Readying the child is an important part of today’s dominant narrative in early childhood education and care – readying the child for the next stage of education, for realising her or his ‘human capital’, for becoming... [ view full abstract ]
Readying the child is an important part of today’s dominant narrative in early childhood education and care – readying the child for the next stage of education, for realising her or his ‘human capital’, for becoming a good neoliberal subject able to compete successfully in that regime’s ‘global race’. Readying is about ‘future proofing’ the child for an inevitable future of more of the same; about governing the child ever more intensively in a society of control; and about constructing an education of hierarchical relationships, in which early childhood education occupies the lowest position in a succession of educational institutions of growing status and influence.
In my presentation, I will argue that this emphasis in early childhood education on readying the child is not only dangerous, but also misconceived. It fails to engage with the unsustainability of the current economic regime and the unknowability of the future; while contributing to an impoverished educational process of reproduction, standardisation and predetermined outcomes. As such, readying is part of a larger dominant narrative about early childhood education, what I call ‘the story of quality and high returns’. But, I will argue, there are alternatives stories we can tell about early childhood education, and it is urgent to resist the dictatorship of no alternative and to support a democratic politics of education, where alternatives are valued, voiced and contested. I will propose one (of many) alternatives, a ‘story of democracy, experimentation and potentiality’.
If the relationship between early childhood and compulsory education in the story of quality and high returns is hierarchical, the story of democracy, experimentation and potentiality envisages a very different relationship: strong and equal, based on all forms of education coming together in ‘pedagogical meeting places’ to dialogue, contest and co-construct shared images, understandings, values and practices.
