eventually get wet and dissolve. She knew that there would be a mess to clean up. She knew because she had more experience than Lacey. Instead of stopping Lacey’s experiment, her teacher allowed this exploration of the paint and paper to happen until Lacey was satisfied.
Think about all the STEM Lacey was experiencing. She was learning about wet and dry materials and how they interact (science). She was exploring how much paint was needed to make the hole in the paper and how big the hole would get (mathematics). She discovered that the paint brush could carry paint (engineering) as a tool (technology) in her painting efforts. She also was learning that paper was not as long-lasting tool as the table was (technology). Lacey was learning concepts that her teacher already knew as an adult.
The best toddler teachers are those who embrace who toddlers are and what they do. Rather than setting limits and struggling to control toddlers throughout the day, allowing them opportunities to explore and gain experiences will bring joy and excitement to their learning. That can happen by sharing the power and by working at the second kind of effort needed: curriculum organizer.
[For a fuller explanation, see Uhlenberg, J. (2016). The four roles of a master toddler teacher. Early Education and Development, 27(2), 240-258. DOI: 10.1080/10409289.2016.1088313]
[Ideas for infant toddler STEM curriculum can be found at https://regentsctr.uni.edu/regents-center/stem-experiences-classrooms]
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