Educational practices and preschoolers’ difficulties in understanding temporal concepts during calendar rituals. A case study
Abstract
This contribution looks into the teaching practices a teacher deployed in order to teach temporal concepts to preschoolers and the difficulties the latter encountered during the performance of calendar rituals. Our approach focuses on the children’s action during the process of teaching-learning as well as on the learning situation within which their action developed. In the theoretical part, we present indicative multidisciplinary studies –empirical research and theoretical approaches– on the social construction of time by children, its significance for their socialization and on ritualistic activities in education as a factor conducive to children’s integration into the cultural environment. In the empirical part, employing a socio-constructivist approach, we present a case study so as to gain insight into and explain the complexity of the teacher’s verbal and non-verbal practices as well as into the difficulties children might encounter when attempting to understand temporal concepts, taking into account their special nature along with that of the material environment.
More specifically, we present the reasons for the importance of the study of calendar time within the framework of calendar rituals; the material environment within which the ritual develops; the method and the research questions. For the purposes of this study, data was collated in a kindergarten classroom with 22 children aged 4-6, through observation with the use of camera. Interviews were also conducted with the teacher and were then analyzed qualitatively. The findings point out that the teaching practices did not take into account events in children’s lives linked with temporal concepts; teaching practices were orientated to the recognition of words and symbols related to temporal concepts, and not towards understanding them. Hence, the difficulties children encountered are closely related to the subject of language and not to the concept of time. These difficulties were further enhanced by the collective and ritualistic use of calendars.
Article Details
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Μουμουλίδου Μ. (2021). Educational practices and preschoolers’ difficulties in understanding temporal concepts during calendar rituals. A case study. Preschool and Primary Education, 9(1), 92–125. https://doi.org/10.12681/ppej.23097
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- Vol. 9 No. 1 (2021)
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