Education of Children

Introduction
I have chosen ethical issues for the essay. My choice of ethical issue for this essay is going to be a

scenario in which a parent calls the center to say their children will not be attending outings because of

financial issues. Taking this scenario as a center of discussion, throughout the essay I am going to discuss

the ethical issues related to early childhood education, the rights of children, and the standard framework

that educators should be applying to provide the best education and the importance of prioritizing the

interest of children.

Core Principles related to this:

 Before forcing anything onto a child, it is important to know the child’s psychology

 Responsive, reciprocal, and respectful relationships are central to children’s education and care

Child right is a major issue nowadays and there are some standard guidelines on how children should be

treated. United Nations (UN) and The National Association for the Education of Young Children

(NAEYC) are some of the organizations that have been working on child rights (Unicef, 2020).

UN Convention on the Rights of Children

came into force. Love, understanding, happiness, harmony, and a good family environment were

recognized as important factors for the development of children, and keeping this in mind, various articles

were agreed upon (Badri et al., 2018).

Among these articles, in our case scenario, the following articles have been violated:

 Article 3: In all decisions and actions that concern children, the best interests of the child shall be

a primary consideration

 Article 12: Every child has the right to express their views on matters that affect them, and for

these views to be taken into consideration

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 Article 27: Every child has the right to a decent standard of living to enable them to grow and

develop.

 Article 31: Every child has the right to relax, play and take part in cultural and artistic activities.

To overcome these ethical issues, we need a certain guideline to work with so that there will be

uniformity and quality of care and education for the children. This guideline has been provided by The

National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC).

NAEYC Guidelines
NAEYC is an organization that works for all young children to promote high-quality learning by

connecting early childhood practice, policy, and research (naeyc, 2020).

After going through the core values of NAEYC, I have appreciated the followings:

 Childhood is a valuable phase in the human life cycle

 Our work should be based upon how the development and learning process of children takes place

 Child and family’s bond needs to be appreciated

 Children are supported in the context of society, community, culture, and family

 Each individual including a family member, colleague, child, uniqueness should be respected

 There will be diversities in children, families, and colleagues which should be appreciated

 The relationship between adults and children should be based on trust and respect.

Early childhood education plays an important part in one’s life because this is the period when most of

the brain development of a child takes place and this is the period that will shape how the child will

become in the future. The early childhood program focuses on growth and development with implying a

healthy relationship between adult and child (Li & Julian, 2012). Adults can easily have great power over

children because children are vulnerable and they depend upon their parents for a lot of things. Therefore,

every decision should be taken wisely and it should be kept in mind that every decision we make is going

to affect the child in the future.

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The surrounding in which a child grows will have a major impact on how the child will turn out to

become. Ethics is the philosophical discipline that governs the behavior of a person. The ethical issue is

when a certain decision or behavior contradicts the moral value of a society(Gulcan, 2015). Based upon

the society, ethical issue changes from time to time and we should be doing the best based on what suites

to that society at that particular time. During early childhood, children go through milestones of

development physically, emotionally, socially, and cognitively. They slowly but steadily develop new

skills and abilities. These developments occur spontaneously and naturally when families, parents, and

children spend quality time together, play together, support, and understand each other. Parents can

promote the developmental milestones further with the help of illustrations, books, and many more

things. During this phase, we need to be very careful about ethical issues because sometimes we might

overdo things that need not be done. NAEYC has provided some of the ethical responsibilities which we

need to keep in mind (The National Association for the Education of Young Children, 2011). Those

ethical responsibilities include:

 Being informed about the base knowledge of early childhood care and education and to stay

 The practice should be based on the latest knowledge and research on early childhood education,

child development, and related subjects, as well as the personal knowledge of each child.

 Every child is unique and it is our responsibility to respect the uniqueness, their abilities, and

qualities.

 The child is dependent and vulnerable to adults

 A safe and healthy environment should be created so that the social, emotional, cognitive, and

physical development of children can be elevated.

 Assessment instruments and strategies should be used in such a way that they are appropriate for

the children and they should be used only for the purposes for which they were designed so that it

benefits the children

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 The right to play and learn of each child should be included and it should meet the need of

disabled children as well.

 All children including special needs children should have the support that they require to ace.

 The culture and ethnicity of the children should be valued and respected. There should be no

discrimination based upon language, culture, and ethnicity.

 Children should be encouraged to use their home language so that they can understand easily and

feel comfortable

 When children and families move from one program to another, a smooth environment should be

created

By now we know that the responsibility of early childhood education not only depends upon the educator

but it depends on the family, parents, society, community, and colleagues. They each have different roles

to play and each of their roles has vast importance in the growth of the child and shaping them. I have

discussed below each of the roles.

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National Quality framework

and outside the school. This framework includes the law and regulation within a nation, assessment, and

rating of various processes, and provides national quality standards.

