Discussion

Just a note to say how much I appreciate the exchange here. This is extremely important to me and I hope this kind of thing continues. I hope the language of writing does not come across as an obstacle. As a national childcare writer for 15 years, I often am too direct for many readers. As a teacher of early childhood for 25 years, I'm often too upfront with parents as well - I think it comes with the territory. I hope my questions come across as pro child. Children always come first.

Judy; you make some key points i think...you suggest that moving from /to and between different care/education contexts is normal in this day and age...i agree but i just get the feeling that, in the UK, the formula available is one where a choice has to be made; there's lots of pressures for mums to go out to work and get off benefits; hints towards what you would call "work-fare" are beginning to emerge here with what we call incapacity benefit (govt ideas to come out soon)...so it's not a choice that can be avoided...and a second point is the one you make about "quality"; how strong is regulation in the US?; excellent provision is what all parents want for their children (who wants to send their child into second-class care?)

Andrew: It's the same here in the US. There are lots of parents on Welfare to Work programs that entitle them to Step Ahead funds. The program allows women with children to return to work or work and school with the hope that they will get that education they missed at the right time and be a contributing part of the workforce. The government puts billions of dollars into this program to get young people the help they need. But the question remains, why do they need this? What went wrong? With as many walk on colleges as we have, why are there so many young women in need of a lifebuoy? Is it a matter of a culture that doesn't care at the right time, or is it a matter of knowing that someone will pick up the pieces after they have spent a certain number of years playing at the expense of everyone else?

Regulation for childcare?

That's the point. What are you going to regulate? There are kindergarten standards that talk about time spent doing this or that in the classroom, and a list of what teachers must accomplish in 2.5 hours, but when you reduce the standards to the bottom line, it's about as regulated as "State Lunch." Did you know that it is legal to offer a child 6 tablespoons of Parmesan cheese as a protein for lunch?

Regulation has to come with interpretation or there is no life in it. Regulation must come from the good intentions, from the inside of the person, not the flapping of papers. As a parent of children in public schools for 27 years in a row, and as a room mother for 21 of those years, I know that regulation in the classroom is determined by the efforts of either good teachers, and poor ones just take up space. It's as OK to offer children 25 worksheets a day as it is to really teach creatively. One of the best teachers my kids had was Mary Jo Huff - a preschool teacher.

It's the same in preschool. One of the things we are trying to do at our little school is to develop a set of puppet characters because the children, even the distracted ones, listen carefully to a puppet because it's fun. Listening is the primary activity in preschool. Learning to listen for information is a skill that comes then, not later. But again let's go to the bottom line - listening to what from whom? If the provider doesn't have anything to say, the children will catch on quickly.

So what makes a good preschool? What is the bottom line? How far from the bottom line separates a warehouse from something that is truly beneficial to children? Is it the plant, the teachers, the activities, the intellectual stretch, the extras, the parents, the state regulations, the right shows on TV?

Childcare salaries are the lowest paying job in the nation. No one could live on what we pay at the Garden School, but the job, when it is done well, is one in a million. This is the age where a life takes off or doesn't. So what makes the regulation in the UK different or enlightened?

That's one reason I like posting stories from the world - it gives us ideas for our own places and children.