According to the principle of the National Quality Framework, Rights and the interests of children should

be given the topmost priority, but in the above case scenario, the mother is trying to vest her interest

above the child’s interest. It also states that there should be equity along with diversity. The role of the

parent and teacher is to support and respect the decision and interest of children (Yulianti et al., 2020).

For the national quality standard, there are seven areas on which we need to focus on and they are as

follows:

 Educational Program and practice: it should be child-friendly, stimulating, and provide the

opportunities to enhance the learning of a child

 Children’s health and safety: children have every right to quality care and education that

promotes the safety, wellbeing, and health of children.

 Physical Environment: it should be safe and diverse so that the learning and development of a

child can be promoted.

 Staffing arrangements: there should be qualified and experienced educators who can encourage

the active participation of children

 Relationship with children: the relationship between the children and educator should be such

that the children feel a sense of security and belonging

 Collaborative partnerships with families and communities: a child needs both educator and

parents to excel in their life therefore, both should collaborate.

 Governance and leadership: the service that is being provided should be effectively and timely

governed so that there will be a quality of care.

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Early years learning framework:
This framework centralizes the children’s learning and it includes Principles, Practice, and Learning

outcome as the fundamental elements to early pedagogy and decision making (Benjamin, 2015). Some of

the principles of this frameworks are:

 A secure, reciprocal, and respectful relationship

 The partnership between educators and family members

 High expectations and equity

 Respect for diversity

 Ongoing learning and reflective practice

Understanding the role of Educators

the communication is good and the child reciprocates back, they will start trusting and respecting us so

that every process of teaching-learning will be effective. By good communication I mean to say a good

command, body language, appropriate tone, and facial expression.

Another important role of a teacher is to be a facilitator rather than a dictator. Instead of just passing the

information traditionally, we should make the children dig out the information by themselves so that they

will be interested in learning and be practical. We also need to encourage the children every then and now

as a coach. We need to observe how they play, how they build their abilities and skills and we need to

further enhance those (Cdc, 2020).

Teachers need to be role models as well because those tiny little eyes will be constantly observing us and

they follow every step of ours.

We need to be able to grab their attention as a storyteller does because nowadays technology has become

an integral part of our life which means that children will be spending less time reading or listening to

stories. To fill the gap, we need to tell different interesting stories but at the same time, it should include a

good moral.

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Another important quality that a teacher needs to develop is keeping ourselves up to date with new

changes in the curriculum (Jaana Pesonen, 2020). As we will have varieties of students in our class with

their uniqueness, we should be able to appreciate each of them and encourage them to be the way they

are.

Understanding the Role of Parents

have a crucial role to play. The impact that parents inherit upon their child, will last a lifetime (An

Australian Government Initiative, 2020). The children whose parents spend time, love, support, and

encourage them will perform better compared to those who don’t. The simplest thing a parent can do is

ask the opinion of their children so that they feel included in the family. Simply asking how the school

went or how the day went will take a long way in the development of children. Whenever a child comes

to you, you just have to listen to them and if anything is wrong, instead of scolding them, just correct

them so that they will feel free to share anything and everything with you. Instead of forcing your

decision let them learn by experiencing things. Children should be constantly reminded of their good

qualities and they should be encouraged at the time and again. As everyone has their unique quality,

parents should never compare their children to other children (Porpora, 2020).

By saying this we need to keep in mind that children too need space of their own. Everything should not

be spoon-fed to children, they need to learn to do things independently as well. So we need to make a

balance in providing attention and providing space to children.

Whenever given the opportunity, parents should attend parenting programs to gain basic information

(Lindsay & Totsika, 2017). If any child has special needs then parents should give more time to the child

and be very patient about the outcome, after all living a healthy, positive, and sound life is what that all

matters.

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Understanding the role of society and community
Community is where a child learns varieties of things and it is the place where the children, later on, has

to excel to become a successful person. Community is made up of different families and each family

might have different sets of values. Therefore, it is very important to respect each other's values, culture,

and language. Every member of the community should be uplifting each other and support each other so

that both the growth of children and the growth of the community will go hand in hand.

If anything wrong is going on within the community, then the members of that community should be

responsible to solve the matter in a good way so that no harm is to be done to anyone residing within.

There should be interactive programs conducted so that it will be child-friendly and the children can

develop social skills (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2021). Applying these principles, the child

will get proper care and support from society and family. As a member of the society, we should play our

role and take the responsibility wisely.

Overall, childhood is a very sensitive period in which different factors will influence the growth and

development of the child. Therefore, utmost care should be taken by family members, parents, society,

teachers, and schools. Every memory of childhood will be something to cherish on so why not make it a

sweet one?

Conclusion
Adults can easily have great power over children because children are vulnerable and they depend upon

their parents for a lot of things. In our case, the mother should have first known about her child was

interested to attend the trip or not. Therefore, every decision should be taken wisely and it should be kept

in mind that every decision we make is going to affect the child in the future. Educators and parents

should be working together as a partner.

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